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Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 Developer and IT Pro Help has been updated to Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 SP1 and is now available on MSDN and the Microsoft Download Center. In addition to new content for SP1, this release expands on existing content and addresses some important support call issues, such as Outlook integration.
Some of the highlights of the updated help include:
- Outlook Integration and Synchronization
- Extending the RoleTailored client using control add-ins
- Security in the RoleTailored Environment
- Installation Walkthroughs
- Multiple Time Zones
- Report-to-report links
- Control and menu IDs on transformed pages
- About This Page and About This Report
- Page Designer
If you have any questions or comments, contact the NAV UE Platform team.
You can get the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 SP1 Community Technical Preview release on PartnerSource.
- Bob, Jill, and John (the NAV UE Platform writers)
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We have released a new Statement of Direction document for partners. We know preparation and product roadmap knowledge is a key factor in building a successful business. With the release of the new Statement of Direction we are able to share our vision and plans for the future direction of Microsoft Dynamics NAV. This will bring partners ahead of most competitors, who struggle to provide customers with product roadmaps. Microsoft Dynamics NAV partners can now speak confidently to customers about the future strategy, aspirations and roadmap for the next major releases of Microsoft Dynamics NAV through to 2017, including NAV "7", "8" and "9". Partners can download the Statement of Direction and supporting documents at this link on PartnerSource. Customers will be able to download the Statement of Direction document from CustomerSource at the end of May 2009.
-Lotte Cordt Ihlemann
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I have collected some resources that can help you when you are considering a multi-site implementation of NAV. (These recommendations can be useful with other Microsoft Dynamics solutions as well.)
Definitions:
- A centralized model is one with a single Microsoft Dynamics NAV environment (i.e. single application & database). For most situations, this is not recommended due to the complexity of such a solution.
- A decentralized model is one where multiple Microsoft Dynamics NAV environments are used, each with its own application files and database.
- A hub & spoke model is where Microsoft Dynamics NAV is being used with non-NAV ERP applications.
Here are some of the key considerations when planning the implementation:
- Customers with a large number of users and heavy transaction load may prefer a decentralized environment.
- Customers with unique requirements across their business who use a customized Microsoft Dynamics NAV solution and ISV add-ins may opt for a decentralized environment to retain maximum flexibility.
- Customers who need to deploy the solution into multiple countries may prefer a decentralized model.
- Customers with uniform requirements throughout their businesses may prefer a centralized model.
Implementing in a multi-site environment might entail the following:
- A decentralized environment would require the use of a data warehouse to facilitate cross-company reporting.
- Consolidation for financial reporting might be needed.
These considerations are described in more detail in the following resources:
-Morten Rasmussen
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Permissions for Sample Roles for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 contains information about which objects (table data) each role can access within the database and the roles equals Role Centers (User Profiles) in the RoleTailored client. These sample permissions can be used as a starting point when setting up permissions for the specific Role Centers. Please note that the permissions will not be sufficient in all cases and should be customized to the individual instance.
The Developer's Toolkit (NDT) has also received a quick overhaul and now supports field groups. If you don't know NDT already, you should look to the NDT if you are looking for a Source Analysis tool or a Compare and Merge tool. It is recommended that you use version NDT_v3.00.400 if you are using it in connection with Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009.
Finally we have released the Language Modules for 12 Languages (AU, NZ, DE, DK, ES, FR, GB, IE, IN, IT, NA and NL). If you are not familiar with Language Modules, they enable you to add additional language(s) to an installation. This is particular useful in multicultural companies, e.g. a German installation with German and Italian speaking employees. Please read the instructions carefully and note that the Language Modules for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 require the Page ID Hotfix to be installed first.
-Torben Siggaard
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To help us better understand your experience with implementing Microsoft Dynamics NAV, we've created a survey that is available until March 20. The survey is open to all Microsoft Dynamics partner employees directly involved in any phase of Microsoft Dynamics NAV implementation work. It should take about 10 minutes to complete. The data from the survey will not be publicized, but it will help us improve your experience with Microsoft Dynamics NAV in the future.
To begin the survey, follow this link.
- Jacob Winther, NAV UX Designer
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We've released an update of the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 Developer and IT Pro Help to MSDN and the Microsoft Download Center. This is the second of our periodic updates to developer and IT Pro content since NAV 2009 released in November.
This release includes:
You can download the updates and copy it into your NAV 2009 installation, updating the Help you receive from F1. If you have feedback on any of the content, please use the feedback link at the bottom of each page in the CHM, or use the Ratings and Feedback form on each MSDN page.
- Bob, Elona, Jill, and John (the NAV dev & IT Pro writers)
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We're just two weeks away from Convergence 2009 in New Orleans from March 9-13. We have created more than 70 sessions and Hands on Labs in the Microsoft Dynamics NAV track. Many of the sessions and all Hands on Labs will be focused upon the newest release, Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009. For the list of sessions see the session list on Convergence web site.
You can familiarize yourself with the new RoleTailored User Experience, Web Services and Reporting capabilities. You can learn about the different application areas, such as Manufacturing, Distribution, Finance and Service Management. There are also industry related sessions where you can hear how Microsoft Dynamics NAV is used in different industries.
To register for Convergence 2009, or for more information, see the Convergence web site.
-Eva Sachse
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The Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 Help Toolkit and the Help Source files are now available for download from PartnerSource.
We're making the source files for the core Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 Help available to Partners so that you can customize the Help to enhance your add-ins or to match the solutions you sell. You can edit the source files and recompile the Help files, or you can copy from the source files into your own Help or other documentation. The source files for the Group 1 countries (Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States) have been released. We will make available the source files for the other countries after NAV 2009 ships for those countries.
In a post in September, I mentioned that we were updating the NAV Help Guide and the tools in the Help Toolkit we provide to assist you in creating help. This release of the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 Help Toolkit includes a completely re-written Help Guide, with How To topics, walkthroughs, and guidelines for creating Help and transforming Help for the Classic client into Help for the RoleTailored client. We've also replaced the GATE tool with Help Builder, which is a more robust tool for processing source files and compiling Help files. We've also fixed some bugs in the Generate HTML Help batch job that you can use to generate Help topics for tables, fields, forms, pages, and reports.
If you have any questions or comments about these two releases, please send an e-mail to navhelp@microsoft.com.
We continue to be interested in hearing what your needs are, so we can ensure that we are improving the process for customizing and extending Help. You can add your comments below or e-mail us at navhelp@microsoft.com. Here are some questions to get you started:
It's important for us to ensure that we are providing an efficient way for you to customize the documentation. We're looking for volunteers to test our new Help processes, and provide us with feedback on how well these solutions meet your needs. In return, we'll offer extra assistance in using these processes. If you would like to participate, please e-mail navhelp@microsoft.com.
- Paul Chapman
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One of the questions that has been raised frequently is how to install the Dynamics NAV demo database to a named instance of Microsoft SQL Server using the new installation program that was released with Dynamics NAV 2009. The short answer to this question is that this is not supported. However, there is a work around that in fact will allow you to do this.
Before going into how this can be accomplished there are a few things I need to highlight.
- You cannot repeat this work around several times on a computer in order to install several demo databases. The work around involves running Windows Installer files (msi) and running such a file a second time will only repair or uninstall the product rather than installing a new instance of the product. You can create a demo database manually using some of the files on the installation media, but this is not within the scope of this blog entry.
- You must not run the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 installation program (setup.exe) on the computer after you have installed the demo database using this work around since this will uninstalled the demo database. This happens because the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 installation program keeps an inventory of the Dynamics NAV products that have been installed to the computer and will uninstall those which are not in the inventory.
Now with this in place let's proceed with the work around.
The task at hand is to install the Dynamics NAV 2009 demo database to a named instance of Microsoft SQL Server 2005. The name of the instance is "CRONUSDEMO" and has already been installed to the computer "CRONUSSERVER" with the service account "NETWORK SERVICE". The Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 installation media is located in the DVD drive of your computer (D:\), but it will also work if you install from a local folder or a network drive. You must have administrative privileges on the computer.
- Open a Command Prompt on the computer. You must open the command prompt as Administrator if the OS is Vista and you are running with User Account Control (UAC) turned on.
- Run the following command:
msiexec -I "D:\SQLDatabase\Microsoft_Dynamics_NAV_SQL_Database.msi" INSTANCENAME=CRONUSDEMO
- Run the following command:
msiexec -I "D:\SQLDatabase\Microsoft_Dynamics_NAV_SQL_DemoDatabase.msi" INSTANCENAME=CRONUSDEMO
The demo database is now installed and you should see two entries for this in the control panel.
To use the newly installed database with the Microsoft Dynamics NAV RoleTailored client you must manually set the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server to connect to the SQL Server named instance. To do this you must edit the configuration file of the server.
- Open the CustomSettings.config file using a text editor. You can find the file in the folder "\Program Files\ Microsoft Dynamics NAV\60\Service".
- Locate the DatabaseServer key.
- Change the value attribute to CRONUSSERVER\CRONUSDEMO
You do not have to change any settings on the RoleTailored client in order to connect to the database.
- Michael Riddersholm Petersen
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The big news today is that we’ve released the updated developer and ITPro docs to the Web to make it easier for you to search and find information. You can find the updated docs in the MSDN Library. This update builds on the content that shipped with NAV 2009 and includes new or revised developer, installation, and administration topics around:
- Security for the RoleTailored client
- Differences between developing for the Classic client and the RoleTailored client
- File Handling
- C/SIDE Reference
As Claus Lundstrøm blogged about last week, we posted the updated Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 documentation for developers and ITPros to the Microsoft Download Center.
As Claus mentioned in his post, the updates don’t end here. We’re writing new content every day and plan to refresh the Download Center and the MSDN Library about every 3 months. Here’s how you can help us — we need your input on the content that you want to see in the next update. There are a couple of ways you can provide this feedback:
- If you’re using nav_adg.chm, cside.chm or nav_install.chm, click the MSDN Documentation Feedback link at the bottom of a topic. That sends your request by e-mail directly to our inboxes.
- If you’re using the MSDN Library, click Click to Rate and Give Feedback in the top right corner of a topic. That sends your rating and content request to a database of requests that we will review regularly.
- Add a comment to this blog post.
In addition to the developer and ITPro doc updates, the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 UX Guide is also available from the Microsoft Download Center. The UX Guide is a tool to assist Microsoft Dynamics NAV ISVs in building more user-friendly applications that match the standard Microsoft followed to create the RoleTailored client.
Thanks!
Bob, Jill, Elona, Susanne (the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 Platform Writers)
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Overview
The Automation object is often used to integrate NAV business logic with external processes and thereby extend the functionality of the product, such as integration with other products like Office. Automation objects must expose a COM interface, and every time we cross a process boundary is worth thinking about performance, but issues that involve correct operation could have a negative impact on performance. This is something we are willing to accept. One example is that objects designed for a single thread execution must execute on Single Threaded Apartment (STA) threads. Having a look at this KB article (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/257757/) explains why office products never should be allowed to run on the server:
“Reentrancy and scalability: Server-side components need to be highly reentrant, multi-threaded COM components that have minimum overhead and high throughput for multiple clients. Office applications are in almost all respects the exact opposite. Office applications are non-reentrant, STA-based Automation servers that are designed to provide diverse but resource-intensive functionality for a single client. The applications offer little scalability as a server-side solution. Additionally, the applications have fixed limits to important elements, such as memory. These cannot be changed through configuration. More importantly, the applications use global resources such as memory mapped files, global add-ins or templates, and shared Automation servers. This can limit the number of instances that can run concurrently and can lead to race conditions if the applications are configured in a multi-client environment. Developers who plan to run more than one instance of any Office application at the same time need to consider "pooling" or serializing access to the Office application to avoid potential deadlocks or data corruption.”
Architecture
Flavors of COM
Apartment threading
There are two major flavors of Automation objects, ones that are designed for single threaded applications, and ones that execute well in a multithreaded environment. This doesn’t prevent one from running STA objects on the server and MTA objects on the client, but each scenario where “best practices” are deviated should be considered closely.
An example would be the XML Document object
The DOMDocument is a single threaded apartment version and the FreeThreadedDOMDocument is the version that utilizes a multithreaded environment, like the server. But in cases where we a free threaded version of the object is not available, it would properly be acceptable to use the version available, because the .Net runtime is managing MTA-to-STA marshaling behind the scene. This could result in bad performance and other problems – but in most scenarios it is likely to work. A closer look at “PRB: MSXML Performance Bottleneck in ShareMutex Under Stress” explains why issues like these must be considered.
“Using the MSXML parser in a high-stress environment … may cause unusually long run times on XML requests, and the application or service can appear to stop responding (hang).“
And the solution in this scenario would be to use the FreeThreadedDOMDocument object on the server.
Native and Managed Automation Objects
The Automation implementation in the Role Tailored Client and the Dynamics NAV Server utilizes the CLR implementation, and the CLR does an excellent job of allowing managed code to call out to unmanaged Automation objects. It generates a runtime-callable wrapper (RCW) proxy that implements all of the interfaces of the underlying object. Furthermore, the CLR has a built-in mapping/marshaling layer that knows how to translate the types between the native and managed domains.
The following table shows the specific type mappings between AL, COM and their corresponding .NET types.
All the Automation objects are late bound activated; this means that they must implement the IDispatch interface, in order for the Reflection API to be able to invoke members. Managed Automation objects are recognized by the RCW as being managed and standard CLR reflection invocation takes place. Therefore, in-process (dll) and Out-of-process (exe) Automation behaves identically if the objects are created in a managed language.
Security
The default account for running the NAV Server, configured at installation time, is the built-in Network Service account. This account does not have permissions to spawn a new process, as configured in Component Services, and it is not recommended to change that behavior. This is by design, in order to prevent out-of-process Automation servers (Executables with a COM Interface) to execute on the server. But if the scenario requires this, it would be a recommended practice to create a new service account with the minimum privileges plus the “Launch and Activate Permissions” of the required Automation Servers. These processes will then be created on the server and properly stays alive until they receive a specific terminate command, or the server is rebooted. Another risk with Automation servers on the NAV Server machine is that users could potentially share the same Automation process. In AL, the construct CREATE (automationServer, TRUE), will search the system for created instances of type “automationServer” and try to reuse that process, and potentially read data created by another user.
Therefore the recommended syntax would be CREATE(automationServer, FALSE, FALSE), for Automation servers running on the NAV Server. On the client tier, no sharing can occur and it would be perfectly fine to try and reuse the Automation server.
The in-process Automation objects whether they are created on the client or server tier are hosted by the running process and inherit the security context of the active user. The same goes for OCX controls that require an UI and therefore only will be allowed on the client side.
Wrap-up (recommendations)
Server tier
- Native Automation objects: In-process automation servers, like MSXML6.dll.
- Objects with a user interface such as OCX types.
- Managed wrapped COM Objects
- Objects designed for multi threaded execution (MTA)
Client tier
- Native Automation objects: Out of process automation servers, like Microsoft Office.
- Objects with a user interface such as OCX types.
- Objects designed for single threaded execution (STA)
General
- It is good practice to design your Automation interfaces to get as much work done in a single method invocation. And when consuming a component, try to use it in way that minimizes chattiness. This is utmost importance for the client side automation scenario.
Sample
COM is an immutable, interface-based model. Interface design is very important and should always be split from the implementation. Try to avoid auto-generated interfaces based on classes as they have a tendency to violate this guideline and not version well. There is a good source of information at: “Do not use AutoDual ClassInterfaceType“
(see the first comment on this post for the text of this sample)
- Stefan Omdahl
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A week ago, the Microsoft Dynamics NAV team celebrated the launch of version 2009, a product that involved over three years of work. We had a party on the MDCC campus (which subsequently ended up in an Irish bar somewhere in Copenhagen) and spent some time talking about our accomplishments. The energy in the room was infectious. We signed the ship poster, a tradition at Microsoft, previewed the Microsoft Dynamics NAV demo for Kirill's keynote at Convergence EMEA, and announced that we'd take a team day off – these all helped people savor the moment. Though we hit many bumps along the way during those three years, we finished with what it is nothing short of a landmark release. So, if you're an NAV fan and it's Friday night for you, toast to this release, because it's an event to remember!
In this blog post, I'd like to tell the story of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009. Instead of resorting to sanitized marketing sound bites, this will be a more personal account. It's my own particular point of view exploring this product and how it relates to our customers and partners.
There are a number of things that I simply love about this release, but I have to start with the UX (or user design). When I installed NAV 2009 when I first joined the team back in February, I knew the user experience was special. Then, in my last blog post, I admitted that I had a crush on it. Now, I must say that it's brilliant. To understand why, I have to make a brief detour.
At the heart of a good business solution is the resulting productivity of its users. How much time does the system save? How much higher is the quality of their work? Because we are engineers, we at MBS needed a business productivity framework to understand how to improve it with our products. Together with a research firm, we concluded that end user productivity had to take into consideration familiarity, ease-of-use, business insight, collaboration, and flexibility in addition to transactional efficiency (what we typically think about when we think about productivity). As I started to learn more and more about the Dynamics NAV 2009's user experience, I realized just how well it captured all these characteristics. It is familiar – Role Centers make users feel at home with the data and work they see upon entering the product; it is easy to use - Activities and the Action Pane make it very apparent how things are done and what needs to be done; it provides insight through integrated reports and data that are showcased in the context of actions to be taken; it makes collaboration easy through notifications and by working well with Office; it is flexible - personalizations permeate the experience and are very simple to make; and, finally, it is efficient - keyboard shortcuts and data positioned well with actions make performing tasks fast.
But this isn't brilliant. This isn't a work of art. This is just good engineering. What makes the user experience brilliant is that users fall in love with it. I recall an email thread I had with Jakob Nielsen, our Director of UX, sometime this past summer. In a larger forum, he was talking about getting our customers to have an emotional connection to our user experiences. I thought, "What's he talking about?" I joked, "What's he smoking?" But over time, it sunk in. And then last week, I saw a video from a customer that had just recently gone live with Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 as a part of our early technical adoption program (TAP). In the footage, a warehouse manager showed off his Role Center and asked the Director of Operations for the company, "Can I keep it?" Here was a person who was emotionally attached.
People who love the tools they work with end up loving their work more. People who love their work more end up being more successful. They make fewer mistakes, they treat each other better, and they get to work on time. If we build a Microsoft Dynamics NAV user experience that users love, it's a win-win-win situation. The customer wins. The customer's employee wins. And we at Microsoft win. That's why this user experience is brilliant.
Of course, Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 has a lot more to it under the hoods. If you're an engineer, you can sense when a software product is getting "brittle." Just like a bridge that has had too much stress over time and suffers metal fatigue, so too does software age if it isn't refactored over time. Entropy creeps in as code is added that doesn't adhere to the original design principles or doesn't meet the original quality bar (assuming this existed). For 2009 we've made a conscious effort to modernize the core architecture. For instance, in addition to giving the user experience a new look and feel, we've also built it from scratch on .NET. It has a modern, modular architecture that will help us introduce new innovations in the future quickly and without compromising quality, innovations such as a new "channel" like Sharepoint or new visualization controls that are based on the dynamic capabilities of Silverlight or WPF. We've also made the architecture 3-tier from a 2-tier fat client. In addition to improving security, such as running the business logic from one, trusted place, this change gives partners the ability to do application-to-application integration much more easily with web services. With a click of a button in C/SIDE, a new web service is exposed for consumption.
On the server tier, we've taken advantage of .NET once again. C/AL business logic written in C/SIDE now compiles down to MSIL via a C# transformation. Consequently, we leverage the innovations that the .NET runtime team has worked on for the past eight years. This frees our team up to focus on problems more closely related to ERP. As I've already mentioned for the client and the server, we've taken advantage of Microsoft's world class platform stack, particularly with .NET. But we've also done this with SQL reporting services, which are now our tool of choice for charts and table reports that can be viewed in context in the user experience. In summary, these architectural investments have a tremendous impact on this release and future releases. Good, modern architecture gets the best technology in your hands over time and maintains high quality.
It's true that this release has largely been about technology. That was intentional. We made a commitment to modernize the product, and from our perspective, we're probably two-thirds done. We’ve finished the hard parts and the ones that impact partners and customers the most: the user experience, reporting, and the tiered architecture. We recognize that a fine balance must be made between innovation on the one hand and maintaining partners' and customers' investments on the other hand. There is no perfect formula here. Sometimes there are innovations that break changes that our customers and partners have made. In these cases, you have a couple of strategies to minimize the pain - you make the innovations "opt-in" and you create tools and provide support for completing the transformation. In Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009, we've done both.
We allow our customers to run the "Classic" client and the RoleTailored client concurrently. This gives customers flexibility to move their users to the RTC over time. In addition, we've made sure that "Classic" reports, the most common customization that customers create, run in the RoleTailored client, so they do not have to be converted to SQL RS reports if the customer doesn't care to take advantage of RS's capabilities. As I mentioned before, the business logic in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 is converted from C/AL to MSIL via C#. Though the runtime has changed, the actual code itself has not. This means that business logic changed or added by partners and customers is protected and migrates to the new version as-is. Finally, for partners, we've maintained the C/SIDE development environment, extended it with a page designer, and provided tools for converting "Classic" forms and reports to pages and RS reports, respectively.
Perhaps the thing I'm most proud about in this release is that we’ve substantially improved its quality. We're upping the bar considerably in a number of ways. The clearest indication is with the TAP and the Beta Access Program (BAP). As a result of these programs, we have 9 customers already running Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 in production, and over 80 different partners, including ISVs and implementers, trained and familiar with the new version. My favorite statistics are these - we have over 1 year of server uptime without a crash reported and over 135 user-months on the RoleTailored user experience. These should give you an indication of the stability and the attention to quality that we've paid on the release. There are a number of other quality initiatives and investments that we've made, including improving our stress test environment, improving our code coverage and automation, and testing on 100 configurations of the operating system, database, and other system elements. We think you're getting the highest quality NAV product yet.
As you can see, for me the story of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 is one of tremendous success. The value proposition of end user productivity is core to our vision and very compelling to our customers. The investments in modernization of the architecture set the stage for innovation and product improvements in the future. The attention to partner and customer investments has made this release the best in terms of readiness. And the quality achievements have set the bar higher than they've ever been. While this is not a perfect release - it will require partners to learn new concepts like RoleTailored computing and new tools like the Reporting Services designer, it is one that I believe takes Microsoft Dynamics NAV, our partners, and our customers into a new, modern era of ERP! I hope that you're checking it out!
- Dan
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Most Microsoft product teams involve their top customers and partners the development process via Technology Adoption Programs (TAP). These high touch engagements result in much better product quality and features as well as early (pre-RTM) deployments of new versions.
The Dynamics NAV 2009 TAP has succeeded with 10 live customers in Germany, Denmark, Canada and the US already deployed and using NAV 2009 CTP4! Six of these are using upgraded ISV solutions for distribution, manufacturing, furniture and project management. We also have previous Epicor and Infor customers who have made the switch to NAV 2009 as part of the TAP. All deployments are using the new Role-tailored Client and several are running multiple NAV servers.
The TAP has also made significant quality improvements to NAV 2009 with over 100 fixed bugs and several major design changes. These great accomplishments are the result of over a year’s hard work between the TAP partners, NAV core teams and the TAP PM Team (including my European counterpart, Kipper York). We are already receiving excellent feedback from the Go-Live customers, especially concerning the new client.
For those of you attending Convergence 2008 in Copenhagen on November 18-20, we encourage you to attend the “Meet the Early Adopters” Sessions:
• TAP Partners: 11/19/2008 1:30PM-2:30PM, room B4.2
• TAP Customers: 11/20/2008 9:00AM-10:00AM, room B4.3
We'll have lots of other NAV 2009 content at Convergence. Hope to see you there and to share the excitement!
- Brett Johnson
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Earlier this year, Michelle, my colleague on the Microsoft Dynamics NAV documentation team, wrote a blog post about improvements that we have made to the content for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009. In addition to improving the product documentation, we are also working to improve how partners can customize and extend the Help.
In April, we published all of the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0 platform documentation to the Microsoft.com Download Center. And now, we are releasing all of the source files for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0 application Help on PartnerSource (log-in required). When Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 is released, we’ll also provide the new application Help source files on the same schedule as the localized releases.
Providing our partners with the documentation source files is only a first step toward improving Help customization. Feedback that we have heard is that the Online Help Guide (available on PartnerSource) is daunting. For Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009, we will be replacing this guide with a streamlined version focused on what you need to do to customize and build documentation for your Microsoft Dynamics NAV solution or add-on.
We are also updating GATE for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009. While the functionality will be very similar to what you are using today, we’ll be making GATE more robust and easier to use by rewriting it as a .NET application.
Given the amount of time that we have left in this product cycle, these tactical changes are what we can provide in the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 timeframe. You can continue to use RoboHelp (or your favorite HTML or Help authoring tool) to create Help. Over the coming months we will be developing our post-Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 strategy for improving Help customization. Based on what we heard at Convergence in March and in one-on-one discussions with several partners, we will be focusing on the following themes:
- Developing an easy mechanism to create and edit documentation, for example, Microsoft Word.
- Providing more procedural content which you can customize for your solution or add-on.
- Enabling you to create Help for objects.
We’d like to continue to hear what your needs are, so we can ensure that we are improving the process for customizing and extending Help. You can add your comments below or e-mail us at navhelp@microsoft.com. Here are some questions to get you started:
- How do you use the content that we provide?
- What types of Help do you provide to your customers to assist them in using your solution?
- If you don’t provide your customers with customized Help, what are the main reasons for not doing this? How does this impact your support costs?
- How will you use the source files for all of our Help, in all available languages? Will you customize these CHMs? Repackage Help into another format? Or do something else?
- Do you extend Help with information about the changes that you have made to Microsoft Dynamics NAV, such as new tables, forms, pages, etc.? How important is it to be able to extend Help? What would make this scenario more efficient for you?
- Have you used the Online Help Guide toolkit? How well did it help you accomplish Help customization?
- Do you know that we removed Company Notes in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0 and why? Were you using Company Notes? What worked for you about this solution? What didn’t work?
- If you customize the content that we provide, how do you determine what has changed from version to version?
It’s important for us to ensure that we are providing an efficient way for you to customize the documentation. We’re looking for volunteers to test our new Help processes, and provide us with feedback on how well these solutions meet your needs. In return, we’ll offer extra assistance in using these processes. If you would like to participate, please e-mail navhelp@microsoft.com.
- Paul Chapman
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Last month (23rd – 25th April), Claus Lundstrøm and I took to the road and drove all the way from Vedbæk to Netherlands and Belgium to meet one of our would-be TAP Partners and attend the launch of Belgian Dynamics Community respectively. The camaraderie and dedication of Dynamics enthusiasts in Belgium was exemplary and compelled me to write a blog entry here in our team blog. You can read a lot more details about it on Waldo’s blog post but I wanted to highlight some of our takeaways from this highly successful event.
Firstly I am reminded of my first ever Microsoft Windows NT Developers’ Conference back in 1992(!) here in Brussels, Belgium – anyone remember that? Belgium is an amazingly convenient place to get to, it has friendly people who speak multiple languages and are really glad to help you, to work with you and fast forward to 2008 this event was no exception! The event organizers had worked tirelessly at their own expense to put together the event, agenda, logistics and gather sponsors and by any measure the event was a sellout success. They registered over 250 participants and had over 200 show up despite traffic delays and Microsoft members being invited to Steve Ballmer 1:1 session the very same evening.
The event location was a picture perfect castle with cooperative weather despite some rain showers earlier. We got there for lunch, discussed logistics and parted ways in search of our hotel for the night stay (good thing we did that, as it took us nearly all the spare time we had before the event late evening to sort out mix-up with our booking and find the new hotel). By the time we came back, venue was transformed for the launch event, people were already arriving in hoards. The organizers provided meals, beverages, snacks, champagne, wine throughout the evening and kept all the participants happy. The keynote was presented by Marc Charlier who recently moved from SAP to lead Dynamics Marketing in Benelux region. I followed up with a high-level MBS Strategy / Roadmap presentation. A Coffee break followed where most audience were interested in future direction of NAV in relation to Managed Platform. I was very interested in hearing their opinions and surely got plentiful of it. Claus followed then with a detailed hands on demos of NAV 2009 product with focus on Page and Report design, customization and personalization. His usage of image fields to demo pages (with fact boxes) and interactive reports was extremely effective and audience were clearly impressed with the power and ease of use of NAV 2009.
Everyone seemed to know everyone else! It was very nice to see people mingling with one another, catching up on their projects, place of work, and life. Majority of attendees were Dynamics NAV enthusiasts but Dynamics CRM, & Dynamics AX had their followings too. What followed was a raffle and party where we received over-attention (signing away NAV books as stars) and a fare share of wining, dining and dancing till wee hours of the morning. If you would like to see pictures from the event follow this link.
Dynamics Community in Belgium is a shining example of what communities are all about - they are for the people, by the people who share a common interest. We at Microsoft are very thankful for this community’s interest in Dynamics NAV, it is an integral part of the entire echo system around MBS products as it helps nurture growth of our business organically by bringing like minded people together to share their experiences, ideas, & opinions, voice their concerns, collaborate on projects & network with one another. The Belgium Dynamics Community is off to a great start and I wish them successful years ahead.
- Naveen Garg
