How to get started?

vival

Hello,

I'm an new of NAV and trying to learn, I know it's not easy even if i have many years of experience of business applications and .NET infrastructure strong knowledge.

I have some question to post to the forum experts.

1) I bougth the latest books on NAV 2009 suggested in this forum and starting to read it, but i need a developer copy to exercise. How to get a developer copy of NAV? Do I need to buy it? Is it possible to download it? By developer i mean a copy i can play on all the modules.
2) Which is the best way to learn? Do some course? Hire a consultant?

Many thanks in advance to who will get the time to answer.

--vival

David_Singleton

Asking the question is always the first step to solving the problem, so you have already taken the first step.

The next most important step is to understand what Navision is and what Navision isn't.

Navision is an integrated ERP system. Navision IS NOT a development language.

The biggest mistake most newbie make in Navision is to feel that they can simply learn how to program and they will know it all. To learn C/SIDE should take you no more than one week so don't worry about that for now.

Your first step is to learn the Navision base application. You only need the demo version of Navision to to that, which you can download from this web site. If at all possible use the W1 version for learning. Try not to learn from any international versions.

The starting point is to lean haw to:
Create a customer, vendor and item
Purchase and sell an item
Create a purchase order and sales order for an item, receive ship and invoice.
Learn how the posting groups work.

Here are two articles that can get you started:

http://wiki.dynamicsbook.com/index.php?title=Learning_Dynamics_NAV

http://wiki.dynamicsbook.com/index.php?title=A_test_of_your_NAV_skills

vival

Thanks David!

Already installed the Cronus database and starting to do exactly what you told me.

After studing in your Wiki how to get a development version?

Thanks

--vival

David_Singleton

vival wrote:

Thanks David!

Already installed the Cronus database and starting to do exactly what you told me.

After studing in your Wiki how to get a development version?

Thanks

--vival

For now just focus on learning Navision. To get a development version, is simple though MSDN. But that will take some months before you are ready.

OldSchool

(non-expert answer)

There's important point missing: what You are targeting at?
1) If You plan to become NAV user/developer - David showed You the road (nothing to add)
2) If Your target competence - NAV analyst/project manager (as I understand, You have a lot of experience with business apps), then You should add some methodologies skills and knowledge to that plan...

matttrax

http://www.traxidyn.com/blogs/matttraxinger/where-begin

It's a short blog post I wrote with several places to learn. To get a full development license you will likely need to work for a partner.

Personally I find the whole thing to be silly. You pretty much have to be a partner to have a full development license. To become a partner you have to have three customer references which can be hard to come by without a partnership to build a customer base. You also need to be a certified developer...without a full development license to study with of course.

I know there's way more to it, and I understand why it is the way it is, but it's incredibly difficult to do unless you are working / have worked for a partner.

David_Singleton

Well there are thousands of partners out there, so it isn't all that hard to get a job at a partner. The problem these days is that no one wants to spend time to learn properly, it takes at least 3 years to become proficient in Navision, and 5 to really be good. Making the process any more fast track than what it is is just going to lead to more Navision disasters.

matttrax

David Singleton wrote:

Well there are thousands of partners out there, so it isn't all that hard to get a job at a partner.

That might be true world wide, but for those of us that don't want / can't move around the jobs are a LOT less. Even here in Norcross / Atlanta (where I believe NAV used to be based out of after Microsoft bought it, not quite sure of that history) I can count the number of partners on one hand (it's not 14 as the solution finder site suggests). In the US, counting satellite offices as separate companies, there are a little more than 250. If I remember correctly when you don't count them separately and weed out all the training centers there are somewhere between 120 and 150. More than 50% of states have 2 partners or fewer. More than 25% have none. So easy to find in the US, especially for a junior developer....I have to disagree. I just happened to stumble across NAV and have been doing it ever since.

https://solutionfinder.microsoft.com/SD ... b2b6cc4570

David Singleton wrote:

The problem these days is that no one wants to spend time to learn properly, it takes at least 3 years to become proficient in Navision, and 5 to really be good. Making the process any more fast track than what it is is just going to lead to more Navision disasters.

Agreed. Still doesn't change the fact that to become a partner you have to have experience and that most customers aren't going to hire a company that isn't a partner, resulting in you not getting experience. An established partner is definitely the way to go with NAV when you're starting out in my opinion.

vival

Hello,

i would like to thank everybody for taking the time to open my eyes.

I would like you, if possible, to give me some suggestion. This is my scenario.

I would like to learn Navision since my company has a "small ERP", and one of our customer
for a new business is thinking of using Navision, and since is trusting us would like us to be
part of the implementation.

We know their business and we created some custom procedures to speed up their work.

I guess my company has two solutions:

1) Work with a partner, but of course he will not help us (he wants to retain the customer), also will we be able to use the partner development license?

2) Hire a NAV freelance consultant for a while, so that he can help us, but again how to get the development license? Can we buy the license from Microsoft, without working with a Partner?

Thanks to everybody for any suggestion

--vival

matttrax

If you have never done a NAV Implementation yourself, and have no one on staff that has either, the best thing you can do for your customer is to help them find a qualified partner. It will be up to each of the entities (your company, your customer, and the partner) to decide how to best use the skill sets.

Part of being that "trusted advisor" to your customer is knowing your limitations. Do you really want to implement the software that will be the focal point of their business having never done an implementation? If it goes badly you'll likely lose the customer for everything.

vival wrote:

1) Work with a partner, but of course he will not help us (he wants to retain the customer), also will we be able to use the partner development license?

The partner is their to make the customer happy. If your customer wants you to be involved make that clear in the meetings with the partner before the contract is signed. Whether or not you can use their partner license is up to them, but if I were a partner I probably wouldn't let you. I think it's a violation of their agreement with Microsoft. But that's a whole other bag of worms.

vival wrote:

2) Hire a NAV freelance consultant for a while, so that he can help us, but again how to get the development license? Can we buy the license from Microsoft, without working with a Partner?

You can buy something close to a partner license, but it's not the same. You can buy the ability to write code and modify base objects, but there are still some limitations. And it costs about $30,000 + 16% yearly enhancement.

Hope this was useful. Help your customer find a good partner.