Let’s Compare: GP SmartLists to BC List pages
Does Business Central have SmartLists like Dynamics GP?
One of the first questions I get when a GP user asks about what BC is like to use, is around SmartLists and reporting.
Why?
They all need them to do their day jobs, full-stop. I think it is quite possible that more than 80% of all GP users rely on at least one SmartList every day to do their day job. I don’t have hard data on that, but from my experience, it is the most widely used everyday reporting tool for GP. It works great, and offers a lot of flexibility, but it does have limitations.
To help assuage the worries of the BC-curious, I’ll describe the differences in this post, but will also tell you up front, I believe the BC Lists and accompanying Search options are very good, and just keep getting better. You can connect to the same data sources with Power BI, you can group, subtotal, and pivot the data in-screen, and even create new reports with Microsoft Copilot instead of hiring a developer.
Dynamics GP SmartLists
Dynamics GP comes with many out-of-the-box SmartLists, grouped primarily by module, and also essentially by table series as well. Reports are super-simple to use, create, secure, and share with other GP users.
The SmartList user interface in GP can only be opened one time per user session, so you can’t have multiple SmartLists open at the same time - kind of annoying, and I wish that could improve in a future update. There are multiple ISV solutions that allow for multiple SmartList-like windows to open simultaneously in GP, but let’s keep it OOB (out-of-the-box) for this discussion.
Each SmartList in GP comes with up to 4 search filters. Yup, only 4. Would be nice to see that improve….why not go to 11? This limitation is perhaps THE most frustrating thing to many users about SmartLists.
SmartlList query results are automatically capped to limit the number of initial records returned. Sometimes one list can go crazy on you, and you end up with way too many records. This catch helps ensure an optimized reporting experience no matter which list is used. Limits can be set higher when needed, but exporting to Excel can take some time. There are ways to optimize that as well, but if a large record set is really needed, than the OOB SmartList is not going to be your best bet. You would want to seek out one of the longtime ISV solutions that optimizes extraction of larger data sets with a SmartList look and feel, or use refreshable Excel Reports. These can start as a SmartList, and then push into an Excel report, making it work totally outside of Dynamics GP.
SmartLists can have drillback windows attached to them, so that either double-clicking on a record, or using the Go-To ribbon option at the top of the page, to select a related drill-thru option. This speeds up record retrieval when you are on an exploratory mission.
SmartList Designer extends the base capability of SmartList, but at a more technical level, where custom queries and reports can be created. As a GP consultant, I have frequently used this product to reach the hard-to-access parts of GP for an enhanced reporting experience without customization. It can also be used to connect to custom SQL Views, which is a great solution for many reporting needs.
SmartLists in GP are granted to the end users through their roles, tasks, and related operations. Not everyone can automatically see every list. They need to be granted access to the list somewhere through a role assignment. Users also create their own lists, and there can be company-specific lists as well. The optional password protection helps make sure unintended changes are not locked in without proper authorization from the report administrator.
Dynamics GP SmartLists can have an unlimited number of iterations, but they start off with a default OOB list, and you can swap out the columns, rearrange the column order, apply search filters, and give them new unique personalized names. Every time you modify (hence saving) the list, the query changes are locked-in for the next time the list is run.
Business Central List Pages
Unlike Dynamics GP, the user interface for Business Central is web/browser-based, so you don’t have the same limitations, starting with where you log in. Logging in can be done from any browser, anywhere, and authenticates with your Microsoft Entra account as well, so there is no extra application-specific account to create or maintain. Users are licensed to BC thru the Azure portal, and then they can be assigned permissions in Business Central once an administrator syncs them down to the application and assigns their Permission Sets. Browsers natively allow you to have more than one tab open in as many different browser instances as you need. Logging in does require MFA, but thankfully, that’s because Microsoft keeps access to your financial data secure.
There is no special ‘SmartList’ window or dedicated page to access them in Business Central. When you navigate by clicking links within the application, and hop from page to page, you will notice there are tons of LIST type pages. Examples include Vendors, Customers, Items, Posted Sales Invoices, Posted Purchase Invoices, etc. These are all popular pages in Business Central, and each list type page has its own ‘default’ search criteria. Just opening a list page exposes the default “List” with the column order and related data. This is super helpful as a starting point, if you wanted to then perform a SAVE AS and create your own “List” with its own filters and column order.
Sadly they don’t really call this SmartList, but perhaps they should?! I often do!
Do note, however, the names of the lists you create are called Views, similar to what we would call a SmartList is GP.
So now that you know your ability to see “LISTS” of data resides all over BC, let’s delve into the search and filter mechanisms since that’s how you get to the relevant data and subsequent answers fast. I won’t cover the sort feature, because that is self-evident in the columns when you get there.
The list page’s Search field is represented by the looking glass icon in the taskbar area, and keying in an amount or a search word triggers the automatic ‘auto-filter’ response in Business Central which is phenomenal. The instant search is one of my favorite things about Business Central, actually. You can find stuff so fast with it, but you get to that search function from one of the LIST pages. The context of the search has been predetermined by the type of page you are on (e.g. GL, Payables, Banking), and by adding columns to the report. In other words, the data you are searching for needs to be on the page. The records on the page quickly filter to what you typed in the search field. You might get more than one record, but it’s a start. Type more, or type something different, then look thru the results to locate the data points you are after.
For someone coming from Dynamics GP, the Page Filters take a little getting used to. In Business Central, the filters are often grouped into master-record related, and time/value-related. Let me explain because this is new. Filtering in general is easy. There are lots of drop-down lists and wildcards which are also powerful. Dates auto-adjust upon entry nicely like GP. You can, however, use specific values with a pipe delimiter, which is truly awesome to filter by a list of specific values. But using the filters takes some practice. Thankfully you know your data, and you will quickly validate the filter results when building your reports, so don’t worry about it now.
Business Central allows users to Personalize their list pages, so the information pertinent to them is available quickly, in the order they want it presented. The Dynamics GP approach to this was similar, in that there were ‘default columns’ available, but then you could go hunt for others and add those. Personalization in BC is similar, and when in that mode, you can remove unnecessary columns and organize the order.
Unfortunately, as of publication, sharing of these personalization or lists among users is not as simple as it is in GP, but that workaround is for a different post. The limitations of a list page report, in this regard, is that only the creator of the list report can see the custom list.
Since Business Central is the modern SAAS ERP platform, we would of course expect it to work with Excel. Rest assured, Excel and Office 365 work hand in glove together with BC. Each list page has export capability which allows a seamless transition of the report to Excel, which nobody using an ERP system can live without.
One of the most intriguing options a user can do with a List page in Business Central is post it to a Microsoft Teams channel. You know what that ultimately means? Users in your organization can have access to all the relevant information automatically all the time? I suppose that’s part of what 365 means and what Microsoft is going for.
One thing Business Central and Excel can do that blows away Dynamics GP is the ability to EDIT records in Excel! A user with the proper permissions can export a list of records to Excel, make edits, and then publish those changes right back into Business Central. This not only brings incredible efficiency to data maintenance, but eliminates the need for expensive one-time-use integrations or worse, living with dirty or unkempt data in your ERP.
I feel like we’re only getting warmed up.
As someone who digs ERP reporting, the next three advanced reporting options take the cake for me with Business Central! It is really hard to pick a favorite feature, because all of them have value-added functionality out of the box for the right audience.
Web Services is a wonderful reporting option in Business Central because it exposes reliable ODATA endpoints which are accessible by Power BI. (Sure, GP has ODATA and I deploy and support it often, but it is not the most ideal data source for Power BI as a reporting tool - it is best to go right to SQL). I cannot go a day without thinking about or putting Web Services and Power BI as a reporting solution on the table for someone. It is the one-ski quiver I go to for just getting my head around the data we need to discuss, report on, or analyze. It saves me hours of Excel work just to get a sense sometimes. And its cool!! Just about any list page in Business Central can be published for consumption by Power BI with the ODATA web services endpoints in BC. I speak about this topic frequently at Dynamics user group events, because once you know the basics, you don’t mess around any more.
Analysis Mode in Business Central enables users to apply some level of grouping, filtering, and general analysis of the data. The standard List pages now have an Analysis button which toggles from the ‘Standard List’ page to the ‘Analysis Mode’ which is truly the place to be. But, make sure the right and reportable columns for you are added to the base list page before toggling into Analysis mode, or you can’t use them in the reporting there. I think it is best to have a large standard list and then use versions of Analysis reports to see the data the way you want. These reports are even sharable to other BC users by simply sending the a link.
To add a thick layer of icing on this Business Central reporting cake, we have to bring up Copilot. It can now be used to not only search for and analyze information from the ribbon, but also used to actually create Analysis Mode reports in BC! Yes, AI that responds and writes your next data query and report - pretty cool. I’m sure you can start thinking about the amazing time and cost savings opportunity you have with this one feature alone.
I hope you found this GP to BC comparison helpful.
SmartLists are, and will always be, a wonderful reporting solution for Microsoft GP.
For anyone moving to Microsoft 365 Business Central, you will definitely find similar functionality, but much more advanced, and incredibly easy to use once you get there, so check it out!
I’m grateful should this experience or these insights be helpful to you on your journey…until next post!