NAV

Early versions of SQL Server option for Microsoft Dynamics NAV (then called Navision) didn’t scale up as high as one would expect. Although SQL Server itself could scale up to thousands and tens of thousands of concurrent users, running a production environment of an ERP system is way different from running generic lab tests.

One of the choices a customer interested in Microsoft Dynamics NAV must definitely make is the choice of the database platform. With NAV, there are two possible options: so called native database server, which is not really officially called that (the official name is Microsoft Dynamics™ NAV Database Server), and Microsoft SQL Server.

Today, I got an e-mail from a reader of this blog, who asked me to help them with an actual problem on a project. Their customer is a small manufacturing customer in textile vertical. Whenever they calculate consumption, quantities for certain items get rounded to full numbers.

There is only one way to abort a user action in Microsoft Dynamics NAV: by using the ERROR function. This function essentially stops the execution of all code, and prevents completion of the user action, whatever such action might be. One of typical situations where ERROR is used to prevent user action is during validation of a new value in a field.

When Navision Attain attained it’s new name, Microsoft Business Solutions-Navision (the one before the current one), many other things changed as well. Good ol’ main menu was gone. Forever. Main menu was a mighty beast, one of the stronger points of Navision’s user interface at the time.

I love unsolvable problems. I simply do. I had one a few days ago in the office, and I solved it. So, the problem went like this. A discussion has been raised among developers about whether it would be possible to display a blank form over a populated table, where user would be able to immediately…

I started this blog too seriously. Instead of starting relaxed, I jumped right into the battle head first, with difficult topics such as convergence and history of Dynamics. When I was thinking about starting this blog, one of the ideas was to discuss mainly technology and functionality.

Tons of documents exist about Microsoft Dynamics NAV, but most of them start with marketing lingo, and don’t wander away too much from it altogether. While it is nice to know that it is a system which will give you freedom to focus on your business, it is also nice to know what is it made of, and how it works inside.