ADCS and production

jknauft

I'm working with a client that is looking for a mobile solution that will allow barcode scanning and production output entry. I know that ADCS is normally used for warehousing entry but is it possible to use it for production entry as well?

Thanks,
Jon

DaveT

Hi Jon,

Yes ADCS can be use for (virtually) any area of Nav. The sample codeunit that ship with it are geared towards warehousing. I have used it for inventory control and bespoke applications.

nunomaia

Out of box ADCS works only for Warehouse. But You should look at ADCS was a framework to build mobile applications. I already have created very specific ADCS applications. So you can build it for manufacturing for read items and similar applications.

jknauft

Thanks. That's what I thought but I wanted confirmation before I spent a lot of time on it.

Do you have a preference between ADCS and Dynamics Mobile? I'm wondering if ADCS will stay around long term.

-Jon

nunomaia

The rule that I use personally is : synchronous applications I prefer ADCS, disconnect applications choose Dynamics Mobile.
Don’t be stuck to these 2 options. Sometimes there are simpler one. For example in a customer, they have chosen to read data in PDA then export data in a text file and import in into NAV by a dataport.

jlandeen

ADCS really consists of 2 parts. There is the communications framework along with all the codeunits and tables that control miniforms. The 2nd piece is all of the minimform data and functional codeunits themselves.

It can be cumbersome to build/configure the your own custom miniforms - so you may want to spend time evaluating just what needs to be developed and estimate how much time it will take to build it in ADCS. But the framework out of the box does provide a simiple light communication protocol that works with new handhelds that have a lot of processing power and olderones. One potential drawback is that ADCS requires a dedicated connection to communicate and does not have any synch type functions like the Mobile framework.

jlandeen

Actually one additional thought on this topic. I've seen other sites where they're using a light web application on the handheld that communicates with NAV on the backend. Many of the handhelds on the market today support a version of Windows CE and can run a light version of IE. This is an alternative way to allow communication with the handheld that can provide a richer development platform as you can work with .Net or other Web Platform to handle as much or as little functionality as required and then sending XML data back and forth to NAV.