R365's Professional Services offering includes the creation of custom reporting tools that expand upon our already extensive library of core reports, exports, and charts. Our Professional Services, Quality Assurance (QA), and Development teams will work with you to craft professional reporting tools that are precisely tailored to your business needs and environment.


This article covers:


Custom Reporting Tools


Customizable Reporting Tools


There are a variety of options available that provide additional read-only reporting tools and create mechanisms to capture and import additional data, beyond our standard Point of Sale (POS) interfaces. Based on your needs, R365 professionals will work with you to create:  

  • Custom Reports
  • Custom Key Info Metrics
  • Custom Dashboard Widgets
  • Custom Exports
  • Custom Email Alerts


Custom Work Limitations


While we strive to accommodate custom requests, it is important to note that we are not able to accommodate requests to modify the User Interface (UI), change the behavior of the core and add-on modules of Radar, or rebuild functionality that already exists on Radar. Our custom work is focused on providing additional read-only reporting mechanisms, such as a new Report, Export, or Widget. 


Some custom requests are also not feasible due to the nature of the data included in the request. The following custom requests will not be approved by R365: 

  • Custom P&L Reports
  • Custom Payroll Reports
    • Note: Custom Payroll Exports are a common custom request. See the Common Custom Exports section below to learn more. 


Important Note: R365 will not approve custom projects requiring more than 40 hours to develop. The benefit of a SaaS model is you are always accessing the latest codebase and your experience is not compromised by running on an old version of the software. Custom work, by its very nature, is not part of the main application and thus has no inherent upgrade path. As discussed in the warranty section, changes to our systems may impact your custom work. By limiting projects to 40 hours or less, we are seeking to minimize the potential financial and operational impact to you.


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Custom Project Process


In order to deliver exceptional results, R365's Professional Services will work alongside you each step of the way from conception to completion. Once you have contacted R365 Support, you will be guided though the customization process: 


Request Submission: Begin the process by submitting a mock-up to R365 Support that establishes requirements and conveys the needs of the custom request. 


Define Features and Specifications: R365 Professional Services will start a ticket and work with you to refine the Features and Specifications of the custom piece. Internally, the Professional Services team will engage our QA team as additional eyes on the work. 


Technical Review: After detailing out the Features and Specifications, the ticket will be turned over to the Development team for a technical review. 


Quote Generation: The quote that covers the scope of the work will be generated and passed back to you. Quotes are good for 30 days.

Development: If approved, the ticket begins development. We expect the actual development of the work to take 2-3 weeks. There are rare occasions where the scope of the work necessitates a longer timeframe; you will be notified if this is the case. 


Review: Once development is complete and the work is up on Radar, you will be notified by the Professional Services team that it is available for you to review. 

  • If the work commissioned was a Custom Report, a help document is required and must be submitted as part of the review stage. The report will first be posted in a non-public fashion, and only Site Admins will be able to run the report. R365 Professional Services will provide you with a Help File Documentation form to fill out. Once you have returned the Documentation Form, the report will then be eligible for general release to all of your users, and will be posted as the help file for this report.

Project Completion and Sign-off: Once you have reviewed the work, you can either sign off on the work as delivered or notify us of any shortcomings versus the agreed-upon work order. Any work that is returned will travel through the process again (Development, Review, and Project Completion).



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Quotes for Custom Projects


Our quotes encompass all the necessary time required to establish the scope of work, the development time we expect to spend executing the work, as well as the QA and review time after development is complete. Time is added to a project during the following steps:


  1. Initial Features and Specifications discussions with the Professional Services team  
  2. Initial technical review by the Development team
  3. Projected time expenditure on QA review 
  4. Projected time expenditure to develop the request, which takes into account: 
    • The number of Step 3 Options requested. 
    • Performance considerations, driven primarily by number of locations and expected date range usage. 
    • The aggregation of different data sources. A report that combines AP, Labor, and Sales data is more complex than a report that deals solely with AP data.

  5. Projected time expenditure on the Professional Services team’s review and hand-off to you.

Notes:

  • The hourly rate for custom programming is $200/hr
  • Our minimum quote is 1 hour
  • Quotes are in increments of .5 hours


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Warranty


We warranty the work for 7 months after the custom piece is first turned over to you. During the 7-month window, we warranty the work against bugs later discovered and changes we might make to our systems that break custom work. 

After the warranty period, all queries with regards to the custom work are considered billable time. 


We operate in a SaaS environment, and there are constant changes to our systems happening behind the scenes. It is never our intent that custom work be rendered inoperable by some change we make, but on rare occasions it may be unavoidable.

Changes to custom work do not fall under the warranty. A requested change to existing custom work will trigger a new quote. A change is a deviation from the agreed-upon scope of work and product to be delivered, as determined during the Features and Specifications discussions with the Professional Services team.


Additional changes that fall outside of the original order must be requested through a new custom work order.


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 Reducing the Cost of Custom Work


We understand that custom programming is expensive, and diligently seek to keep the cost low for our clients. Please take the following into consideration as you prepare to submit your custom request.


The single most effective action you could take to reduce the cost of your project is to build an accurate mock-up. All custom work requires a mock-up. Any time R365 spends on creating or cleaning up the mock-up will be charged to you, since that time will be included on the ticket when the final quote is generated. By creating an accurate mock-up yourself, you will reduce the time recorded on the ticket and thus the cost to you. On average, about 30% of the time booked on a custom work ticket occurs during the front-end work to build a mock-up and the Features and Specifications discussions. 


As our quotes encompass all the time spent engaged with custom work, tightly focusing your Features and Specifications communications with regards to this work can help minimize the time booked to the ticket. Providing clear and timely answers to our questions will also help cut down on back-and-forth time recorded on the ticket. 


An export may suffice instead of a report, and it will save you a lot of money. An export is less expensive than a report, but it does not support the formatting that a report will. Commissioning a report should only be undertaken when proper formatting of the data is critical. 


Focus on needs rather than “nice-to-haves”. Every Step 3 option requested will add time. Every data point on the report will add time. 


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Common Custom Exports


The following Custom Exports are common requests:


GL Sales Export


A GL Sales Export is included as part of the GL Sales Module. GL Exports are used to export posted GL Sales data to the chosen accounting software. 


During Implementation of GL Sales, a Custom GL Sales Export will be built following the steps in the 'Custom Project Process' above. 


Any changes to the Export will follow the process of a new Custom project.  


AP Export


An AP Export is included as part of the AP Module. AP Exports are used to export posted AP data to the chosen accounting software. 


During Implementation of AP and Inventory, a Custom AP Export will be built following the steps in the 'Custom Project Process' above'. 


Any changes to the Export will follow the process of a new Custom project.  


Payroll Export


A Payroll Export is an add-on feature. Payroll Exports are used to export Labor data to the chosen payroll software. 


When a Payroll Export is added, the Professional Services team will work with you to build the export following the steps in the 'Custom Project Process' above.


Any changes to the Export will follow the process of a new Custom project.  


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Location of Custom Reports and Exports



Reports



Custom Reports are found on the 'Custom' tab within the Reports Module.





Exports



Custom Exports are found in the Export Module.


All Custom Exports are indicated with a sheet of paper icon.


To filter for Custom Exports, select Company from the 'Source' drop-down menu





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