Dynamics Nav 5.0 Preview Presentation TechEd

Marije_Brummel

Ladies and gentlemen; We've got it!

The presentation is available at

http://www.mibuso.com/dl.asp?FileID=743&Type=file

Miklos_Hollender

My first impression is that this release widens the gap even more between computer-savvy users and between less educated users.

Two imaginare use cases:

Let's say you are a 26 years old Sales Assistant, entering orders etc. You have been using computers/MS apps/ the wep for a long time, it's part of your job that you often look for those products on the web you don't have fixed vendors for, and even order them on the web. You frequently chat with your friends on MSN, have your own MySpace page and often arrange appointments with customers for the salespeople you assist with Outlook Calendar.

This kind of user will LOVE this user interface. It's just as easy as ordering a book from Amazon, every information is two clicks away and often at your fingertips without an click on the Info Panes! Wow! You gonna be a happy user.

Or somebody who is a mid-level manager... all KPI's and pending activities of his team right on one screen... he will just say WOW!

But let's say you are a 50 years old factory worker, operating a lathe. You are almost illiterate, because you spend your days working with the lathe and spend your evening watching TV. For 20 years you reported the output and scrap quantity and material usage of your work on pen and paper, but 10 years ago a computer was installed beside your lathe and then you had to report it in that. It ran a very simple DOS-based software. You did not like it, but at least the white-on-black, large characters were readable to you after a while and that software was really simple, you only had four fields on the screen, you keyed in the data and pressed ENTER after each, so after some practice, you managed to get used to it. Now this shiny new RPE or EPR or ERP or whatever system on it. It looks like when you saw your son surfing on the Intarweb or how it's called. You got all this information on your screen you will not ever need, it just distracts you, you gotta fumble around with the mouse with strange menus, "expand" these "bars" or whatever those strange, tie-wearing folks told you, and so on. It's so horribly slow and complicated. You can't even see this tiny and strangely looking (not fixed width like in DOS) characters properly.

Or you are an assitant accountant in a countryside company. All your education is a maturity exam. You never understood the concepts of accounting but you learned how to key in vendor invoices, and learn those rules like "if it's buying office supplies, I have to put it on Account 52349, I don't know why, I was just told to put it there so I do". You managed to do it properly with a DOS-based accounting software. And you now got this complex thing... you will hate it.

All in all, NAV5.0 will be an amazingly good business management application for those who have the skills and talents to manage a business. But by standard, it will perform even worse than 4.0 as a simple, "just-type-the-data-in-and-don't-ask-questions" data entry interface for uneducated, computer-illiterate users.

However, based on this demo, it's clear that it can be simplified down just like earlier versions. There is no problem with that. Maybe even it won't take longer than before. But one things is clear, no-customization 9-day RIM implementations got even more impossible than before. It seems MS gave up that kind of "works out of the box" market segment totally to SAP B1 and now are aiming clearly higher, targeting real XXI. century companies with professional, XXI. century users, who want and are able to operate software with a rich user experience.

DenSter

Luckily, we will still be able to customize the app, so if we need to give a lathe operator a really simple screen to enter the very few things he needs, we can give that to him. It will be easy to give it to him looking like a piece of paper, we could even give him a touch screen and a pen so he can write it on there how wonderful modern technology is

bbrown

Don't underestimate the abilities of that 50 year old lathe operator. The worst thing you can do in this business is make assumptions about the skill /educatation level of your clients. That lathe operator knows more about his job then you ever will. In fact, he probably knows more than management. If your job is to produce an application for him to use, he will be come one of your most important assets.

I have had more than one customer past typical retirement age that could run circles around the average college student when it came to computers.

Miklos_Hollender

The problem is I overestimated it too often, not under

However, there are some very interesting sentences:

"Forms are objects that are defined abstractly"

Hm. Does it mean that UI customization could be made in a more general way than before? F.e. instead of painfully setting each field to 14pts font size, one could have all elements of the form inherit an abstract class where it is set? Or, set it up that no form shows Address 2 field in one place?

If yes, then it means that it will be more easy to make application-wide changes. It opens up the possibility to do horizontal add-ons besides the usual vertical ones, if it's true. And if all business logic is a web service, even building DOS-like textmode client running on a Linux box might become possible

But why did they need a new client app for all this? It's 80% like MS CRM and that just runs in Internet Explorer.

ara3n

Also for reports you will need VisualStudio. Will that come part of the instalation?

bbrown

I don't think you will need the full VisualStudio. I think you will just need the parts that are installed as part of the SQL Business Intelligence Studio.

ara3n

bbrown wrote:

I don't think you will need the full VisualStudio. I think you will just need the parts that are installed as part of the SQL Business Intelligence Studio.

But that version comes only with Standard and Developer edition which are not free. What version are they going to include in the CD/DVD?

ara3n

If you look at page 21, which has a screenshot of sales order. Lookup have become drill downs? and the drill down list doesn't have column names? Is this how it's going to look when you want to select customers?
When you tab off the No. field you will move the sell-to customer name instead of sell-to Customer No.?

on page 26. The customer card. There is no assist button beside the No. field? where is the comment button?

What triggers will be deprecated?

I'm happy that they've change file Handling. It is weak in currently.

kine

Change in file handling - it means that there is something to handle the files on server or on client. Do not expect some better C/AL commands for file handling. It is just because Nav will need to know if you want to work with file on the mid-tier or on client...

Miklos_Hollender

Is it sure Visual Studio is necessary? If I understand it correctly, the built-in Report Designer will generate the RDL files and you can modify it in VS but don't have to.

About Reporting Services and other changes: I think solution centers will need to hire more System Engineers. Better be prepared for that. Installing RS is not a piece of cake, so with NAV5 one will need somebody completely assigned to installations, it's not something any consultant can do in the break of a training, like with the native database server before.

As for lookup, it looks rather like an option field (picklist). I hope the lookup shown for Post Codes will not stay in the final - lookup without sorting and filtering would render the system completely unusable.

kine

Yes, you can edit the RDL in any application which is able to edit it... VS is just one example... :-)

Phenno

It seems that problems with migration from any version to NAV5 are multiplicated.

I'm kinda confused with this reporting services... If I have two-tier structure with NDB, how will I have my reports when they requires SQL reporting services?

Waldo

You won't.

The reporting services are only available on 3-tier, Dyn. Client and SQL DB.

Phenno

Waldo wrote:

You won't.

The reporting services are only available on 3-tier, Dyn. Client and SQL DB.

I'm looking at this report transformation tool that turns reports upside-down, so the conclusion could be, I can only choose two-tier OR three-tier structure, cannot use both?

If that is true than, NAV clients for two-tier and three-tier should be different executables cause business logic is on different places (layers, tiers). Am I right?

Waldo

As I understood (and please correct me if I'm wrong):

You start to make your report with C/SIDE (as you know it).
You export it to RDL.
You modify the RDL in e.g. VisualStudio
You publish it to the service tier (IIS)
The modified report is available in the Dynamics (not the C/SIDE) client.

Waldo

I'm looking at this report transformation tool that turns reports upside-down, so the conclusion could be, I can only choose two-tier OR three-tier structure, cannot use both?

If that is true than, NAV clients for two-tier and three-tier should be different executables cause business logic is on different places (layers, tiers). Am I right?

You could see it as 2 different applications, but don't forget this. The application is developed in C/SIDE, modifications are developed in C/SIDE as well ... so EVERY single functionality is available in the C/SIDE client. Thanks to the managed assemblies to C#, you can publish that every single functionality to the service tier (IIS - middle tier), and it comes available to the new Dynamics client. That means you will be able to use the old and new client together ... one will use the C# managed code, the other will use plain old C/SIDE as we always knew.

The modified RDLs will only be available on the new client ... as the C/SIDE client will not connect to the service tier ... where the modified RDLs are available.

Phenno

Waldo wrote:

You could see it as 2 different applications, but don't forget this. The application is developed in C/SIDE, modifications are developed in C/SIDE as well ... so EVERY single functionality is available in the C/SIDE client. Thanks to the managed assemblies to C#, you can publish that every single functionality to the service tier (IIS - middle tier), and it comes available to the new Dynamics client. That means you will be able to use the old and new client together ... one will use the C# managed code, the other will use plain old C/SIDE as we always knew.

The modified RDLs will only be available on the new client ... as the C/SIDE client will not connect to the service tier ... where the modified RDLs are available.

Ok, thnx.

DenSter

Waldo wrote:

That means you will be able to use the old and new client together ... one will use the C# managed code, the other will use plain old C/SIDE as we always knew.

Where did you get that? Who told you that?

Waldo

I went to the ISV Meeting in Denmark a few months ago.

It is not recommended (for maintenance reasons), but it will be possible.

Don't believe me?

DenSter

No as a matter of fact I don't . I've been told by multiple sources at MS that you have to make a choice. I'm sure it is technically possible to pull it off, but it is not intended to be used that way.

btw check out page 12 of that slide show, the big "OR" in the middle.

Marije_Brummel

I don't remember exactly, but what I do know is that, if you want to use the new client you HAVE to use the 3tier structure and the SQL option.

However, the designing will be done in an old client communicating with the 2nd tier, and you can test all your code in the client before uploading it to the service tier.

There will be some checksumvalidation I think between the old client and the servicetier.

DenSter

Waldo wrote:

As I understood (and please correct me if I'm wrong):

You start to make your report with C/SIDE (as you know it).
You export it to RDL.
You modify the RDL in e.g. VisualStudio
You publish it to the service tier (IIS)
The modified report is available in the Dynamics (not the C/SIDE) client.

I understood the same thing, but I am not sure if these are all 'visible' steps or 'behind the scenes' steps. In other words, I am not sure if we as NAV users will have to manually export it to RDL, import it in VS, modify the report, etc. From what I understood is that this is mostly done behind the scenes in a user-friendly way.

By the way, RDL is a reporting standard language (like UML, XML, etc.), so any RDL tool can be used, doesn't have to be Visual Studio. But since SQL Server 2005 comes with the VS report editor you'd be crazy to invest in other tools.

Waldo

Yeah well, who cares ...

I've been told by the MS technicians in person that it will be possible, and it's quite logical that it will. If eventually it will be blocked by Microsoft, that's their choice and really ... I don't care about that. Who wants to maintain a customer with both clients anyway. I sure as hell don't.

bbrown

Waldo wrote:
That means you will be able to use the old and new client together ... one will use the C# managed code, the other will use plain old C/SIDE as we always knew.

I understand that the ability to use the old client in the 3-tier system is for development only. It is so you can test development changes before compiling and submitting to the middle-tier.

DenSter

No me neither, and I doubt there will be many customers who will want to pay for that kind of maintenance. So secretly I do believe it Waldo I just don't think it is supposed to be used that way.

I absolutely love the context sensitive command bars. I am very curious about how you will be able to set that up.

Waldo

don't remember exactly, but what I do know is that, if you want to use the new client you HAVE to use the 3tier structure and the SQL option.

You are correct. The "Dynamics client" (you shouldn't say "new client" ... ) is a very "thin" client that will not execute any business logic at all ... you need the service tier (=2nd tier) for that.

However, the designing will be done in an old client communicating with the 2nd tier, and you can test all your code in the client before uploading it to the service tier.

hm, this is what I got: We'll have a new form-object (for dyn.client only) and I thought we'll have some kind of "web service"-creator-tool or something. When compiling, you create assemblies that will (have to) be put to the service tier (managed).

There will be some checksumvalidation I think between the old client and the servicetier.

Can you explain what you mean?

Waldo

I don't know if this has been discussed already, but: In NAV6, the native client will not exist anymore!

Phenno

bbrown wrote:

I understand that the ability to use the old client in the 3-tier system is for development only. It is so you can test development changes before compiling and submitting to the middle-tier.

What mechanism will disallow users to use native client (hehh.. .now we have native client too)?

If, business logic is in C/SIDE => C/SIDE is reachable through native Client => We must have access to native and thin client in the same time (there, that famous OR in presentation is confusing...)

Phenno

Waldo wrote:

I don't know if this has been discussed already, but: In NAV6, the native client will not exist anymore!

Is that means discurs from C/SIDE or they will made a development tool out form the native client?

DenSter

You're supposed to make a choice of architecture per implementation. Depending on your choice, you design the new Dynamics forms, or you design the Navision forms. How we are supposed to develop the service tier (i.e. how is that part visualized) I don't understand.