Global Shop Solutions in Power BI and Fabric:
reach the data, then define the number.
Global Shop Solutions already holds what a margin, delivery, inventory, or capacity report needs. Getting it into Power BI is a different job than it is on a SQL Server ERP, and the numbers split for reasons specific to how Global Shop costs a job and dates an order. This note covers how the data comes out, where the numbers split, and what gets defined first.
How the data comes out
- Global Shop runs on Actian Zen, the database formerly sold as Pervasive PSQL. The ERP reads it through Zen’s transactional interface. Reporting tools read it relationally, through the Zen ODBC driver.
- Microsoft has no connector for Actian Zen. The route into Power BI and Fabric is the generic ODBC connector through an on-premises data gateway, with the Zen driver and its data source installed on the gateway machine.
- A table is visible to SQL only if it is defined in Zen’s data dictionary files. Check that the tables a report needs are there, including any added by custom work.
- The schema names things the way the shop does. A work order is a job, in tables such as
JOB_HEADERandJOB_OPERATIONS. Operations are sequences. A multi-company shop runs separate company codes. - If you are on Global Shop’s cloud, the applications are the same and the hosting is theirs. How an outside reporting tool reaches the database there depends on your arrangement with Global Shop. The audit starts by settling it.
What ODBC means for the design
| Limit | What it rules out | What we do instead |
|---|---|---|
| Import only | A Power BI model cannot query the Zen database live over ODBC. | Scheduled extraction into a Fabric lakehouse. Reports read the lakehouse, never the ERP. |
| No mirroring | Fabric cannot keep a continuous copy of a Zen database. | Copy jobs or pipelines on a schedule the plant can live with. |
| Full load or append | The ODBC copy job has no built-in change tracking. | Incremental loads designed around a date or key the tables already carry, with a full reload as the check. |
None of this is a weakness in the ERP. It is the shape of the pipe, and it is why the model belongs in your Microsoft tenant: the ERP goes on running transactions, and reports read the copy, not the plant’s database.
Where Global Shop numbers split
The general causes are in Why your reports disagree. These are the forms they take in Global Shop. Each row ends in a decision somebody has to make once and write down.
| Number | What Global Shop holds | The decision to write down |
|---|---|---|
| On-time delivery | Global Shop works with due dates, promise dates, and ship dates, and its KPIs include on-time delivery to promise. | Which date is the promise once an order has been re-dated, and whether early counts as on time. |
| Margin | Global Shop describes standard, average, FIFO, and LIFO inventory costing. | One cost basis for margin, stated by name. |
| Job cost | Job cost is carried in six elements: freight, labor, overhead, outside services, other, and material. Estimate sits beside actual, and overhead absorbed beside overhead incurred. | Which elements are in “cost” when margin is quoted, and whether estimate or actual is the baseline. |
| Existing reports | Global Shop ships Dashboards, a KPI application, and Crystal-based reports. Custom screens and scripts are built in GAB. | Which existing report each new measure has to tie to, and which custom logic the model has to respect. |
What gets defined first
- Access. What can be reached today, by which route, and who controls it. The argument is in Access is the precondition.
- Company and calendar. Which company codes a number covers, and which fiscal calendar it follows.
- On-time delivery. One date, one tolerance, one treatment of partial shipments.
- Margin. One cost basis, with the cost elements named.
Then the build follows the same order every time. Extracts land untouched in a Fabric lakehouse in your tenant. They are conformed to those definitions. One semantic model sits on top, and every Power BI report reads it. Inventory, quality, and capacity are added to the same model, each defined once.
What the audit establishes on Global Shop
- How the database can be reached from outside, on premises or in Global Shop’s cloud.
- Which tables the dictionary exposes, and which custom tables matter.
- Which date and which cost basis each existing report uses today.
- Which modules are healthy, misconfigured, or abandoned.
We also work on Infor CSI / Syteline.
Product names and limits are as Global Shop Solutions, Actian, and Microsoft document them in October 2026. They change, and deployments differ. The audit checks each one against your own system.
The audit prices this before you spend a dollar.
Two weeks, $3,000, fixed scope. A graded report on how your ERP is actually used, where the numbers disagree, and a priced recommendation. You keep the report either way.