Jeremy's World of Random Stuff : Microsoft Dynamics

Microsoft Certification Second Shot Campaign

jpalmer — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 12:22:29 GMT

It's back! The Microsoft Second Shot offer allows you to take any Microsoft IT professional, developer or Microsoft Dynamics certification exams and you'll get two chances to pass. All you have to do is register before your first exam. All of the information can be found at the Second Shot web page.

Off to Convergence

jpalmer — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 02:00:52 GMT

We'll I'm back from my annual holiday and ready to get stuck back into working life! I'm off to Convergence 2007 EMEA in Denmark on Sunday, which is our annual Microsoft Dynamics customer conference. Most of my Partner Technology Specialist colleagues will be there too.

See you in Denmark :-)

Certified for Microsoft Dynamics

jpalmer — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 18:33:00 GMT

We've recently launched the Certified for Microsoft Dynamics programme to help our ISV partners differentiate their solutions. This programme proves that the ISV solution has met our standards and awards the solution with a "Certified For Microsoft Dynamics" logo.

I'm frequently asked by both partners and customers to explain what this all means and how to achieve certification. To find out more, you can visit the Innovate on Microsoft Dynamics pages to find out more about the programme and the requirements.

Integrating Line of Business Applications with SharePoint

jpalmer — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 15:54:02 GMT

It's incredibly powerful to be able to search all of your organisations information assets from a single location. One of the benefits of the Business Data Catalog (part of the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server). The BDC is a simple way to integrate line of business (LOB) applications, such as Microsoft Dynamics with the Office SharePoint Server 2007. You can find out more about the Business Data Catalog at the Office Developer Center and Search in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server at Office Online

I was asked this morning the question "How can I efficiently allow enquiry access to data stored in Microsoft Dynamics NAV" - the Business Data Catalog would be one of the ways to achieve this with the benefit that it uses SharePoint. In essence, you can search for "The Cannon Group PLC" and you'll get search results from all SharePoint data sources and the information that you choose to expose from Microsoft Dynamics or another LOB application (or even multiple LOB applications!!) in a single set of search results.

I've spent plenty of time authoring metadata to expose Microsoft Dynamics NAV to Business Data Catalog and if you want to take the manual approach all of the information you need is online at the Office Developer Center.

Recently I've come across a tool called BDC MetaMan that can make integration with the BDC so much easier. With a couple of mouse clicks you can point the tool at the SQL Server database or an XML web service and build the application metadata. So if you need to expose your customers and make them searchable via Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, you literally just point it at the table, choose the fields and select the actions. You can find full information, demos and downloads on the BDC MetaMan website. I hope to share some examples of my work with Microsoft Dynamics and the BDC soon.

BDC MetaMan have just released the beta of version 2.0 of their product which also offers updates - watch this space!

Role Based Templates for SharePoint My Sites

jpalmer — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 22:04:06 GMT

You may have heard of the Microsoft Dynamics Customer Model which provides the foundation for RoleTailored, the new user-experience designing approach. One of the core goals of RoleTailored is making sure that users get the right information, at the right time, in the right format, that is relevant to them. One of the great ways to deliver relevant information is to use Microsoft Office SharePoint Server.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server delivers the "my" site, which is just what it says on the tin, a site which is relevant to the user. I use my "my" site to hold information which is relevant to me, such as important documents, my Outlook calendar and core reports. You can download role based templates for Ken the Controller / Financial Analyst and Michael the Account Manager which offer a starting point for building a RoleTailored SharePoint page for those users.