Part 6: Dynamics NAV 2016: e-Everything

So one of the areas that Microsoft is saying it has improved in Dynamics NAV 2016 is eServices. The statement of direction defined this as adding to its capabilities in two ways.

Dynamics-nav-2016-e-everything

The first in its support for electronic trading specifically in support of some European government standards like Poppel. While I’ve never come across this particular standard in the UK we obviously have many EDI standards of our own that we do need and this should allow us to adapt a more standard approach to EDI using Microsoft's routines and validation instead of our own.

The second is in my view even more interesting as its support for polling third party services and retrieving information back into your core Dynamics NAV system. The example quoted is to access and update currency exchange rate tables but I think that’s not a great example as most companies only have two or three currencies they trade in and only change the rates once a month at most. That means it's probably not worth the setup for the benefit.

What this technology could be used for however is other areas with higher volume and more benefit.

  • How about accessing a credit agency to get the current credit rating for all your customers and maybe invoke the required amount of credit Insurance automatically?
  • Or filing sales invoices with your invoice discounting company as soon as they are raised again fully automatically.
  • Then a big one that would save vast amounts of time would be retrieving price and availability information from multiple suppliers for each stock unit each time is displayed on screen.
  • Or going to a vendors quality service and retrieving the certificate of conformity data needed for lot information.

In fact it's not hard to think of loads of situations where data has to be taken and input into your Dynamics NAV system manually at the moment that could be automated and made real time by using this new eServices functionality to access other company’s web services.

Which takes us to the second thing you need to think about. How long before you have to publish a web service to you customers to remain competitive? You have the technology to do that using Dynamics NAV’s web services but do you have the data quality to trust it being used in decision making processes for your customers? If not it's time to put that right while you still can.

Note

This post is part of a 9-part series. A link to all the posts in this series are below (updated as published);

Author: James Crowter

I’m passionate about how businesses can improve their efficiency by getting process optimal more of the time. For the last twenty five years I’ve worked to help organisations of all sizes and types implement the ERP & CRM software that typically they decide they need when things are going wrong. I’ve seen that work unbelievably well and enabled those organisations to rapidly grow but I’ve also had some hard projects over that time where it’s felt more like warfare at times. Since 1996 (and version 1.01) I’ve been working with a small Danish product called Navision that’s now become Microsoft’s Dynamics NAV and I’ve also been using and consulting around Microsoft CRM since 2005. As managing Director of one of the longest established first Navision and now Microsoft Dynamics partners I’ve been involved in the complete history including numerous product councils and system design reviews. It’s my privilege to know many of the key Microsoft executives and product designers and have insight into both where the products are now and their future direction. So colleagues & clients have asked me to start this blog to share some of the insight that both this knowledge (obviously where not restricted by NDA’s or client confidentiality) and experience can help. Specifically I want to concentrate not on the specifics of how (there are some great blogs already for that) but why. If any user helps their business make better decisions or consultant can give better advice then that will be objective achieved. I founded Technology Management in 1992 and have led from the front ever since. Helping clients use technology to grow their business is my passion through explaining technology in terms that everyone can understand. My interest in computing began at the age of eight, long before my school had the equipment to cope. Throughout school and university I developed software commercially. I hold many IT certifications, such as Microsoft Dynamics NAV (for over 17 years), Microsoft Dynamics CRM (for over 10 years), as well as Microsoft Windows Server, Exchange and SQL. In October 2015, I was awarded the title of Most Valuable Professional (MVP), a title given to a select few individuals (31 currently) across the world specifically for Dynamics NAV. After years of working with a range of distribution and manufacturing software for hundreds of organisations, I focus on understanding the business requirements of an organisation, what it will take to deliver the systems required to maximise their potential. Follow me online via my other social channels: - Twitter: @jamescrowter - LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jamescrowter Or email me directly at james[.]crowter[@]tecman.co.uk.

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