Navision Report Licence

Kaetchen

Hi,

Does anybody know whether buying report numbers to create more reports is a world wide phenomena or only our Navision Partner?

We have now installed 6 different companies at Navision and as all of them have different sales invoice layouts we need to create different reports.

Also we would like to keep the reports exclusiv for each company, but they also appear in the other companies as well.

If there is a solution for the problem please let me know... :-k

Thanks
Kaetchen

themave

it is the same here in the united states,
you can buy the report desiger license for $800 and it comes with an additional 100 reports. numbered 50000-50099

then you can buy additional reports for $800 for a block of 100 or $20 for 1 report. So you should have the client buy the report designer granual no matter what since you are going to need extra reports, you might as well allow the end user to also be able to create reports themselves.

Kaetchen

Thanks for the info.

I don't think the report writer of Navision is user friendly enough to produce well designed outputs by anybody ;-).
There is obviously a reason for the existence of Crystal Reports.

The entire issue is quite frustrating... as we have a couple of reports designed by ?? which don't work.

Any idea how to import contact info for purchase and sales - like name, telephone no. in Sales-Invoices, Reminders or Remittance advise.
Obviously you can import the Company Logo, so there might be a way to import other information as well without hard coding it in the report.

Alex_Chow

You can try using Jet Reports (www.jetreports.com). It's a tool that allows you to create Navision reports using Excel.

However, any type of reporting will require you to have a thorough understanding of Navision tables and fields. Even the easiest tools will not be enough if you don't understand where to get the information from.

Poebbles

Kaetchen wrote:

I don't think the report writer of Navision is user friendly enough to produce well designed outputs by anybody ;-)

=D>

Kaetchen wrote:

Any idea how to import contact info for purchase and sales - like name, telephone no. in Sales-Invoices, Reminders or Remittance advise.

deadlizard is right.. if you don't understand tables & Fields & Triggers in Navision, it will be dangerous, just to import data into tables like e.g. Sales Header or Sales Line. There are too many related information to insert, so you have to validate the fields in these tables in correct sequence.

Kaetchen wrote:

Obviously you can import the Company Logo, so there might be a way to import other information as well without hard coding it in the report.

[-X No, there might be some little reports or dataports to import data into navision but generally you have to write a Dataport, Report, XmlPort or something else to import Data to Navision..

If you want to create simple Dataports just for filling up setup tables you can also use this little tool...
http://www.mibuso.com/dlinfo.asp?FileID=360

Kaetchen

I think with users knowing MS Access / Excel / Word and being able to use
fields or tables in Access Database makes people assume they understand the complex issue of a relational database.

But back to importing fields. As an example:

We use the field CompanyInfo.Name as header in a report.
This field is entered in the company master file and easily to be used in reports.
What is not predefined is for example the contact person in a sales invoice header regarding questions about the invoice, so it is coded in the report like "Rebecca Woolf DDI 8890".
There is obviously no field for contacts in Purchase/or Sales.
Said this I assume the way Navision is designed it can be obtained in "Relationship Management" a module we haven't installed.

There must be a better way in Navision to refer to a contact person as coding it in the report?

Thanks for the replies I really appreciate this forum a lot.

kine

It depends on report customization. It seems that your partner did the easiest thing - add the contact as fixed text. But this is easiest just for a while. After you want to change this, it will be big problem, because they will say "hey, if you want to change this, you need to pay x hours, we need to change it in each report". and You will say "It is your problem, why it is not possible to change it without designing the reports?"....

Best thing is, if you need on report some info, which is not part of the document (data in Navision), you need to add some field to the document and take the info from there... but this is common "habit" to do things in easy way without thinking about future changes (because the budget and time is short now... :-))

And yes, it is common, that you need to buy the reports per object basis.

Kaetchen

In this case I am not sure who created the reports. With access to the source code any user could have done it.
Here is nobody including myself with experience in C/AL. I though have experience in RPGII and RPG400 and understand the basics of a computer program.
With hourly rates of $170 and more, companies are reluctant to let a professional programmer do changes which seems so easy to be done by "everybody".
They don't understand that this could cost them more in the end as it could affect other areas as well.
Said this I have discovered that some reports created by a previous Navision Partner don't work, so what is the solution.

With hard coding changeable fields in program some programmers see it as a secure income source for the future, but this is really very short time thinking as eventually the client finds out and it will ruin the developers reputation.

Best thing is, if you need on report some info, which is not part of the document (data in Navision), you need to add some field to the document and take the info from there... but this is common "habit" to do things in easy way without thinking about future changes (because the budget and time is short now... )

This is exactly the case, but I am quite sure that Navision has an area to store information for the customer/vendor to add to the report and my suggestion was "Relationship Management", but obviously nobody has answered this question and our current Navision Partner is even more hopeless then the previous one... ](*,)

themave

Kaetchen wrote:

Thanks for the info....

Any idea how to import contact info for purchase and sales - like name, telephone no. in Sales-Invoices, Reminders or Remittance advise.
Obviously you can import the Company Logo, so there might be a way to import other information as well without hard coding it in the report.

to include contact info, I would use relationship management.

on your sales order, purchase order there is a field for contact number to enter, this pulls the contact info from the contact table #5050, the contact number will then post with your posted invoice in the field "Sale-to-contact no."

Now on the posted invoice report where you want the contact info, make a data item for table 5050, link the contact table to the contact number in the posted invoice header and you will then be able to make a section of the report to print the contact info.

Kaetchen

After spending some time searching Navision tables - I have discovered "Responsibility Centre".
Again...I don't have permission to use it [-X
Is this a separate module, which we need to buy?

Does anyone uses it....and has some advice?

kine

Resp. center is separate granule. It can be used to "split" responsibility for each user - for example it can be used for "hidding" documents for another resp. center etc.

Responsibility Centers (3,060):
With this granule you can setup profit centers and/or cost centers. A company can sell items with specific prices and related to a responsibility center. The functionality provides the ability to tie a user to a responsibility center so that only sales and purchase documents related to the particular user are displayed. In addition, users get assistance with entering extra data, such as dimensions and location codes.
Requirements: Multiple Locations

Miklos_Hollender

Kaetchen,

"user-friendly report creation" is a BS fed by salespeople to inexperienced people. In reality, report design is always a programmer's task, unless primitive Pivot reports like "sales amount by item groups and profit centers" are enough for you, which is rarely the case.

Consider this: I have a client, who have some Items that have Variants, and some other Items that not. Even an simple inventory list, which looks very simple from an end-user viewpoint, means programming, because for each Item, I have to determine whether it has Variants or not, if it has, then I calculate and show the inventory, if it does not, then loop through each Variant and show the inventory for each one. You can't do this without programming, in a user-friendly way. Forget it.

Alex_Chow

Responsibility center is typically used in an environment where you have multiple sales office and each sales office is responsible for their own customers.

Back to your original question, stating that you know programming or the concept of relational database is a good start. But you still need to understand the purpose of each field in Navision.

It's just like saying you understand accounting, but to say that you can file a corporate tax return just because you know accounting would be grossly irresponsible.

Kaetchen

Hi All,

I agree with all of you - but fact of life is that MS has created a very unprofessional way of I.T.

Nobody would have asked an accountant to create a report on a AS400 or a Mainframe from IBM.

But know thanks to MS Office Products users supposed to have knowledge about MS Access, Excel or Qry. But all this software packages require some understanding of data processing.

Employees claim in there CV's they know Excel or Access even they never did a training or course and of course you can train yourself to a certain point, but there is a limit.

We know it's a sales trick to sell a software product - but CEO and other Excecutives don't know. As soon as someone can create a simple formulae in Excel they believe people can program.... ](*,) not to mention the people themselves.
I have experienced lot of programmers - experienced, unexperienced and also unethical practise (coding VAT values in programs).

I understand exactly how complex Navision or SAP is, but not the users who are feeling great when they insert a picture into a program and it shows really on the report.
It's a bit like someone who can drive a car and speeds thinks he is Michael Schuhmacher... just human ignorance.

However,I appreciate your input and hope to learn more of Navision this way. Hopefully I get some courses as well and don't have to work in this unprofessional manner. [-(

themave

I don't think you do understand, because if you had an ibm mainframe or similar you would have the reports that a programmer made for the system and nothing else, when you wanted a new report you would pay a programmer to make one for you.

What Navision is doing is it has the canned reports, and if you want something different then you can do a little research and learn basic c/side and create your own reports, or you can use a third party app, like crystel reports and create them. Or you can just modify the existing reports, believe my on our old mainframe system, getting a report that wasn't on the list just didn't happen. If I asked for a new report, I was told sure you can have it as long as it is one of the three already on the list. Otherwise we will have to submitt it to the provider to see if they felt it was a report worth adding to the next software release.

Nobody is asking an accountant to create a report on Navision, it has many built in reports, but it is offering an option you don't readily have with a mainframe or AS400

Kaetchen

We have now used up 100 reports and have to pay for creating more.

We have 7 companies, every sales invoice and remittance advise has it's own logo (hard coded) in the report.

The guy who did this was a accountant and was supposed to write reports... if he would be still here he would creating more and more reports this way.
Postings Group were set up but never used.
We did the GST reconciliation with copy and paste into Excel.

All our company information is doubled up in Excel spreedsheets and Pivots. If an employee leaves he takes the knowledge of his spreedsheets and the logic around it with him.

From a business point of view a payed programmer would have been cheaper.

But I must admit I'm not a PC fan. It is great for personal use, but in a business enviroment of our size I would prefer an AS/400 or Mainframe.
I worked with both for many years and this is just my personal opinion

Alex_Chow

Then your statement should be that the people that you've experienced and worked with are unprofessional. Not the software.

Difficulty is relative. What's easy for one person is hard for another. There are too many people out there (including myself) that say things "suck" when they really don't when you take the time and effort to learn and understand it.

Paying for a programmer to develope reports for you is a good business investment if your company do not have enough resources to do it on your own. Just like any other business functions that you cannot justify the cost of doing it internally, like payroll.

Is it the responsibilty of the accounting department to handle payroll? Yes. Do they outsource some of their functions? Definately. Can they handle payroll on their own if they have unlimited time, energy, and are not lazy? Absolutely.

The same concept applies to the IT department. You're responsible for Navision and all of its reporting. If you can't and will not make the time available to learn it or do it, then outsource it.

Alex_Chow

Oh for the record... The Navision report development environment is very easy to use and can generate reports faster than any reporting programs that I've seen.

Just my 2 cents.

themave

deadlizard wrote:

Oh for the record... I do believe that the Navision report development environment is easy to use.

Just my 2 cents.

Me too, You can make almost any report just by starting with an existing Navision report and tweaking it a little bit.

Once you understand that, you can make them from scratch pretty easily.

but you can always say the program sucks, because when you were on an AS400 your company paid a programmer to do everything, and now that you are on Navision your company expects you to do it, and you don't want to.

Kaetchen

Hey guys,

What is your profession?

themave

Kaetchen wrote:

Hey guys,

What is your profession?

I am an end user, the financial controller for our company. I see from your profil you are a controller, you can click on most users profiles and see what they are also.

Kaetchen

I see... my profile needs updating.

At the present I work as a system analyst and doing BPM.
I worked several years as a I.T. Mananger for IBM Midrange Systems
and started working as an accountant after migrating to New Zealand.

Can you recommend any courses or training manuals for Navision?
We will install SQL Server Services and I am probably ending up creating reports because of my I.T. background 15 years ago.

Alex_Chow

I think Microsoft offers development courses for end user. Check with your solution center for the courses available from Microsoft.

Kaetchen

Does anyone has experience with SQL Reporting Services and C/AL and can give me some feedback what will change generally for reports.
Thanks!

kine

Kaetchen wrote:

Does anyone has experience with SQL Reporting Services and C/AL

Reporting services see just Navision tables, without any application logic...

give me some feedback what will change generally for reports.

Everything... :-) Of course, Microsoft wants to use his own solutions... ;-)

Kaetchen

I am not sure we going to continue with Navision.
At some stage I think the software is better than we give it credit for, but the support is so unsatisfying and every issue such as GST Returns, Multicurrency, Dimensions seems so complicated to use.

I could probably spend all day investigating in this forum to get myself educated in Navision, but I don't have the time.

Thanks anyway...

themave

Kaetchen wrote:

I am not sure we going to continue with Navision.
At some stage I think the software is better than we give it credit for, but the support is so unsatisfying and every issue such as GST Returns, Multicurrency, Dimensions seems so complicated to use.

I could probably spend all day investigating in this forum to get myself educated in Navision, but I don't have the time.

Thanks anyway...

all day! you could spend years and still not know it all. I have to agree on the complexity part. The setup is so complicated, the combination of posting groups alone is mind boggling, for a sales order header you have:
customer posting groups,
Customer Price Group
Invoice Disc. Code
Customer Disc. Group
Gen. Bus. Posting Group
Tax Area Code
Tax Liable
Tax Bus. Posting Group
Invoice Discount Calculation

On the line
Posting Group
Gen. Bus. Posting Group
Gen. Prod. Posting Group
Tax Bus. Posting Group
Tax Prod. Posting Group
Customer Disc. Group

all of which get set up in different places, and depending on the combinations used produce different g/l account posting and discounts.

In general the better you understand the setup of Navision, they better you will be able to take advantage of it. But, most companies rely on their solution center (which likely doesn't know how to setup up Navision in the first place) to do the setup when they start on Navision and they never learn it.

If you can take a blank company and set it up completely, you will know more about Navision then most people. What I find a lot going through this forum is that the first answer people get is how to program a change, when a lot of the time Navision can already accomplish what they are asking without built in functionality. But enough of my rant. good luck with Navision, if you stay with it. It can get most anything you want accomplished, especially with a little targeted programing from a knowledgable developer.

Alex_Chow

Kaetchen wrote:

I am not sure we going to continue with Navision.
At some stage I think the software is better than we give it credit for, but the support is so unsatisfying and every issue such as GST Returns, Multicurrency, Dimensions seems so complicated to use.

I could probably spend all day investigating in this forum to get myself educated in Navision, but I don't have the time.

Thanks anyway...

I'm sorry you feel this way about Navision.

Why is your support unsatisfactory? Is it because the management is not willing to invest in consulting hours? Or is it just a personal bad mental imprint of Navision?

All of our customers or end users we've been in contact with swears by Navision.

Can you give us a little more detail on why you're wanting to spend another larger sum of money just to go to another software? Rather than just find a competent solution center? :?: :?: :?:

Alex_Chow

themave wrote:

Kaetchen wrote:

I am not sure we going to continue with Navision.
At some stage I think the software is better than we give it credit for, but the support is so unsatisfying and every issue such as GST Returns, Multicurrency, Dimensions seems so complicated to use.

I could probably spend all day investigating in this forum to get myself educated in Navision, but I don't have the time.

Thanks anyway...

all day! you could spend years and still not know it all. I have to agree on the complexity part. The setup is so complicated, the combination of posting groups alone is mind boggling, for a sales order header you have:
customer posting groups,
Customer Price Group
Invoice Disc. Code
Customer Disc. Group
Gen. Bus. Posting Group
Tax Area Code
Tax Liable
Tax Bus. Posting Group
Invoice Discount Calculation

On the line
Posting Group
Gen. Bus. Posting Group
Gen. Prod. Posting Group
Tax Bus. Posting Group
Tax Prod. Posting Group
Customer Disc. Group

all of which get set up in different places, and depending on the combinations used produce different g/l account posting and discounts.

In general the better you understand the setup of Navision, they better you will be able to take advantage of it. But, most companies rely on their solution center (which likely doesn't know how to setup up Navision in the first place) to do the setup when they start on Navision and they never learn it.

If you can take a blank company and set it up completely, you will know more about Navision then most people. What I find a lot going through this forum is that the first answer people get is how to program a change, when a lot of the time Navision can already accomplish what they are asking without built in functionality. But enough of my rant. good luck with Navision, if you stay with it. It can get most anything you want accomplished, especially with a little targeted programing from a knowledgable developer.

The setup in Navision is indeed confusing at first. But if a person actually sits down and spend some time, they can easily find out what all these posting groups are for.

Like I stated before, it's easier to say something suck just because we don't understand it. Especially when receiving bad consulting from your solution center.

Kaetchen

Thanks for your comments!

Indeed I haven't said that "Navision" is bad, but I don't have the support which I used to have from other companies.

New Zealand has two "serious" solution centers. We switched to the second on and it's the same road.
It might be incompetence or just a bad "customer service attitude" or even NZ's "she'll be alright' mentality :-k

Most inquiries are handled by the software developer who translates exactly the program code.

As an example:

Had a look in your database again.
Under the All User role, there is a line for
Table Data 0 which has all modification right, ie read,delete, insert.
This should not be there
It is effectively saying everyone has super data access, since everyone
should have this role

What does this tell you - the setup is wrong, which has been done by the other solution center.

Another example:

GST Statement (posting)

To print and post the VAT Statement you need a settlement account.
The program returns an error message

Gen Posting Type must be in GL/Account "XXXX"

We look into the COA and there is the Gen Posting Type "Purchase"

So, what's the problem.....???

I try to remove all the posting group values and see it works.

Next time Account Payables needs to raise an purchase invoice for IRD
and gets the error message

"Gen Posting Type" must be in GL Account

We change it back to Gen Posting Group "Purchase" and it works.

I have reported this error to the solution center and they said it needs to be forwarded to MS... (never heard of it again)

So what's wrong apart from the ERROR MESSAGE?

As you mentioned before Posting Groups are complex enough - I certainly don't need more confusion with wrong error messages.

Now we change the COA Setup all the time which can't be right.

Maybe most Navision Users have managed their way around this problems
just as we do, but for a " Standard ERP Software" this should have been fixed.

Maybe you can understand our frustration as we pay hourly rates for our Navision Solution Center to look into problems like that....

I actually mentioned to my boss a couple of days ago to use a solution center from overseas...but they're reluctant to do this.

Usally if I have a general question about a setup - is it really common practice that the solution partner reads the source code?

Please feel free to convince me that the problem is not Navision itself...

Alex_Chow

You can get terrible support from bad VAR provider from any software. Not just Navision.

From your examples, it does seem that your COA and your posting setup is overly complex. However, there might be requirements from the previous management that requires it to be this complex.

Your new solution center should offer you a new perspective and "clean" up your setup based on your new requirements.

If these 2 major solution centers still cannot get the job done, try using a smaller outfit. Smaller companies (like us :oops: ) aims to please each customer they come across since customer reference is the only thing they can show for.