Dynmics NAV Demo - Sharepoint capabilities

littleoaks

:? Little bit confused. could anyone help please?

Have seen a lot about NAV 2009 with the role tailored client and heard about the capabilities of enabling codeunits etc through webservice - GREAT!

But... what about web parts in sharepoint / Employee portal?

In the demo video that was released a while ago, the one that gives the future vision of production planning , it suggests that every page in NAV/RTC can be exposed through sharepoint.

So is this correct?
Is it going to be part of the initial release?
Do you need MOSS not WSS?
Does this replace employee portal - is it the employee portal?
Does the new DCO licence structure cover this?

The reason I am asking is because IF every page was available as a web part for sharepoint (with all the links and functionality) and the pricing was based upon employee portal (DCO - WSS / DCO - MOSS) then why would people pay the full price for classic client or RTC?

Last question - if you can expose the pages as web parts what technical work is required?

Cheers =D>

DenSter

The Sharepoint display target was taken out of the next release. I don't know if this was because of technical issues or because they couldn't figure out the right licensing.

littleoaks

Oh...

So if you had employee portal in V5 and were moving up to NAV 2009 - what options would you have?
Why would MS make you create own web parts through data content, when the capability is/was there to render pages through sharepoint that would do the same thing (only better)

thanks for the reply.

David_Singleton

littleoaks wrote:

Why would MS make you create own web parts through data content, when the capability is/was there to render pages through sharepoint that would do the same thing (only better)

I think that you may have answered your own question. :whistle:

littleoaks wrote:

IF every page was available as a web part for sharepoint (with all the links and functionality) and the pricing was based upon employee portal (DCO - WSS / DCO - MOSS) then why would people pay the full price for classic client or RTC?

I am very curious as to how other products handle this?

DenSter

littleoaks wrote:

So if you had employee portal in V5 and were moving up to NAV 2009 - what options would you have?

I've wondered the same thing, and my guess (because I don't really know) is Employee Portal for NAV 2009, with the same capabilities (and limitations) as the current version.

littleoaks wrote:

Why would MS make you create own web parts through data content, when the capability is/was there to render pages through sharepoint that would do the same thing (only better)

I don't think it's a matter of "Microsoft making you" do anything, it's just not ready for release, for whatever reason. If it were ready for release, trust me, they would have included it. If it's not ready for release, they won't release it. If they would release it without it being ready, you would not be happy either.

What does work is exposing pages as webservices, and from what I understand is that you can consume webservices with Sharepoint.

littleoaks

I suppose I could flip the question round a little to get my desired answer (or at least an answer I fully understand)

We have a client that has an Intranet and they have the ability to create expenses and time-sheets. This data lives in a separate database and csv files are created to import into NAV.

They wish to move forward an have a more integrated real time solution.
What are my current options when upgrading to NAV 2009 - keep existing intranet UI - but call webservices to update data?
or even better - expose the pages of RTC to sharepoint and have the users key data in directly based upon some specific pages created for time-sheets etc.

they do not have any additional licences to do what they do currently, moving forward they will have to purchase DCO - WSS ??? or external connector.

Employee portal as is in NAV5.1 is too limited to give this functionality IMHO.

Does that make things any clearer? - Not for me !!!! lol ](*,)

kine

From licensing point of view: they have Web Users if they are using employee portal, now they need DCO-WSS. WebUsers can be changed to DCO in som short transition period. It means, from license point of view it is same. WebServices have much broader usage, but you need to create own "Webparts" to use them. External connector is out of scope, if it is intranet. You need external connector only if there as users which you are not able to count (are not employees or some limited count of partners).

But still, if you are accessing the SQL data directly from Sharepoint, you still needs to have enough correct licenses for that...

littleoaks

I thought that would be the case - moving web users over to DCO - WSS users.

The question of web services is answered so thanks - the only thing that is still in the open is the User Interface element of things.

With Web Services we have plenty of options, but we have to create our own UI ?
But based upon the demo video - exposing RTC pages through Sharepoint would eliminate the need for that (to a certain extent at least).

So is the technology there but MS are not shipping it with first release of NAV 2009
When will we get the Web parts that are show in the video - ever??

Thank you all

I still don't feel like I have a full understanding of what gets shipped with NAV 2009.
having webservices is a great thing I agree - having a pre-configured UI through sharepoint based upon the pages I create in NAV 2009 is fantastic!!! (But still a dream) ????

Cheers

kine

It is not dream, it is real, but release of the Sharepoint client was postponed. But I hope that it will be released in one year. We will see what will be official statements from MS around that.

littleoaks

Ok thanks, that is what Denster suggested right at the start of this thread... but it now seems to be sinking in.
Phew.

So what is not clear is if it is a technical or commercial decision really.
At least I know where to focus my attention now.

The other 'tiny' question now is. Why is there now an additional charge/granule for Employee portal? - Is this because you used to have to Buy 10 as a starting point now you can buy individuals?

Thanks Guys!

djoeg

Great Questions Littleoaks, this was helpful, I had the same questions. Still have some.

I have a client who needs EP and I needed to know whether to hold back because of Sharepoint Client.
The web services that's included with 2009, does anyone know what is involved in developing a web interface to expose.... say, Purchase orders etc.

Is the traditional EP available with 2009 ?

thanks

Greg

kine

The web services that's included with 2009, does anyone know what is involved in developing a web interface to expose.... say, Purchase orders etc.

This process is very simple: just add one line into one table, set the name and check one checkbox. And all what is on Purchase Order page, is available as webservice... but than you need to have correct licensing and be sure, that nobody will not use the webservice for different purpose than you want...

TonyH

Hey All,

I've read this post and am not 100% my questions has been answered by the post (semantics maybe), so :

Does the Employee Portal work on the VPC for Nav2009 Marketing Beta?

:-)

T

TonyH

thats a "Negative Ghost rider"

so basically, no, I am not sure if that is an issue with the use of IIS for other purpose, but the documentation says a No no.

T

tooo

DenSter wrote:

The Sharepoint display target was taken out of the next release. I don't know if this was because of technical issues or because they couldn't figure out the right licensing.

The Sharepoint functionality is supposedly going to be released in NAV 2009 SP1 now.

Waldo

Can you give us a reference to the official announcement?

DenSter

tooo wrote:

The Sharepoint functionality is supposedly going to be released in NAV 2009 SP1 now.

No I don't think it is planned for an SP for NAV 2009 either.

ajhvdb

Am I reading this correctly, No sharepoint in 2009, or maybe in SP2. I must admit not carefully reading the partner newsitems lately..

Waldo

I wouldn't know there is already a scope for SP1.

Waldo

TonyH wrote:

Hey All,

I've read this post and am not 100% my questions has been answered by the post (semantics maybe), so :

Does the Employee Portal work on the VPC for Nav2009 Marketing Beta?

:-)

T

I've checked it for you and it doesn't seemed to be installed. I can't find the web parts... .

p.willemse6

latest word from directions is that it will for sure not be in SP1.

littleoaks

Anybody know why there is a delay with this?
Also when can we expect NAV 2009 SP1 ?

Cheers

tooo

Waldo wrote:

Can you give us a reference to the official announcement?

Its not an official annoucement, was told to me be some one in the know that it will supposedly be released with SP1.

David_Singleton

tooo wrote:

was told to me be some one in the know

By coincidence, that "some one in the know" do they have either of the words "SALES" or "MARKETING" printed anywhere on their business card.

tooo

David Singleton wrote:

tooo wrote:

was told to me be some one in the know

By coincidence, that "some one in the know" do they have either of the words "SALES" or "MARKETING" printed anywhere on their business card.

Quite possibly!

p.willemse6

If you look just a little bit further than the technical scope, there are numerous reasons. Competing with companies who offer complete solutions for 400 to 500 euro's per user is one of the main reasons. We can not facilitate users who use a small part of the system, or users who work primarily on an intarnet such as for example project managers with a client a raison de € 2.500. You don;t have to facilitate these people with a big client, however adding a contactperson to a company, or some basic project administration. And yes, you can set up a GUI yourself, but using std MS technology would be a major advantage...

Bottom line is that we need this stuff very bad to be competitive, and I can assure you (don't ask me why, I will not answer) that it will not be in SP1....

Same goes for international support: how can we compete in a more and more globalising economy if MS refuses to combine localisations, but does support this in AX? Does this mean we are not supposed to support companies which work in multiple countries with NAV (and please spare me the speech about multiple database which could be better etc.)? Leaves a pretty small group of very small companies these days...

DenSter

p.willemse6 wrote:

We can not facilitate users who use a small part of the system

Thanks for putting it that way. That's actually the first time that a sharepoint client would make sense. The biggest issue I have with Sharepoint in particular though, is that I have never seen it perform up to any acceptable standard.

p.willemse6 wrote:

I can assure you (don't ask me why, I will not answer) that it will not be in SP1....

These rumors will not go away. You have to let people think what they want, it will work out in the end. At Directions there might have been one announcement, but with enough pressure from the partner channel there might be a change of heart. We'll see it when it happens.

p.willemse6 wrote:

how can we compete in a more and more globalising economy if MS refuses to combine localisations, but does support this in AX?

What bothers me most about this is that they are VERY clear when they say NO to combining localizations, or at least giving us the mechanism to do so more easily, but yet they are actively marketing NAV to this segment. Everybody agrees that the multiple database model doesn't work, and every time VARs put localizations into 50000 objects. In the end it happens anyway, and the only group that loses is the end user, because those type of implementations are more expensive than they need to be.

p.willemse6

Daniel,

your are right. The cross versioning guide gives us a legal way to renumber customizations, however in the end the solution is not ideal.

I don;t know the world, but I do know that every self respecting company with mroe than 30 FTE goes international... From the last 40 projects we took in, 30 work with some sub abroad...

DenSter

BlackTiger wrote:

They even can't create proper multilanguage and even basic unicodes support! ](*,)

The multilanguage works fine. Unicode would be nice, but is not possible at the moment. Either way, it has absolutely NOTHING to do with this discussion.

DenSter

*sigh* :-$
<edit>taking a good friend's advice</edit>

David_Singleton

DenSter wrote:

Still has nothing to do with this discussion. I am getting a little tired of you using every other discussion as a crutch for your complaints.

Daniel, some advise for you......