Usage in Dynamics NAV for hours, billing and yearly invoices

mdPartnerNL

10 years ago there wasn't that much functionality in Navision so we created our own functionality as a Navision partner to invoice our customers.

Time Registration.
We use a special sheet to type in hours. Weekly we process this in a job journal and create invoice for the customer.

Yearly upgrade.
In Blanket orders we added a frequency date formula to calculate the next moment for a new order.
On every Blanket order line we added a frequency quantity. So every month, year, 3 years, a new SO is created.

We are about to update our own administration database to NAV 2013 and need to update that code too, so the question is;

What functionality do you use in NAV for this? Have a better solution? Please share and any help or info is appreciated.

Marije_Brummel

My book contains a chapter about jobs and how to use them as a NAV partner.

mdPartnerNL

Mark Brummel wrote:

My book contains a chapter about jobs and how to use them as a NAV partner.

Yes, I have read that part of course and we are using just about the same procedure. If a customer wants to use this they need to extend the license I think?

And for annual invoices.. do you this manually?, different system?

Marije_Brummel

Do you know how long ago it was when I wrote my book? I have to look it up mate.

dkone

Hi,
What about Service Management ? With Service Contracts you can easily make periodical invoices.

That was a question when i read Mark's book... Why didn't he use the Service Management?

Regards,

Dkone.

Marije_Brummel

The book does not cover Service Management and I needed an example for the Jobs module. That's all.

Marije_Brummel

Good that you folks all know my book so well though.

dkone

Hi Mark,
I have to say that your book is really the best i have read about Dynamics NAV...
It's not for complete beginners, but for those that made thousands of mistakes in Dynamics NAV (like i did)... That's THE book. It's a kind of explanation of "Navision's way" for 60 $. Real world examples with tricks, it's awesome !
(I also read the Mattrax's cookbook , "Implementing Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009", the Microsoft training material, the Developer's Guide,tons of Mibuso's posts, .... exhausting )
Maybe you'll make some day a "sequel" to this book with service management. I'll be happy to read it.

I'd always tought that i should wrote a "Dynamics NAV, A Complete beginner's story. " with all the books and resources that rock, including yours... One day maybe .

Regards,

dkone.

Marije_Brummel

Thanks. You just made my day. 8)

Alex_Chow

Too late, I already wrote a beginner's book.

http://www.packtpub.com/getting-started ... pment/book

Anyway, for annual billings, Service Management would fit better. Actually, Service Management would fit better than jobs.

The reason most solution centers use Jobs is because prior to version 3.7, Service Management was not part of the standard product. The closest thing to what we could use was Jobs.

Even in version 3.7 when Service Management was released as a standard product, it was really not usable. But from version 5.0 forward, it fits more of what we're doing. It supports annual contract billing, scheduled maintenance, time/material billing, fault/resolution codes, etc.

I'm assuming for the next version of Mark's book, he'll recommend Service Management?

Marije_Brummel

Yeah, the next version of my book... Uh huh... You know how much time climbs into writing don't you. :roll:

Anyway, we are working on it, there is a plan. Let's see what happens.

Alex_Chow

Mark Brummel wrote:

Yeah, the next version of my book... Uh huh... You know how much time climbs into writing don't you. :roll:

Anyway, we are working on it, there is a plan. Let's see what happens.

You mean the book doesn't write itself?

dkone

Alex Chow wrote:

Too late, I already wrote a beginner's book.

http://www.packtpub.com/getting-started ... pment/book

I'm going to order it as soon as possible... I'll see if with this book, I would have avoided the mistakes i made / i could do.

Thanks for the response about service Management, i didn't know why it's so underrepresented in MIBUSO.

Something i don't understand either is the lack of books that talk about real implementation... Learning the C/AL, Flowfield ,WebService or RDLC or (whatever technical terms you want) is sooooo easier than learning for example : CU12, Posting group, VAT Entries, Purchase consumption with jobs,entry type in service management...

few volonteers ^^?

Regards,

Alex_Chow

dkone wrote:

Thanks for the response about service Management, i didn't know why it's so underrepresented in MIBUSO.

The reason why it's under-represented? It's because partners, like customers, are resistant to change. The old solution center used jobs, and new solution centers that hire experience developers, when asked what they use, they'll say that used jobs at their old company.

Jobs has become so normal, that asking solution centers to drastically change to use Service Management will not fly well. Add on to that any internal projects are usually deemed "non-billable". This is why no solution centers used service management.

Service Management is something new. And to be honest, Service management prior to version 5.0 sucked really bad. Not only that, if you used SM in version 4.0, upgrading to version 5 basically wiped out your history.

For the record, I also use Jobs. :oops:

Alex_Chow

Also, my blog focuses on the implementation side of things. I feel the technical stuff has been covered to death by other blogs already.

Right now, I'm focusing on manufacturing. Perhaps service management is something I can cover later.

dkone

Alex Chow wrote:

Also, my blog focuses on the implementation side of things. I feel the technical stuff has been covered to death by other blogs already.

Right now, I'm focusing on manufacturing. Perhaps service management is something I can cover later.

Alex,

I'll be happy to read something about service mgt. from your blog !

By the way, I like your blog.... My favorite posts : "failed implementations" and "Small Partners and the new MPN Requirements". As a (really small) business owner, it speaks to me. I really think that smart companies are small companies (the reverse is not true). My customers are happy, and Microsoft is not ^^

Listening to your thoughts make me a believer in NAV. Listening to Microsoft SPA/Minimum revenue make me sad.... (i know that you already explained the problem between software selling and service selling... But it's still a problem ).

Regards,

Dkone

dkone

Maybe it's out of topic.... But it's GENERAL chat

mdPartnerNL

I would like to use functionality as a partner in NAV that my customers can use too. So for SM they need to buy the extended pack in NAV 2013. Am I correct?

The new Timesheet in NAV 2013 looks usable and is included in the starter pack. Any cons?

Miklos_Hollender

Well my first 2 employers did not last long enough to need this

The third one survived long enough to need it. First and third employer had their own web based timesheeting tools, linked to NAV. Third one actually had a smartphone versions around 2007 or so already, where the customer could "sign" the timesheet. This back then smartphones were not even capacitive, just these soft touchscreens and pens. Clever guys, miss working for them, but I just wanted to live elsewhere.

Fourth one had a complex time recording, service, cost accounting, support, project management, invoicing, everything in a nicely integrated tool but only NAV no web based - we were focusing on add-ons, did not leave the office much.

Now I am at the end user side. The most interesting part is the maintenance invoices I get. It seems there are some complex time calculations e.g. when we buy 10 tables then they calculate the maintenance of the extra objects until the next renewal period. This seems the tricky part otherwise simple.

Miklos_Hollender

It seems everybody is writing books, should I, too? Like this doc of mine, just bigger: http://mibuso.com/dlinfo.asp?FileID=744

I am thinking about catalogizing common, "should be standard" customozation requests and their solutions...

Miklos_Hollender

Alex Chow wrote:

Service Management is something new. And to be honest, Service management prior to version 5.0 sucked really bad. Not only that, if you used SM in version 4.0, upgrading to version 5 basically wiped out your history.

I embarrassed. I remembered how much it sucked, told every prospective customer we will customize something instead, and never even bothered to look up its improvements after that. You say it was fixed up like 7 years ago? I am really embarrassed to have missed that

(In my defense, the service market is really small as far as actual repairs go, we live in a buy, use and throw away economy, and the customer service stuff is properly covered in MS CRM. Two employers ago, around 2008 I used MS CRM for support and customer service and it was really cool.)

Please don't tell me they also fixed up HR, or Business Intelligence, or Business Notifications or Approvals which were too failed features I looked up once, decided they suck, and never looked at them again

I got too much used this cook your own little soup because the standard sucks mentality really.

davmac1

Service management now is pretty good and there are service organizations still. It handles warranty, service contracts, billing, etc.

I had 2 Unisys repair people come out 2 days in a row to fix my $600 Dell laptop under warranty.
Once upon a time, Unisys was a mainframe company. Now they provide field service for other manufacturers. (Probably other services too - they are not on my radar.)
There will always be products that require field service.

The other products you mention are about the same or gone.
Approvals is minimal. A more encompassing workflow product is usually a much better solution. This is probably why Zetadocs Express is free - get people used to NAV, docs, and Sharepoint, then upsell them to the editions with more features and workflow.