Microsoft PartnerSource NAV Favorites (updated)

Erik P. Ernst about Navision and the Dynamics Community

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Partnersource is Microsoft's closed site for their partners to gain access to everything from sales and marketing information, whitepapers, new versions and updates etc. But also their knowledgebase including a lot a listing of registered errors and issues (and sometimes including references to fixes and work arounds). If you're a customer, then you might know Customersource. Partnersource is very similar designed.

Compared to the rest of Microsoft's website, then Partnersource is really not very easy to find your way around. It's really not what you could expect from the worlds biggest software company! So over the years I have build up a list of favorites of the places on Partnersource which is most important to me. As there are many new people here on DUG, then I thought I wanted to share this list with you.

International Main Page
This is the welcome page for international partners. You might also land on the welcome page for your own country. But you can always change to the international page (I'm not sure if you can change to other countries pages, I think this depends on your setup).

Dynamics NAV Solution Page
I always change directly to the page specific for Dynamics NAV to see the latest news for Dynamics NAV. Lately this page has become better. Now you have a "Quick Links" box, which actually is quite ok. The great thing about the Dynamics NAV page is that you can now subscribe using RSS to the different areas of the page (Sales & Marketing, Support & Deployment, Training and Certification, Most Recent/Popular KB Articles). But as a developer, none of these are really worth too much. At least not to me.

Launch Portals and Download Pages for Dynamics NAV

I think knowing that people cannot find their way around Partnersource, then Microsoft has created Launch and Download Portals for the different versions of Dynamics NAV. First time they did this was with the relesae of NAV 4.0 SP3. On the Launch Portals you find links to everything from announcements, release notes, known issues, presentations, fach sheets, white papers and training links. On the Download portals lanugage modules and the "actual" product CD/DVD download as well as upgrade toolkits for all countries.


Database Archive for Microsoft Dynamics NAV (US/NA versions)
This page is great. Includes all databases from version 1.00.B to 3.70. Does also contain the Improvement documents and some of the old manuals. The only problem is that this only contains the US/NA versions. I whish somebody had a link to a similar pager for other countries.

Upgrade Toolkit Archive for Microsoft Dynamics NAV (US/NA versions)
Also a great page if you need to upgrade an old version of Navision. Includes upgrade toolkits back to Navision Financials 1.0 (when it was called Avista Financials) up to Dynamics NAV 5.0 SP1. This page would also be great to have for all other countries.

Navision Developers Toolkit Archive
A nice page to find the older versions of Navision Developers Toolkit. (*1)

Microsoft Dynamics NAV Local Functionality
This page contains links to files describing the local functionality of all the localized version of Dynamcis NAV.

Microsoft Dynamics Training Materials
Training materials for Dynamics. (*1)

Microsoft Dynamics VPC's
Download the VPC's (virtual pc's) from this page. Both for Dynamics NAV, Dynamics GP and Dynamics AX etc. (*1)

Microsoft Dynamics NAV on MSDN
Not really a Partnersource page, but Microsoft's own page with lots of links to tools where most are still found on Partnersource. (*1)

Other valuable pages

Overview of Released Application Hotfixes for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 SP1 and Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 R2 (*2)
This page lists application hotfixes (code fixes) that have been released for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 SP1. The hotfixes also applies to Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 R2.

 

When you enter the links directly from the blog entry here, then you get a message: "Referring link not Secure". The way to get around this is to copy the html from the page and then open a new page and insert it here.

If you have other "goodies" from Partnersource, then I would love to hear from you.

(*1) This was added after the first publishing of this blog post on Feb. 5 - 2009.

(*2) This was added on Oct. 26 - 2011


Posted 2011-10-26 11:40 by Erik P. Ernst
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Comments

DynamicsUser.NET Admin's Blog wrote Microsoft PartnerSource NAV Favorites
on 2009-2-5 12:58

Partnersource is Microsoft's closed site for their partners to gain access to everything from sales

xgaronnat wrote re: Microsoft PartnerSource NAV Favorites
on 2009-2-5 13:34

Cool idea :)

Let me suggect :

Training manuals :

mbs.microsoft.com/.../student

VPCs :

mbs.microsoft.com/.../vpc

Erik P. Ernst wrote re: Microsoft PartnerSource NAV Favorites
on 2009-2-5 16:22

Thank you very much.

To be able to access the link to the training manuals, then your company also needs to be a training center. Not all partners will be able to access this page.

The VPC (virtual pc) link is great. And the "smart guy" quickly finds out that you can also get VPC's for Dynamics AX, Dynamics GP etc.

I have updated the list with the two links.

Btw. I have noticed that if you try to access the page directly from the blog entry here, then you get a message: "Referring link not Secure". The way to get around this is to copy the html from the page and then open a new page and insert it here.

Modris Ivans wrote re: Microsoft PartnerSource NAV Favorites
on 2009-2-14 2:57

It's curious, but a fact - Partner who is not a training center, can't access Training materials, they can only order and must PAY for them, but in CustomerSource you have a free access to download these same training  materials...

Now, when I am employed by customer, it's easier for me to get all this stuff than when working for Partner. Only requirement - customer must have active Service Plan. (otherwise he can't acess CustomerSource at all).

Erik, you are right that navigating both these sites is difficult - several times  I've tried to find later something, that was announced (and linked) from "home" page, then the direct link was replaced wit something newer, but in vain...

Complete mess is Download (and alike) pages - I can't understand why there are these comboboxes with filters, if they DO NOT work as expected? Seemingly not all items have the corresponding tags added.

AFAIK this part comes from B.MS. time, even earlier, before NAV & Darmgaard joined and was born as Axapta (XAL) online help, driven by Lotus Notes. MS simply dumped all the accumulated stuff into its system, so info about newer versions is easier to find, 'cos it is added directly and more properly.  

Navigate Into Success wrote What did NAV bloggers say in February?
on 2009-3-2 2:28

Microsoft Dynamics NAV blogosphere wasn’t particularly active in February. Trust me, I don’t blame anyone

Van Vugt's dynamiXs wrote Why is MS asking me to help improve PartnerSource/CustomerSource? - Part 2 of <undefined>
on 2011-11-9 18:10

... I was wondering in January when being asked by the Usability Sciences stalker. Wow, it seems ages