Dynamics User Group

Dynamics NAV (Navision) Can Solve All of Your Business Pains!

Alex Chow — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 01:30:00 GMT

Dynamics NAV (Navision) can do anything for your business. Yep, you heard it right. Implementing Dynamics NAV (Navision) can solve all of the problems for your company. It's true! Since working with Dynamics NAV (Navision) in 1999, I have never encountered a business problem that cannot be solved in Dynamics NAV. Compliance? No problem. Reporting? No problem. Unique business processes? No problem. AND! Implementing Dynamics NAV will solve your company's problems within a reasonable budget...(read more)

Is NAV 2009 really ready?

Erik P. Ernst — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:00:00 GMT

I know it's a little late to write my last post from Convergence 2008 EMEA in Copenhagen, but I have been thinking a lot about what I should write. So this post is not really about Convergence, just inspired by the last day. Of cause with the announcement of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 most of the sessions on Convergence was just about NAV 2009. As a MVP I have seen NAV 2009 many times before the release, so I wasn't really that much interested in most of those sessions. But I still decided...(read more)

Certification requirements from January 2009

waldo — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 18:54:00 GMT

Just wanted to get your attention to something quite important. Until the end of the year, to be a certified partner, you have to have one or more certified individuals that must together pass these exams: Microsoft Dynamics NAV C/SIDE Solution Development Microsoft Dynamics NAV Financials Next year, you need more. There are two more exams required to be a certified partners: SQL Server - Exam 70-431: Microsoft SQL Server 2005 - Implementation & Maintenance Microsoft Dynamics NAV Installation...(read more)

Building a Role Center in 1 hour

Clausl's Dynamics NAV Blog — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 21:39:12 GMT

First I want to say thanks to people who attended Michael Rosenørn and My session, about building a Role Center in 1 hour, at Convergence 2008 last week in Denmark. Our evaluation score for this session was second highest out of all sessions at Convergence, so we must have done something right :-) Thanks guys!!! Still I a have a feeling that there are so much more I would like to share with you on how we build up the Role Center, so I have decided to share our demo script for this session. To...(read more)

Microsoft Dynamic NAV 2009 is released (RTM)!

waldo — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 13:51:00 GMT

Shame on me … but this message is too late. You'll probably know it for a while but still … I'm gonna repeat it : Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 was finally launched at Convergence 2008 Copenhagen. You can find more info here: Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 Launch Portal US Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 Launch Portal (wouldn't know why the US needs a separate portal, but anyway …) Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 RTM is available for download here . Unfortunately, we, in Belgium will have to wait...(read more)

The NAV PG is listening to us.

David Singleton — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 23:50:41 GMT

Well I just got back from Convergence in Copenhagen. I will write up my general impressions over the next few days, as well as blog about some of my experiences there. One thing I do want to point out that I think is great news is the feedback I got from the NAV Product Group, and form others that are taking notice of bloggers out there. A number of people I spoke with know of the regular NAV bloggers, and take note of what we are saying. As a blogger myself, it's always encouraging to hear that...(read more)

NAV 2009 Service Tier

ryanwwhittaker — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 14:51:17 GMT

So, it has been a very long time since I last blogged here. My day job has been keeping me very busy which is never a bad thing! I'm back now though and after having attended a NAV 2009 technical workshop, I am energised and ready to go.

As I say I have just had the pleasure of attending a Microsoft-run "What's new in NAV 2009 (technical)" workshop. Got some great exposure to NAV 2009 and built on what I had already picked up in CTP3 and CTP4 (there are noticeable differences between these two!!!). The workshop was attended by a number of very experienced and like-minded developers/consultants and we managed to raise a number of interesting questions, which are going to be passed on to the NAV development team. They are coming to report back to us in a future session – so all positive news on that end, and good to be able to feedback to MS directly. NAV 2009 seemed to be very stable during the course which again was very good to see.

The course has however alerted me to the new Service Tier layer, and there still seems to be great confusion about what we are actually getting here... We are told that there is some integration with IIS, however as we demonstrated we could stop the IIS services and yet still run the RTC. We came to the conclusion that NAV must simply be implementing its own proprietary service layer using the IIS components. I'm preparing to pass on some of the things I learnt to my colleagues in the office tomorrow, and so am installing 2009 on a clean Windows XP virtual pc image. Interestingly this image does NOT have IIS installed at all – so what is really going on here? Does anyone have any more info on this, and can tell us exactly what is going on with this service tier. I'm particularly interested on whether this layer is cluster-aware, and how we can scale this model.

I'll continue to post about the things I pick up and any answers that we get back from MS!

Groove and OneNote - Convergence 2008 day 2 (post 3)

Erik P. Ernst — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:16:00 GMT

Today my first session was about "Extending Collaboration with the 2007 Microsoft Office System: Office Groove 2007 and Office OneNote 2007". I selected this session because I have previously been using both Groove and OneNote and I really see some potential in both applications. But I would also like to hear about it in situations outside my little IT world. Where Sharepoint is Microsoft's offering to primary internal enterprise and departmental collaboration, then Groove is their...(read more)

Convergence 2008 - the keynote (post 2)

Erik P. Ernst — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 12:34:00 GMT

Kirill Tatarinov's keynote was the first session on Convergence 2008. As someone who have participated on many Microsoft and before that Navision conferences over years then this keynote as actually boring. Not that Kirill is a bad speaker, his little russian accent makes him sound a bit more entertaining. But except for his announcement of Dynamics NAV 2009, there was really nothing new here. Just a lot of sales talk, not giving anything new. The most interesting part of his session was really...(read more)

Using variables and C/AL code in a report in NAV 2009

Nav developer's blog — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 07:53:00 GMT

This previous blog " NAV 2009 - The structure of reports in VS report designer " describes how to get data from your data items into the layout of a report in Visual Studio (VS) report designer. This time we look at how to control the iterations of a report with code, and showing variables rather than fields on a report. So, for when you manually want to control what to print. The tricky part is really to get the structure of the report right. Once this is done, adding additional information...(read more)

Welcome to Convergence EMEA 2008 in Copenhagen (post 1)

Erik P. Ernst — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 07:37:00 GMT

I have just arrived in Bella Center, the venue where Microsoft Convergence takes place in Copenhagen 2008. They also call it Convergence EMEA, for Europe, Middleeast and Africa and this is the second year in the row where they have it here in Bella Center. It's only 8:30am here and the conference is not set to start until 9:30am, but as a local resident (I love about 50 km from Bella Center), then I know the morning traffic, which sometimes simply isn't accountable. But this morning it was...(read more)

NAV 2009 is released!

Nav developer's blog — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 07:37:00 GMT

NAV 2009 is released and available from this link on PartnerSource (login required): Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 - Download page Also visit the Launch Portal for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 for Demo tools, readiness, sales and marketing materials, and much more. Lars Lohndorf-Larsen Microsoft Dynamics UK Microsoft Customer Service and Support (CSS) EMEA...(read more)

NAV 2009 - The structure of reports in VS report designer

Nav developer's blog — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 22:41:00 GMT

One thing is to make a report look pretty. But before you can do that, you have to make it work first. This post is about how to get the data structure right when designing reports in VS report designer for the new client in NAV 2009. If you are completely new to the new environment, then take a look at this post first: NAV 2009 - Report Designer - Introduction to the new environment This post also assumes that you are already familiar with designing reports in the classic report designer. Start...(read more)

NAV 2009 - Report Designer - Introduction to the new environment

Nav developer's blog — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 17:21:00 GMT

Microsoft Dynamics NAV has always had its own report designer. In NAV 2009 it still does, but in addition to this you can also use the Visual Studio (VS) report designer. NAV 2009 – both the classic and the new client – will still run reports designed in NAV’s report designer. So in way nothing has changed. You can still use the existing report designer. VS report designer offers a lot of new options and features. The idea of this post is to describe what features out of 100s that you actually need...(read more)

Dynamics NAV 2009: Some Tips & Tricks (Part 1)

waldo — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 09:40:00 GMT

My intention with this (planned) series of blog posts, is to give you some tips and tricks regarding NAV 2009. This both on functional as development side. It's just things that I get from other people or demo's or … and I think is useful to share. Nothing more, nothing less. TIP 1: Dynamics NAV 2009 Keyboard Shortcuts I copy/pasted this list from a PDF you can download from the Marketing Beta page in Partnersource. So, it definitely subject to change. Some of the shortcuts are very obvious...(read more)

Dynamics NAV 5.0 SP1 and export to Excel

Nav developer's blog — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:44:00 GMT

A number of issues previously reported when running with Dynamics NAV 5.0 and using send-to Excel functionality, are now corrected. These issues include (among others): decimals exported as text, Item/Customer numbers exported as decimals, dates exported as decimals. To implement correction, update with 5.0 SP1, update 1 (KB 956161, build 27191), use default style sheets included in SP1, and make the following change to default style sheet NavisionExportToExcel.xslt: O pen the style sheet file in...(read more)

How to display an SQL Server View in Microsoft Dynamics NAV

waldo — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 14:39:00 GMT

Some time ago, I explained how you could use ADO to call stored procedures and stuff ... . Just another way to do stuff on SQL Server (or another database type). In this post, I will try to explain another cool feature. What you see quite often in forums is people trying to find a way to display a view in NAV. It is actually quite well explained in the application developer's guide (w1w1adg.pdf on the Product CD) under the section "Linked Objects", but let's try to explain it in...(read more)

Basic SQL - Restoring a SQL Server backup

Nav developer's blog — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 08:37:00 GMT

This post is part of " Overview of NAV-specific SQL features for application consultants ". You can back up your Microsoft Dynamics NAV database either from a NAV client or from SQL Server Management Studio. To restore a backup made from SQL Server, follow these steps: 1) Open SQL Server Management Studio 2) You don’t need to create a database first, like you do from NAV. Just right click on Databases, then select “Restore Database...”. 3) In the box that opens, type in a name for your...(read more)

Basic SQL - Creating users in NAV on SQL

Nav developer's blog — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 08:34:00 GMT

This post is part of " Overview of NAV-specific SQL features for application consultants ". Before you can set up a user in Microsoft Dynamics NAV on SQL Server, you must create the user on SQL Server first. If you try to create a user which does not exist on SQL Server, you will get this error message: === The Microsoft Dynamics NAV Classic and SQL Server security systems have not been successfully synchronized. The SQL Server login MYUSER does not exist on the LARS-PC server. === To create...(read more)

Basic SQL - How to attach a database to SQL Server

Nav developer's blog — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 08:27:00 GMT

This post is part of " Overview of NAV-specific SQL features for application consultants ". If you receive a SQL Server database file (.MDF), then you must attach this to your SQL Server before you can access it. This is how to do that: 1) Copy the Database file (.MDF), for example “Demo Database NAV (6-0)_Data.MDF” into the folder where SQL Server keeps the database files. On SQL Server 2008 this defaults to “C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL\DATA”: 2) Open...(read more)

Tip 3: Using Exchange Public Folders and Outlook synchronization in Dynamics NAV 5.0, 5.0 SP1 and 2009

Nav developer's blog — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 10:32:58 GMT

Many people ask if it is possible to use Public Folders for data storage in regards to the redesigned Outlook Synchronization in releases after Dynamics NAV 4.0 taking into account that there are no conditions or filters set for the contacts entities. The answer is simple: yes, you can! There is one big pitfall. In scenarios where there are thousands of contacts to be synchronized, Exchange Server tend to think that this is not OK. There are some KB published on that topic: http://support.microsoft...(read more)

Basic SQL - How to create a new NAV database for restoring a NAV backup

Nav developer's blog — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 14:52:00 GMT

This post is part of " Overview of NAV-specific SQL features for application consultants ". This post describes the steps needed to create a new NAV database from a NAV backup (.fbk) file. All the steps are done from a NAV client: 1) Start a NAV client (finsql.exe), then go to File -> Database -> New. In Server Name, enter (local) - assuming you have SQL Server on the same machine. Then click OK. 2) You only have to enter a database name, and click OK. But if the database is used...(read more)

Basic SQL - Enable trace flag 4616 on SQL Server

Nav developer's blog — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 14:46:00 GMT

This post is part of " Overview of NAV-specific SQL features for application consultants ". The newest versions of Microsoft Dynamics NAV require trace flag 4616 to be enabled on SQL Server. If not, then you will get this error message when you try to connect: === The trace flag 4616 is not set on the server (local). You must set this flag and restart the server before you can connect using Microsoft Dynamics NAV. === How to set trace flag 4616: Start SQL Server Configuration Manager: Start...(read more)

Basic SQL - Creating Extended Stored Procedure / xp_ndo.dll

Nav developer's blog — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 14:43:00 GMT

This post is part of " Overview of NAV-specific SQL features for application consultants ". Microsoft Dynamics NAV requires two extended stored procedures from xp_ndo.dll to exist on SQL Server if Windows logins are used. If these extended stored procedures do not exist, you will get this error when trying to log on using Windows Authentication: --- The extended stored procedure xp_ndo_enumusersids in the library file xp_ndo.dll, is not available on the LOHNDORF1 server. Until this procedure...(read more)

Basic SQL - Installing SQL Server 2005 / 2008

Nav developer's blog — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 14:34:00 GMT

This post is part of " Overview of NAV-specific SQL features for application consultants ". It describes the simplest way to get SQL Server installed in a test environment. It only mentions the changes to the default installation options that you need to make to get SQL Server running for NAV. Needless to say that for installing SQL Server in a live environment, there are further considerations to make like security, performance, etc, which are not described here. Which edition: If you...(read more)