Book: Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 Application Design (UPD.)

Marije_BrummelMarije_Brummel Member, Moderators Design Patterns Posts: 4,262
edited 2010-09-15 in General Chat
UPDATE : The book got published today. All (pre) orders should now be shipped. (June 11th 2010).

Writing this post is very exiting for me since I kept this news "secret" over 6 months. As you might have noticed, my blog and forum activity was somewhat quiet for the last half year. But there is a reason for that.

I have written a book about Dynamics NAV!

In November last year (2009) Packt Publishing approached me with the question "can you write a book for us". About Dynamics NAV. And I did.

So what is that book about; It's is about the part of NAV that I love most: The bridge between application functionality and technology. The book describes how NAV is designed, using Master Data, Journals, Entries and Registers covered by Documents.

For this book I have written two add-on applications that explain how to design applications for Microsoft Dynamics NAV. The applications have Master Data, Journals and Documents and are integrated into Microsoft Dynamics NAV.

The book also covers the design of Financial Management, Relationship Management, Production, Trade and Jobs. This includes Manufacturing, Warehousing, Item Tracking and Costing.

Lastly I have written a chapter about interfacing and a chapter about application design in general.

I really hope and believe that the information in this book is very usable for both new and experienced consultants, users and developers.

Here is the link to the website where you can (pre) order my book:

https://www.packtpub.com/microsoft-dyna ... esign/book
I would also like to thank the people that helped me writing this book: The reviewers : Daniel Rimmelzwaan, Matt Traxinger, Jeremy Vyska & Eric Wauters. Andrew Good for his effort in chapter 5 (Production) and Michael Nielsen for writing the foreword.

What this book covers:

Chapter 1:

This chapter will introduce you to Microsoft Dynamics NAV. We will briefly talk about the history of the application and talk about the concepts. We will cover some of the basics such as Number Series and Navigation. Then we will discuss the Data Model principles used by Microsoft Dynamics NAV using Master Data, Journals and Ledger Entries covered by Documents.

Chapter 2:

We will implement the theory we learned in the first chapter into a sample application. The goal of this chapter is to better understand how Journals and Ledger entries work throughout the system and how to create your own Journal application. You will learn how to reverse engineer the standard application to learn from it and apply this to our own customizations. We will integrate the application with Relationship Management and Sales in Microsoft Dynamics NAV and extend Navigation and Dimensions for our solution.

Chapter 3:

The heart of Microsoft Dynamics NAV is Financial Management. We will explore how this part of the application can be used and how it is designed. You will learn important concepts such as VAT, Posting Groups, Closing Dates, Entry Application and Financial Data Analysis. We will make some changes in the core application adding new information to the General Ledger and learn how to integrate Financial Management into our add-on solution.

Chapter 4:

When properly used, Relationship Management will help us to analyze the sales data in our system and be more productive towards our customers. We will explore the unique design of this part of the application and integrate this with the sample application we have created in chapter 2.

Chapter 5:

Production Companies are at the start of the supply chain. In this chapter we will learn how to setup Microsoft Dynamics NAV for Production companies. We will discuss the BOM Journal, Manufacturing and Kitting. Item Costing and Item Tracking are key elements when using this part of the application. We will look at the Planning Worksheet and how to create Production orders using Make-to-Order and Make-to-Stock policies. We will reverse engineer the Inventory Profile Offsetting Codeunit and see how this leads to a planning and Purchase Orders. At the end of this chapter we will look at ten ways to customize Production for vertical industries.

Chapter 6:

Without Sales, most companies would not survive. In this chapter we will discuss the relationship between Sales, Inventory Management and Purchasing and how Warehousing can be involved using different levels of complexity. We will learn how Reservation Entries are used in the system from a technical perspective.

Chapter 7:

In Microsoft Dynamics NAV, planning routes for shipments is a feature that is not available. In this chapter we will design and build a solution for this. We will design a solution that can be used by trading companies for their own shipments but also for storage companies. The solution is seamlessly integrated with the Dynamics NAV product. We will extend the journal knowledge we learned in chapters 2 and 3 with new document structures we learned from chapters 5 and 6.

Chapter 8:

The Jobs functionality in Microsoft Dynamics NAV can be compared to an add-on solution. It was designed outside Financial Management and Trade but is still integrated into the product. We will discuss how to implement this functionality using four example jobs and extend jobs with a issue registration & timesheet application using resource groups and calculations.

Chapter 9:

In the last decade, Interfacing became a crucial part of designing and implementing ERP systems. We will discuss how to design a rock solid business to business interface. We will show what technologies are available to use for interfacing and how these technologies are implemented in the standard product. We will discuss all the built in interfaces with other Microsoft applications like Office, SharePoint, BizTalk and Exchange.

Chapter 10:

This chapter will focus on the concepts of application design and how they apply to Microsoft Dynamics NAV. We will focus on Design to Use, Maintain, Support, Upgrade, Perform and Analyze. This includes concepts for User Interface, Version Management and the Development Methodology.

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Comments

  • ShedmanShedman Member Posts: 194
    Hi Mark,

    Congratulations on the book! It must be a great read :)

    Aize
  • SavatageSavatage Member Posts: 7,142
    Congrats also! Looks like you put alot of time & thought into this book.
    =D> =D>
  • matttraxmatttrax Member Posts: 2,309
    I have to say it is a great book. As I told Mark a few times during the review process I would have killed for the knowledge he provides when I was starting out. Although I'm relatively experienced with NAV now (4+ years) I found myself learning a lot as I read.

    The book does a wonderful job of explaining concepts in a way that should keep readers of all experience levels interested. I highly recommend it to everyone. I can't wait to get my copy.

    Congratulations Mark!! :D
  • davmac1davmac1 Member Posts: 1,283
    I look forward to reading it.
    The body of NAV books keeps growing - a sign of Navision's overall success.
  • Marije_BrummelMarije_Brummel Member, Moderators Design Patterns Posts: 4,262
    Thank you so much for the kind words. Looking forward to hear the revieuws after you've all read it.

    8)
  • DenSterDenSter Member Posts: 8,307
    As one of the reviewers I can absolutely recommend anybody that is involved in ANY role in application design in NAV to read this book. For consultants and developers I would even say that this book is an essential read. It gives you a clear idea of what is involved in analyzing requirements, designing solutions based on standard NAV functionality, and developing these solutions in a way that any NAV user will be able to work with custom functionality as if it were part of the base product.

    In my opinion this is in concept and execution the strongest book about NAV yet. It covers the standard application, it shows you how requirements can go beyond the standard, and how to bridge the gap between the two with custom development in a responsible way. Mark draws on real life experience, he covers real world pitfalls, and he shines a bright light on the entire process from defining the functional requirements to implementing custom development scenarios.

    NOTE: When you land on the Packt website, the default price is for "Book plus e-Book". Click on the 'Book' tab or the 'eBook' tab to see the price for individual items.
  • TomasTomas Member Posts: 420
    Can't wait for 19/06/2010!
  • davmac1davmac1 Member Posts: 1,283
    I hope to get some time this long weekend to read your book in detail. I have skimmed the eBook and it looks very good. I am looking forward to reviewing your storage solution in detail. I once worked for a company that tried writing a storage solution, but left out most of your functionality.
    One major question they did not address was: the storage and the regular products for sale shared the same warehouse space and the same warehouse employees. In this situation, I thought they would be better off using standard items and keeping track of which were consigned. It definitely complicated things.
    I am out of there now, so this is more of a philosophical issue for me now.
    I would be interested to hear other opinions about how to handle this type of combined environment.

    Since I hate to wait and also love books, I took advantage of the bundle pricing to get both the eBook and the hard copy.
    Great work Mark! Hope it brings you lots of great consulting projects.
  • HanenHanen Member Posts: 281
    Congratulation on this book =D> , I bought "Implementing MS Dynamics Nav 2009" and "Programming MS Dynamics Nav 2009" and I can't wait to read yours :thumbsup:
    Regards

    Hanen TALBI
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