Microsoft Dynamics NAV Sustained Engineering Team Blog : Release Overview

Changes to Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0 SP1 with Microsoft SQL Server

martinni — Tue, 13 May 2008 11:14:00 GMT

I just want to point you to the whitepaper describing the changes done for the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0 SP1 SQL Option:

With the release of Microsoft Dynamics NAV™ 5.0 SP1, major changes have been made to Microsoft Dynamics NAV™ with Microsoft SQL Server. This document outlines these changes and shows how these changes can help you improve the Microsoft Dynamics NAV customer experience. This document will only cover changes to Microsoft Dynamics NAV with SQL Server.

Martin Nielander
Program Manager

These postings are provided "AS IS" with no warranties and confer no rights. You assume all risk for your use.

Release of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0 SP1

martinni — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 17:54:00 GMT

It is with great pleasure that I can announce the release of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0 SP1. During today the first countries will be available from PartnerSource and I would really like you to pay attention to the following two web sites on PartnerSource:

Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0 SP1 General information:
https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/products/navision/newsevents/news/50sp1.htm

Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0 SP1 Download Information:
https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/downloads/releases/MicrosoftDynamicsNAV50SP1.htm

Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0 SP1 Release Plan:

March 28, 2008:
Release in United States, Germany and Denmark. This is also the release date for the W1 version of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0 SP1.

May 7, 2008:
Release in Australia, New Zealand, Canada (EN+FR), France, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, Netherlands, Philippines, Singapore, Spain, Thailand and United Kingdom.

June 17, 2008:
Release in Austria, Belgium (NL+FR), Finland, Iceland, Mexico, Norway, Sweden, Russia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Switzerland (FR+IT+DE), Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Slovenia

These postings are provided "AS IS" with no warranties and confer no rights.
You assume all risk for your use.

Martin Nielander
Program Manager

How to Re-apply a Language Pack when deploying the Outlook Integration Update for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0

Mtoo Norrild — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 11:27:00 GMT

The language module file helps you to save the existing text messages and captions, and propagate them to the Outlook Integration Update objects.
How to apply the language module file to the C/AL objects provided with the Outlook Integration Update:

Before you import the objects you received with the Outlook Synchronization Update package, open your localized version of the database.
Select the objects which are going to be replaced by the Outlook Synchronization Update objects (18 objects should be selected).
Go to Tools –> Language Module –> Export.
Specify a valid path and name for the language module file which will be created based on your current objects.
Select the language which corresponds to your country and click OK.
Microsoft Dynamics NAV has now created an *.flm file at the specified location. You can open it with any text editor (for example Notepad) and verify that it contains text messages and captions collected from your localized objects.
Import and compile the C/AL objects included in the Outlook Synchronization Update package.
Select all the objects you have just imported (you can apply a filter to the Version List field and use value “NAVW15.00.PS29299” for the filtering.)
Go to Tools –> Language Module –> Import.
Navigate to the *.flm file created on step 6 and click OPEN to import it. Click OK to confirm your choice.
Verify that the objects contain captions and text constants in your language.

Mtoo Norrild
Program Manager

“These postings are provided "AS IS" with no warranties and confer no rights. You assume all risk for your use.”

Outlook Integration update for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0

Mtoo Norrild — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 17:09:00 GMT

I am pleased to announce Outlook Integration Update for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0. This update is now available for you to download at PartnerSource login credentials are required.

The Outlook Integration update rollup corrects the issues that are described in KB article number 945879. Apply the Outlook Integration update, following recommendations in the Installation & Setup Whitepaper included in the package, only to systems that are experiencing these specific problems. This update applies to Microsoft Dynamics NAV for all countries and all language locales.

From the link above we have released:

Outlook Add in installation program + set of corrected C/AL objects;
Supplementary installation program, to deploy corrected dlls used by the C/AL objects;
Installation & Setup Whitepaper.

Mtoo Norrild
Program Manager

These postings are provided "AS IS" with no warranties and confer no rights. You assume all risk for your use.

Overview of updates for SQL Server 2005 SP2

Lohndorf — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 17:49:00 GMT

This post has the following three purposes:

Give awareness that there are updates available for SQL Server 2005 SP2
Give an overview of what the available updates mean in relation to running Microsoft Dynamics NAV on SQL Server 2005
Help deciding whether a customer who runs Microsoft Dynamics NAV on SQL Server 2005 should install any of these updates (and which one)

Overview:

The base version of SQL Server 2005 SP2 is build 9.00.3042.00 (build 3042). Since this build, a number of updates have been released, some of them containing important corrections.

To find the build of SQL Server 2005, run this script from SQL Server management Studio:

SELECT @@Version

Q: Should I install a SQL Update?
Especially cumulative update 1 (build 3161) contains some important corrections (see details below). So if your SQL Server has a build number lower than 3161, then I would recommend that you update it when convenient - even if you have not been affected by any of the issues described here. If SQL Server is build 3161 or higher, then I would recommend to install the update as part of your normal update practise, unless you experience any of the symptoms described here.

Q: If I install a SQL update, which one should I install?

All the SQL updates are cumulative and contain all previous updates. So whenever you do install an update, you might as well install the latest one. The latest update for SQL 2005 (January 2008) is "Cumulative update package 5 for SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 (KB 943656)".

Plpease note: Any time you experience a problem, you should search support.microsoft.com / Partnersource, and/or raise a support request. This post only describes a small part of potential issues, and only issues that are directly related to NAV.

Further details:

The following section is a description of the problems we have seen on NAV installations, which have been corrected in SQL updates:

1) SQL Serv er slows down
KB 933564 / SQL Hotfix bug number 50000945:

FIX: A gradual increase in memory consumption for the USERSTORE_TOKENPERM cache store occurs in SQL Server 2005

This article mentions that "This problem can lead to an increase in memory consumption by the USERSTORE_TOKENPERM cache store.". It means that the "cache store" can end up consuming all available memory, which will slow down SQL Server. Restarting SQL Server will clear out the cache, and it will run fine again until the "cache store" fills up again. The typical symptom is that SQL Server is running OK for a while, but then for no apparent reason slows down. Users experience very slow response on both read and write operations. This problem has especially been experienced at systems with large amount of memory (12-16GB +).

The correction for this was included in cumulative update 1.

2) Another user has changed ... - errors from NAV

KB 930775 / SQL Hotfix bug number50000695:

FIX: Error message when you try to retrieve rows from a cursor that uses the OPTION (RECOMPILE) query hint in SQL Server 2005: "Could not complete cursor operation because the table schema changed after the cursor was declared"

When using the $ndo$dbconfig-table to add OPTION(RECOMPILE) to NAV queries (documented elsewhere), NAV would throw this error when browsing forms:

"Another user has changed the definition of the [xyz] table after the activity was started.

Start again."

This SQL correction corrected that problem. This correction is also included in cumulative update 1.

3) Some queries ran faster on SQL2000 than they do on SQL2005

KB 942659 / SQL Hotfix bug number50001716:

FIX: The query performance is slower when you run the query in SQL Server 2005 than when you run the query in SQL Server 2000

This problem was experienced by a very few NAV customers after they upgraded from SQL2000 to SQL2005. The symptoms were: When changing a field filter (F7) on "Name" in a contact list, the response would take a couple of seconds. The same actions would give instant response on SQL2000. This problem did not cause drastic table scans, "only" 3-5.000 more reads than SQL 2000 would have done. But of course, in a multi user system this would cause a lot of unnecessary reads.

The correction was to implement a new trace flag 4119. Enabling this trace flag will set SQL2005's behaviour to that of SQL2000 for these specific queries. This trace flag is further documented in this post:
New trace flag in Update 4 for SQL 2005 SP2

This correction is included in cumulative update 4.

Finally, refer to this list for an overview of some of the updates that are available for SQL2005:

The SQL Server 2005 builds that were released after SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 was released

Lars Lohndorf-Larsen

Escalation Engineer

These postings are provided "AS IS" with no warranties and confer no rights. You assume all risk for your use.

Overview of Microsoft Dynamics NAV W1 5.0 SP1

martinni — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 13:37:00 GMT

I have often been asked about the content of Microsoft Dynamics NAV W1 5.0 SP1.

I will here give a short overview of what we are planning to include in servicepack 1 for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0, please be aware that the scope can still change:

1. Product improvements

More than 300 product improvements based on feedback to Microsoft Support Services from customers and partners worldwide have been included in Microsoft Dynamics NAV W1 5.0 SP1. The improvements are split into the areas of the Microsoft Dynamics NAV platform and the Microsoft Dynamics NAV ERP system.

2. Performance improvements

a. SIFT including indexed views

i. Purpose: To gain performance by using indexed views in relation to SIFT

ii. Goal: To create one indexed view for each SIFT key that is enabled

b. Bulk Insert

i. Purpose: To gain performance by buffering inserts and send them in one go

ii. Goal: To reduce the amount of roundtrips to the SQL Server

3. Refactoring of the Planning Engine

a. Address all real issues

b. Have improved readability

c. Clear decision principles

4. New ERP Requirements based on feedback from Microsoft Dynamics NAV partners

a. Better access to sales and purchase history

i. Purpose: Provide access to sales and purchase history from Customer and Vendor cards

ii. Goal: To see open as well as posted documents based on the Pay-to/Bill-to or Bill-to/Buy-from role each vendor or customer can play

b. Option for not auto-filling Quantity to Ship/Receive on Orders

i. Purpose: Option to prevent auto-filling of Quantity to Ship/Receive

ii. Goal: To be able to set up whether Quantity to Ship/Receive should be filled automatically or not

c. PO dashboard

i. Purpose: To align purchase documents with sales documents

ii. Goal: Include the info pane from sales documents on purchase documents

d. Option for not auto-filling Posting Date on Sales and Purchase Documents

i. Purpose: Option to prevent auto-filling of Posting Date

ii. Goal: To be able to set up whether Posting Date should be blank or work date

e. Automatic Archiving of Quotes and Orders

i. Purpose: To be able to force archiving of quotes and orders

ii. Goal: Optional to force archiving of quotes and orders before deletion

f. Archiving of Return Orders

i. Purpose: To align to other orders

ii. Goal: To be able to archive Return Orders manually or automatically

g. Print Archived Quotes and Orders

i. Purpose: Align to other posted documents

ii. Goal: To be able to print archived Quotes and Orders

h. Add External Document No. and Applies-to Doc. Due Date to payment journal

i. Purpose: Improve information about what is paid in the journal

ii. Goal: To display the External Document No. and Applies-to Doc. Due Date columns on the Payment Journal form

i. 365 Days Depreciation for Fixed Assets

i. Purpose: To extend the depreciation methods for fixed assets

ii. Goal: Make it optional to use 360 or 365 days for depreciation calculation

j. Line Comments on Documents

i. Purpose: Extend comment to document lines.

ii. Goal: To be able to enter comments for each line entered in sales and purchase documents and have them posted/archived as well.

k. Posting Date on posted document lines

i. Purpose: Better reporting on posted documents.

ii. Goal: Add Posting Date field to posted document lines tables.

l. Purchase Quote No. maintained in sales and purchase documents

i. Purpose: To be able to see where the document originates from (if a quote existed).

ii. Goal: Add quote number to not-posted Order and Invoice, and add quote number to posted Invoice and Receipt/Shipment.

m. Add Account Description to G/L Entries Form

i. Purpose: Better information on G/L Entries

ii. Goal: To be able to show the G/L Account Name next to the G/L Account No. in the G/L Entries form.

n. Filter Balance Field on Customer/Vendors to show Open Entries only

i. Purpose: To make it easier to get an overview of content of the balance on the Customer and Vendor cards.

ii. Goal: Show only open entries.

5. Mobile integration (Ready for Mobile Integration)

a. Purpose: To prepare Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0 SP1 for integration with mobile devices

b. Goal: To be able to gather the backend information in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0 SP1 to be represented on a mobile device

These postings are provided "AS IS" with no warranties and confer no rights. You assume all risk for your use.

Martin Nielander
Program Manager

Servicepacks & Platform Updates for Microsoft Dynamics NAV

martinni — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 11:44:00 GMT

Microsoft Dynamics NAV sustained engineering team has released the following servicepacks and platform updates (PartnerSource Login is required):

Microsoft Dynamics NAV 3.70

- Microsoft Dynamics NAV 3.70.A (SP1)

- Microsoft Dynamics NAV 3.70.B (SP2)

1. Platform Update for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 3.70.B KB890640

Microsoft Dynamics NAV 4.0 Releases:

- Microsoft Dynamics NAV 4.0

1. Platform Update for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 4.0 KB890551

2. Platform Update for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 4.0 KB908918

- Microsoft Dynamics NAV 4.0 SP1

1. Platform Update for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 4.0 SP1 KB913523

2. NODBC Update for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 4.0 SP1 KB912791

3. Platform Update for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 4.0 SP1 KB915455

- Microsoft Dynamics NAV 4.0 SP2

1. Platform Update for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 4.0 SP2 KB919407

2. NODBC Update for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 4.0 SP2 KB921893

3. Platform Update for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 4.0 SP2 KB922695

4. NODBC Update for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 4.0 SP2 KB927113

- Microsoft Dynamics NAV 4.0 SP3

1. Microsoft Dynamics NAV 4.0 SP 3 platform update rollup KB931841

2. Microsoft Dynamics NAV 4.0 SP3 Platform Update KB933727 (Installation of KB931841 is a prerequisite)

3. Microsoft Dynamics NAV 4.0 SP3 Platform Update KB936602 (Installation of KB931841 is a prerequisite)

4. Microsoft Dynamics NAV 4.0 SP3 Platform Update KB938138 (Installation of KB931841 and KB936602 is a prerequisite)

5. Microsoft Dynamics NAV 4.0 SP3 Platform Update KB940718 (Installation of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 4.0 SP3 is the only prerequisite)

- Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0

1. Platform Roll-Up Update for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0 KB943858

- Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0 SP1

Platform Roll-Up Update for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0 SP1 KB956161

This blog will be updated as new platform updates for Microsoft Dynamics NAV are released.

Martin Nielander
Program Manager

These postings are provided "AS IS" with no warranties and confer no rights. You assume all risk for your use.