Top reasons to use NAV 2009

ta5

Hi
Yes, I have read the marketing material, but I'm looking for some more arguments to use NAV 2009. I'll start here, probably you can add more, maybe from the developers point of view or whatever:

- Role Based Client (its rolebased and looks modern, uses role center)
- 3-Tier and its possibilties
- Easy to expose webservices
- New reporting possibilities

Thanks in advance
Thomas

kine

-Wider configuration by user itself (hiding fields and fasttabs, adding new tasks etc.)
-You are not loosing settings by compiling objects (zup file problems)
-Sending notifications to other users about different things like problems with orders etc. (more support for "workflow")

ta5

Thanks Kamil.
Counting the number of postings in this thread it seems to be quite hard to find a lot of more "killer reasons"

Thomas

Waldo

Well, how many reasons do you need?

If you read the official highligts, you see that these are the things they want to emphasize as well ...
https://mbs.microsoft.com/downloads/cus ... lights.pdf

Waldo

And here again, where they mention the reasons to upgrade... .

generic

The two links are marketing BS.

The whole working faster and be more productive is not true.
Try to do a person task on classic and RTL client and see who finishes it faster.

I would wait till they release a product that will scale on SQL.
A programming language that allows us to utilize SQL the way it should be.

freddy.dk

For people who are used to use the Classic client, they might be more productive in the classic client for now - but it is always the case when something new comes out - you have to learn how to use it.
In some cases - you will also be able to do things in the classic that you cannot do in the RTC - so there the Classic will be more productive.

For new users - there is no doubt that the learning curve for the RTC is way smaller than the Classic and for new customers - the RTC sells the product way better + shows the direction of the product.

But you where in fact asking for reasons to upgrade.

In the TAP we have seen that the customers that have upgradet typically have some users who wants to stay on the classic due to the above reasons - but we also see users taking advantage of role centers to change the way they do work and have better insight into their work. We have also seen that new customers are very happy with the RTC - and never actually starts the Classic Client.

We (being MS) are of course aware of this and will be looking closely at the feedback we got on the classic users who feels less productive - we need to make those users use the RTC as well - not because they have to, but because they want to.

My personal opinion is that partners and ISV's should take NAV 2009 very serious and move all the solutions we have on to 2009 ASAP - customers might in some cases have to wait until these products are ready, but with the mixed mode I see more reasons to upgrade and start exploring the RTC than not to upgrade.

ta5

Thanks for all the contributions. I actually did not intend to start a discussion about pro and con, but otherwise it seems inevitable to compare rtc and classic.
Thanks again
Thomas

Tronholm

Be aware of lost functionality!

viewtopic.php?f=32&t=30606&view=unread#unread

David_Singleton

I think this is a very interesting topic. We had a very similar topic just over 10 years ago with all the exact same topics.

"What advantages are there of Navision Financials over Navision for OS/2-DOS?"

And PC&C back then the same (in my opinion) mistake that Microsoft are doing now.

Back then the market drive was the Windows client. It was a true Win 95 application, not a Screen scraper. And the client base perceived Financials as a new Client.

In fact moving to the Windows environment opened up a slew of new possibilities. The code base was now compiled and cached instead of interpreted p-code. But most importantly it opened up access to new opportunities that did not exist before. Things that today we take as common place.

Now we see Role Tailored Client in a fancy graphical environment, and that offerers a lot, but really NAV 2009 is so much more than the surface we see, and I get disappointed by marketing that concentrates on the superficiality of it.

Of course the first thing that the technical savvy see, is Web Services, and the options that this opens up. The three tier it self opens up system management possibilities that we didn't have before.

We now have a solid step towards SQL Server Reporting Services, yes its a compromise solution, but its a good compromise, and of course just the first step to being bale to truly manage reporting in Navision. Instead of just having people "print reports".

We now have managed code. Navision has always been extremely friendly to developers, and without that friendliness we would never have been able to have the applications that we see today. We never really think about how gracefully Navision handles silly errors that in say C++ could simply result in a BSD. Now moving those to a managed environment is a huge task, that I always think similar to the move of Release of Lotus 123 from assembler to C and still managed to keep similar performance, but get things manageable. We see no real benefit of this right now, but it means that they ow have abase to work from for the next version. With errors cache and stuff like that all sorted out.

I do understand the need for the WOW factor, but I really do believe that the RTC distracts form what NAV 2009 is really all about.

David_Singleton

Oh and on lost functionality, we lost a lot more moving from DOS to Windows. There were great features that just vanished, some came back some never did, such as:

Red Screens
SETGLOBALFILTER
Ctrl+<Right Arrow>
Dot Matrix printer support
Changed Hot Keys

we got by, and with the new features we now had we were able to solve our problems.

And of course in the early versions of Financials you never got the same data entry speed as DOS, but soon we worked around it, we found different ways to do things, and we got there. And back then it was a big bang, at least now you can run Classic for power users, and RTC for business users, so you get the best of both worlds.


<and this now looks more liek a blog than a post>

Alex_Chow

I'd say the number 1 reason to use NAV2009 is reporting! The ability to print to Excel and PDF directly. The use of reporting services to sort reports anyway you like.

We all know the pre NAV2009 out of the box reporting blows chunks. This is a much needed improvement.

themave

Reason to not upgrade, cost.

even paying for support and having the right to upgrade only gets you right to upgrade,

you still have to pay to have the upgrade performed on your database.

just got a qoute to upgrade our 4.0, native database to SQL database on 2009 classic client

170-200 hours to upgrade data and object cost range $33,150 - 39,000

Sql upgrade not software, just the upgrade process
12 - 16 hours cost range $2340 -3120

Payroll upgrade
8 - 12 hours cost range 1560 to 2340

rough upgrade cost range $37,050 - 44,460

we have one two add-on one a direct ship add-on that cost $1000 to begin with, so it can't have too many modifications needed, and a integrated credit card solution, besides that pretty standard database.

There have to be some pretty compelling reasons to upgrade for that price.

this is why I hate Microsoft software maintenance fees, they get you nothing, but a right to pay someone to upgrade your system.

themave

Alex Chow wrote:

I'd say the number 1 reason to use NAV2009 is reporting! The ability to print to Excel and PDF directly. The use of reporting services to sort reports anyway you like.

We all know the pre NAV2009 out of the box reporting blows chunks. This is a much needed improvement.

I would suggest paying for crystal reports, and a good pdf writer, and paying a solution center to integrate those, seems the cost would a lot less then upgrading to Nav2009

kine

It is why customization are not good from upgrade point of view. But you are writing the amounts, but you did not get us info about DB size, count of modified objects, if you have some own development (e.g. because you have report designer, application builder or SD). This is big part of the cost. And you have other solutions - upgrade centers, cheaper partners etc. (but take into account some additional risk...)

themave

kine wrote:

It is why customization are not good from upgrade point of view. But you are writing the amounts, but you did not get us info about DB size, count of modified objects, if you have some own development (e.g. because you have report designer, application builder or SD). This is big part of the cost. And you have other solutions - upgrade centers, cheaper partners etc. (but take into account some additional risk...)

only minor customizations, all done by the solution center, so they know exactly what they are. database size 27 gig, I would not have them do any report upgrades, or forms customization, after the upgrade is complete, I would change the forms appearance, so they would just upgrade to standard forms and reports

Sample of a typical customization we have had,

1. Make a PO cost be the standard cost, not the last cost paid
2. Add custom fields in customer table, such as data account opened, all in the 50000 range, none of which are used by anything but our own reports they we create and customize ourselfs.

we don't have application builder or SD, but are considering getting them, getting a copy of latest license for 2009, and dropping microsoft maintance completly, it would save money and allow us to add things we want.

and saying you shouldn't modify your database if you want to upgrade, takes away probably the most appealing aspect of Navision, the ability to make it fit your business. If I wanted a program with no flexibility so I could easily upgrade later, I would not have ever picked Navision. But in my view, there is no benefit to paying microsoft support, If our corporate headquarters didn't say company policy is to be current on support for ERP. we wouldn't be.

themave

I believe I have a good solution center, I don't think they are trying to pad the bill at all. Which doesn't change my opinion on Microsoft maintenace fees. Which I think are highway robbery. Plain in simple, they give you the right to the software, and nothing more. At least when we started with Navision, before Microsoft, in 1999, mainanance was 10% and it included money for the solution center to actually do some work. When Microsoft raised the support to 16%, they also cut out anything for the solution center. so we pay more for less.

I'll ask you, how many of your clients even get service packs applied. Since they are just like a minor upgrade, and cost a lot. (even though they are free with current maintance)

kine

Of course I do not like the fees too (just to make it clear ;-)) - mainly if in some periods there was no new version for few years.

For me the biggest part is the Data upgrade, and it is understandable - upgrading process itself will take hours, you need to repeat it few times (correcting mistakes between etc.) + result cross-checks. Upgrading objects in with small customization can take 1-3 days, depends on developer/problems/customization (do not forget that some customization must be re-designed to be able to transform them into pages). I do not know if you want to use RTC or not, if you want to have Reports redesigned into RTC or you will be using still the classic reports etc., customization of RoleCenters etc. - it is additional cost which was not there in previous upgrades...

generic

I heard from people from convergence that they should wait for SP1 for 2009 to upgrade.
Otherwise you will be pulling your hair out. Be warned. ](*,) ](*,) ](*,) ](*,) ](*,) ](*,) ](*,)

themave

generic wrote:

I heard from people from convergence that they should wait for SP1 for 2009 to upgrade.
Otherwise you will be pulling your hair out. Be warned. ](*,) ](*,) ](*,) ](*,) ](*,) ](*,) ](*,)

Plus you will also have to pay your solution center to apply the upgrade which won't be cheap at all.

generic

Clients will be paying also with the licensing change in 2009.

viewtopic.php?f=32&t=30704

Dennis82

Hello,

one of our customers wants to upgrade his navision version, which is currently 3.7. He asks me to create a short
overview of new functions in upper navision versions ( 4,5, 2009 ). Especially he's interested in new functions of
financials and inventory. I could find documents of changes in navision 4 and 5, but unfortunatly i couldn't find
a correspondig document for navision 2009.
Do you know if such a document ( like "Microsoft Dynamics NAV 50 Change Doc" ) exists ?


Yours sincerely

Dennis

ara3n

Functionality in 5.0 is the same as 2009. There are minor changes/ tweaks and bug fixes done in 2009.

2009 is a technical upgrade instead of a functional

kine

And there is documentation about changes in the upgrade toolkit...

Michael_Nielsen_[MSFT]

David Singleton wrote:

Oh and on lost functionality, we lost a lot more moving from DOS to Windows. There were great features that just vanished, some came back some never did, such as:

Red Screens
SETGLOBALFILTER
Ctrl+<Right Arrow>
Dot Matrix printer support
Changed Hot Keys

we got by, and with the new features we now had we were able to solve our problems.

And of course in the early versions of Financials you never got the same data entry speed as DOS, but soon we worked around it, we found different ways to do things, and we got there. And back then it was a big bang, at least now you can run Classic for power users, and RTC for business users, so you get the best of both worlds.


<and this now looks more liek a blog than a post>

David,

I am happy that you remember GLOBALFILTER in the textbased version of NAV

It is back in 2009 SP1 as Rec.FILTERGROUP(1);

This means that if you set filters in CU1 using this group, all tablehandles from that point will have the filter (Record variables, UI, Reports, etc.)and it cannot be seen or changed from the UI

Another thing that now works in 2009 is DBCS. Now DBCS is stored in the database like in 5.0 and displayed and edited correctly in the Role based client + You dont have to change the STX file and seal it like you had to do in 5.0 and previous versions. Like 5.0 DBCS is "as it" and not officially supported, since we dont ship DBCS versions of NAV

ara3n

DBCS stands for Double Byte Character Set?
Any info on how to enable it?

Does the globalfilter work on temp variables as well?

dmccrae

Regarding DBCS, yes this is Double Byte Character Set and the need for changing the .stx file to enable it is gone in 6.0 SP1 as Michael mentioned (for both classic client and NAV Server .stx files).

Instead, DBCS is controlled by the database property that previously was called "Validate Code Page" and is now called "Validate Collation", which you access in the Database New and Database Alter windows. In order to use DBCS code pages from the classic client, or from the NAV Server machine and the RTC, this setting must be disabled in the database. The setting still controls the code page mismatching of the database as it did before, for single-character code pages too.

Other than this, the behavior in the RTC is similar to that of the classic client in this respect, with the Input Method Editor providing the ability to generate the characters.

kine

I am happy that you remember GLOBALFILTER in the textbased version of NAV

It is back in 2009 SP1 as Rec.FILTERGROUP(1);

This means that if you set filters in CU1 using this group, all tablehandles from that point will have the filter (Record variables, UI, Reports, etc.)and it cannot be seen or changed from the UI

I hope that this will not make errors during posting - e.g. when I set filter in FILTERGROUP 1 on G/L Entry, that the posting CU 12 will find correct Entry No. of last entry... ;-)

ara3n

It would probably error that the record already exists.

kine

That's what I am afraid of... if there is no explicit cleaning of this global filter in some points, it can kill whole application and usage of this possibility... I hope that it will be solved somehow (i do not know how the DOS version solved that)..

David_Singleton

"Michael wrote:

"]

David Singleton wrote:

Oh and on lost functionality, we lost a lot more moving from DOS to Windows. There were great features that just vanished, some came back some never did, such as:

Red Screens
SETGLOBALFILTER
...

David,

I am happy that you remember GLOBALFILTER in the textbased version of NAV

It is back in 2009 SP1 as Rec.FILTERGROUP(1);

This means that if you set filters in CU1 using this group, all tablehandles from that point will have the filter (Record variables, UI, Reports, etc.)and it cannot be seen or changed from the UI

Another thing that now works in 2009 is DBCS. Now DBCS is stored in the database like in 5.0 and displayed and edited correctly in the Role based client + You dont have to change the STX file and seal it like you had to do in 5.0 and previous versions. Like 5.0 DBCS is "as it" and not officially supported, since we dont ship DBCS versions of NAV

Hi Michael, thanks for the update. This is great news. Globalfilter was a great tool (if used correctly) and its great to see it back.

Making DBCS generally available is a good step forward also. A good step towards developing in international product.


IN fact its the behind the scenes stuff like this that are reasons for moving to 2009. And unfortunately everyone is still wowing over the RTC instead of looking under the hood/bonnet to see the true power of this product.