Part 5: Dynamics NAV 2016: Workflow

I’m loving what I'm seeing with Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016 and one of the improvements that excites me most is Workflow. It's a capability that both Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Dynamics AX have had for some time that Dynamics NAV’s lacked so it's brilliant to see that it's arrived now.

Dynamics-nav-2016-workflow

So for those of you that haven't come across workflow what does it do? Well the best way of describing it for me is using the phrase ‘if this then do that’.

Let me explain further. Lots of customisation requests that we have had in Dynamics NAV have been to add some code so that when particular data is entered or even is missing the system should do something specific. We had to add code to the field or record so that it checked if the specified condition occurred and do what we then wanted which could be from displaying an error to updating a different table to sending an email. This is precisely the type of tasks that I hope we can now do via defining a workflow without writing a line of code.

That’s going to mean that is far easier and potentially an end user or at least systems administrator task to add data validation or approval workflows that significantly improve the flexibility and functionality of the system without customising it.

I suspect it's going to take a little while for us all to learn the true capabilities of this new feature and develop the workflows to exploit it fully. In a perfect world, there are lots of customisations that we should be scrapping and replacing with workflows, but I think it's way too early to do that yet even if it could be financially justified.

What we do need to do though is think about where this capability can be best used for people upgrading to 2016. With my data quality obsession I'm keen to see workflows used to validate mast data records, ensuring they are valid before they are used. Rather than code to check if the blocked flag can be removed how about a workflow? Watch this space.

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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