White Paper: Developing Solutions for Dynamics™ NAV "6.

Administrator

White Paper: Developing Solutions for Microsoft Dynamics™ NAV "6.0"
This paper describes the changes in Microsoft Dynamics™ NAV "6.0" and is intended for Microsoft Dynamics NAV developers and salespeople who have used previous versions of Microsoft Dynamics NAV.

In this white paper, the following major areas are described:

• Architectural changes from a two- to a three-tier architecture, including a discussion of the new RoleTailored client and Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server with Web services support.
• Development improvements and benefits for Microsoft Dynamics NAV "6.0", including the introduction of the new Page Designer, changes in Object Designer, and enhanced reporting using SQL Server® Reporting Services.
• Functionality that needs to be redesigned from a previous version to work in Microsoft Dynamics NAV "6.0".
• Step-by-step walkthroughs that demonstrate new development features, including creating and modifying pages and creating a report.
• Appendix with a list of elements that have changed in the three-tier architecture.

http://www.mibuso.com/dlinfo.asp?FileID=916

Discuss this download here.

ajhvdb

Lol, I just thought about a new way of selling NAV 6. During the demo we use the role.. client (it looks very very smart) and when in production the classic client (everything works as expected).

Nikk

Im not even getting too enthusiastic about this new version...while not resistant to change I have a feeling it will be a nightmare to upgrade to 6... :-k

kine

BlackTiger - I understand you, we all told MS nearly same things (I mean "WHAT???") when they told us about the matrixboxes etc.

Yes, new client is limited when compared with C/Side client. And the upgrade will be hard (customers:"Hey, I cannot do that and that, how it is possible? I was able in old version...").

The hardest part of the upgrade will be to "start thinking in another way". It means forget what you were used to do and do it in another way. That there is written that new client cannot interact with local hardware doesn't mean that you cannot use Scanner working as a keyboard - because keyboard is still keyboard... ;-)

For these "specialities" you will need to develop own application, but it is not problem - you will have webservice and you can do the application communicating with the scanner and with NAV in Visual studio in a easy way. There will be much bigger space for using Visual Studio and developing part of the solution in C# than today. Do not forget about that aspect... :whistle:

NavStudent

Part of simplicity of Navision was that all the code in one place, now if you write an external executable, where is to code for this exe is going to be and and if you have 20-30 clients it'll just get more harder to get the code to make modifications.

Second the executable has to be installed on that computer, and the user has to run it separately, because SHELL command will not work. There is no mention of hyperlink.

The whole point of the new client was that you can use the technology from microsoft, You could display Graphical chart, a MS word document inside navision. But you can't.
The only thing you can do is use Outlook email. Why stop there?
My guess this version will barely work with anything out of ordinary.
And it will stay a demo client because you won't be able to work fast enough with it, you won't be able to make any code changes for the client.
Client will hear a lot of, no it's not possible to this in this client.

NavStudent

You can write webservices right now, but people don't do it for a reason.

It take longer to write, cost more for maintanance, you can't debug the exe.

azerty74

Well, I really like the possibility to start using Reporting Services. Looks promising, defining sections & dataitems in Dynamics NAV and then the dataset & report will be generated in SSRS.
The hard part will be moving the code on Reports to somewhere else, especially code behind sections.
But on the other hand, the kind of reports you can create in Reporting Services is really a big step forward.

kine

BlackTiger wrote:

Ok. Calmed down a little.

Some more constructive thoughts.

IMHO, Forms/Pages (from screenshot) are overloaded by information. Ordinary user doesn't requires so much information on single screen. Ordinary Joe/Jane will be in panic. Even in current NAV4/5 many users are asking to simplify UI as much as possible.

And what about keyboard navigation?

Now seriously. Give me please VPC image with NAV6. May be things are not so bad as I see them. I just want to understand. Let's this NAV6 will be buggy and slow, it doesn't matters.

Yes, there are many informations, but it is easy to hide the info you do not want. You can do it in two levels, admin level (done by administrator) and by user. If he hide field he do not want, it will be hidden. And this settings will persist any object change, not like today when the info from ZUP are lost when new object is imported. Yes, it will take time, but I must say that configuration of the page by end-user is wide.

And we all are waiting for the VPC to look at it (I am not saying "looking forward it"...)

And whole client can be used without mouse. Microsoft knows about that part of the client. We repeated it on each meeting with the people from MS. There are shortcuts for everything, but it means that there is more shortcuts than today and may be it will took more than one shortcut to do what you did now by one keypress.

ajhvdb

Did you see that NAV 6.0 video =D> Once allowed, I will send this to my customer/prospect. Excellent stuff.

NavStudent

Navigate with keyboard is a differtn thing than shortcuts.
I hope MS knows that.


If I want to go to shipping tab from general tab, there is a way to do with the keyboard. I hope you can do that with fast tabs.

ajhvdb

http://www.mibuso.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... 5197e07853

kine

NavStudent wrote:

Navigate with keyboard is a differtn thing than shortcuts.
I hope MS knows that.


If I want to go to shipping tab from general tab, there is a way to do with the keyboard. I hope you can do that with fast tabs.

Yes you can. But with how many keystrokes... ;-)

kine

BlackTiger wrote:

Questions:

1. How NAV6 looks at 1024x768, 1280x800 screens?

It is just bigger, with more space for informations. I cannot imagine to run the client on something smaller than 1024x768...

2. What is exactly "Matrice Page"? How does it looks? Is it editable?

It is page with something like editboxes in matrice (fixed count of columns).

3. How "Page" is integrated with local client's Outlook?

You can include page with your outlook e-mails etc. in the client.

4. Can developer assign (and retrieve later) some custom pre-calculated on server side value/variable to the Pages' "Control" row instead of "Field"?

Yes, why not? The walue will be calculated on the service-tier and sent to the client as any other value.

5. Which triggers/events are available for "Page" object?

I am not sure if I can answer that (NDA), but there are no triggers about formating the output. You can format the output through design-time set properties (using variables as values in the properties for some aspects of the output)

6. What is accessible by the code in "Page" object?

Data are accessible. You must know that the output is separated from the logic (and connected just through some variables used to change properties of the output). It means you cannot know who will visualise the page (Rich client, Sharepoint, special client for PDA...)

7. What means phrase "XMLports do not have a OnBeforeExportRecord trigger."? Any value precalculation will be impossible for XMLPorts? Ok, give me workaround how to export some value with complex, not straight-forward calculation? I will appreciate this.

Because XMLPort is not exporting by record but by value, you do not have OnBeforeExportRecord. But look into the XMLPort what you have there. There are triggers connected to each tag.

kine

BlackTiger wrote:

kine wrote:

NavStudent wrote:

Navigate with keyboard is a differtn thing than shortcuts.
I hope MS knows that.


If I want to go to shipping tab from general tab, there is a way to do with the keyboard. I hope you can do that with fast tabs.

Yes you can. But with how many keystrokes... ;-)

Do you mean Office2007-like keyboard navigation?

I requested that on one meeting, but I am not sure if it will be possible. I like this on Office 2007...

kine

BlackTiger wrote:

kine wrote:

I requested that on one meeting, but I am not sure if it will be possible. I like this on Office 2007...

Hmmm... This is "requirement" for "ribbon" interface developers. This is required by MS itself, as well as another "ribbon" functions such as automatic hiding/showing buttons regarding screen resolution.

Yes, but you know, some teams are not so tigthly integrated into Microsoft Corp like other, which are there longer time... ;-) but we will see, if something like that will be in the nearest release...

Miklos_Hollender

Calm down, Blackie, see, I think the new client is what managers see on sales demos and some casual users like managers or salespeople will use, meanwhile all those users who do the real heavy lifting will just use the old client. The problem is, it will increase implementation costs a decisions must be made for every role which client to use, train the key users in both, and duplicate some developments in both (I mean adding fields and functions, one can't do much more in the new one), so that's a problem, but probably not a big one.

Luc, thanks for putting this into the downloads. Mibuso.com needs a new site slogan:

Mibuso.com:
Serving all the information Microsoft can't be bothered to send to their partners

p.willemse6

Miklos, you just explained the need for verticalisation...

Miklos_Hollender

Y'mean vertical add-ons? Dunno - I've seen so many cases where companies in the same industry want thing totally differently.

Though if verticalisation means instead of Navision + 200 days of development, Navision + add-on + 120 days of development, yeah, that can work. But does it worth it?

p.willemse6

Miklos, in our target niche markets we are now able to implement NAV within 15 days. (full blown). Yeah, that's worth it as getting new personnel is the nr 1 issue at the moment.
More orders with the same resources is more EBIT....

Second, don't now the competition in the UK, but in the Netherlands it is fierce. Without verticals, you don't win orders any more ebcause you can not show the customer their "would be process" out of the box.