Roles and responsibilities of Navision Consultant

bstoyano

well, david and kriki,
and all that took part in this discussion.

Thanks for clarifying the matter. So far I have restrained from advising customers on business processes. Because changing the way they work may require changing the corporate internal structure, their relations with their customers, etc. In this aspect I still have some reserves on "teaching customers to do their business". Maybe we should aim at achieving good balance between our sales and customer's efficiency :?

David_Singleton

bstoyano wrote:

well, david and kriki,
and all that took part in this discussion.

Not sure why you think the discussion is over? Did you want to get the last word in? I think its just started.

bstoyano wrote:

Thanks for clarifying the matter. So far I have restrained from advising customers on business processes. Because changing the way they work may require changing the corporate internal structure, their relations with their customers, etc. In this aspect I still have some reserves on "teaching customers to do their business". Maybe we should aim at achieving good balance between our sales and customer's efficiency :?

Everyone will have their own opinion, but mine is that a Navision partner is not a company that sells software. If you are selling SQL or Excel or used cars, then you can expect to sell a product in a box and support it. But Navision is so much more, its the whole future of the company. As a Navision partner, your company should plan to show the company NOT how to use Navision as a product, but how to use Navision to better their business and increase their profitability. If you don;t have that skill set in house then you need to acquire or develop it. Fifteen years ago you could sell a product, but today its a lot more.

Belias

bstoyano wrote:

well, david and kriki,
and all that took part in this discussion.

Thanks for clarifying the matter. So far I have restrained from advising customers on business processes. Because changing the way they work may require changing the corporate internal structure, their relations with their customers, etc. In this aspect I still have some reserves on "teaching customers to do their business". Maybe we should aim at achieving good balance between our sales and customer's efficiency :?

If a customer has chosen NAV to substitute their old system, it means that it was not satisfied by it and they want to change the way they approach with their ERP, in my opinion: who better knows the best approach to NAV?Usually the people who sell it!!

kine

Yes, the main know-how of each VAR is really the "know-how", not that they are selling NAV and are able to customize it.

The "teaching" is not "one-way" communication. It is "listen and teach".

We have one customer, who asked on the beginning "If we will ask you for something, what is not clever from your point of view, tell us, and even when we still continue to request it, do not allow us do it.". This was because their previous ERP implementation was disaster, because their "vendor" did everything they asked him for.

bstoyano

to David: Never meant to have the last word in this or any other discussion. :shock: On the contrary, it's very useful for me and as new posts are added it gets even better and more interesting

to Belias: That is a good point. If someone asks for a change then they have to have the will to execute it (even if it means to "execute" some of the managers )

David_Singleton

kine wrote:

...This was because their previous ERP implementation was disaster, because their "vendor" did everything they asked him for.

You just described 90% of the Navision implementations I go in to fix up.

kine

Yes, it is why you have still enough work... and you will have in future....

David_Singleton

kine wrote:

Yes, it is why you have still enough work... and you will have in future....

I am not so sure its what I want though. I really am getting sick of fixing the same screw ups over and over again.

The thing is that customers are not willing to spend money up front to prevent problems from happening, but have no issue paying 10 times more to fix them later.

David_Singleton

kine wrote:

...This was because their previous ERP implementation was disaster, because their "vendor" did everything they asked him for.

One that I really liked...

The customer had an issue that they often post shipments after 5pm after FedEx have made a pickup. This means that the Date on the posted shipment Navision did not match the shipment date in FedEx (which they manually entered into the Shipment date field). So they said to their consultant "We need the posting date on the Posted shipment to be the same as the "Shipment Date". This spec was sent to the developer.

Later when I got involved and asked for a list of issues, one of them was that "randomly" Posted Shipments disappear from navigate.

Eventually in Codeunit80 I found this little gem:

SalesShptHeader."No. Printed" := 0;
      SalesShptHeader."Posting Date" := SalesShptHeader."Shipment Date";
      SalesShptHeader.INSERT;

They did exactly what the customer requested.

[-o< [-o< [-o< [-o< [-o<

matttrax

David Singleton wrote:

      SalesShptHeader."No. Printed" := 0;
      SalesShptHeader."Posting Date" := SalesShptHeader."Shipment Date";
      SalesShptHeader.INSERT;

I'm glad it's still early here so no one can see / hear me laughing so hard.

At least you don't have a commissions system that deletes and rebuilds its ledger entries every day. Complete with a backwards moving progress bar to show the deletion status. #-o

David_Singleton

matttrax wrote:

Complete with a backwards moving progress bar to show the deletion status. #-o

:shock: That I must say I have never seen. easy enough to do of course. But very funny.

kriki

kine wrote:

We have one customer, who asked on the beginning "If we will ask you for something, what is not clever from your point of view, tell us, and even when we still continue to request it, do not allow us do it.". This was because their previous ERP implementation was disaster, because their "vendor" did everything they asked him for.

This is what all customers should say to their partners!


An intelligent person does not make mistakes.

A wise one learns from his mistakes!


I don't remember who told this, but it is true.

But I always wondered about this: What is a person that learns from the mistakes others make?

Belias

just found this ...i'll post the comment in the documentation, too

Documentation()

#AVI2.0-03 2006.10.20 VP
    Added function DeleteBlankRecord()
    Added code in cmdNewCustomer - OnPush()
                  Form - OnAfterGetRecord()
                       - OnTimer()

cmdNewCustomer - OnPush()

//Begin#AVI2.0-03
CurrForm.EDITABLE := FALSE;
Rec.INIT;
"No." := '';
Rec.INSERT;
//End#AVI2.0-03

DeleteBlankRecord()

//Begin#AVI2.0-03
IF "No." <> '' THEN
  IF lRecCustomer.GET('') THEN
    lRecCustomer.DELETE;
//End#AVI2.0-03

DeleteBlankRecord is called in Ontimer, every 2 seconds...

Morale: they created a bug with the button, and they solved it in the worst way with OnTimer. All this have been done in the same day! Cool! :thumbsup:

kine

kriki wrote:

An intelligent person does not make mistakes.

A wise one learns from his mistakes!

I know another:

One learns from mistakes, but only blockhead from his own...

youcantouchthis

Belias wrote:

just found this :...i'll post the comment in the documentation, too

i hope you'll discuss about this error with person who made it, not just write it in the documentation....because an intelligent person helps others to understand mistakes, above all if he's a collegue of yours or he's working on the same project. it's a team working, isn't it?
...when you started working someone helped you...
a great developer, as a great consultant, is first of all modest.

David_Singleton

youcantouchthis wrote:

Belias wrote:

just found this :...i'll post the comment in the documentation, too

i hope you'll discuss about this error with person who made it, not just write it in the documentation....because an intelligent person helps others to understand mistakes, above all if he's a collegue of yours or he's working on the same project. it's a team working, isn't it?
...when you started working someone helped you...
a great developer, as a great consultant, is first of all modest.

If I read correctly this was from 2006, so probably he wont even be able to find who did this four years later.

Belias

on 20 october 2006 I was at school...i didn't even know navision.
We were talking about bad nav implementations inherited from other companies in the last two posts...I didn't even know who wrote this code, but certainly it was not in our company, because this project begun after i begun to work.

You're right, if i've known the person who made the mistake, i would certainly explained him the error.

matttrax

My current company is the definition of a working disaster. I kid you not, not a single base report works correctly, or at all, because they have changed so many things in an incorrect way. One day I'll get them on a supported, semi-close to base version...at least I hope to.

Alex_Chow

vyanku wrote:

Hi,
What should be the roles and resplonsibilities of Navision consultant having 3+ year experiance?

Make it work.

David_Singleton

Alex Chow wrote:

vyanku wrote:

Hi,
What should be the roles and resplonsibilities of Navision consultant having 3+ year experiance?

Make it work.

you can't get a clearer answer than that.