Those companies that have used Dynamics NAV for a long time will be wary of reservations, as they may well have seen complex errors described as ‘reservation entry not found’ at some point. These often have to be resolved by a developer editing tables directly (not recommended) to sort the issue. Given these errors tend to happen when shipping for instance, time pressure is on because a drivers waiting they are not good errors to have.
Back in NAV version 4, the reservation functions used to crop up all the time in the bug list. Each version since has got progressively better though and certainly by 2009 they were useable. Now on 2015, while I cannot say you never see a reservation error, it’s so rare I cannot remember the last one that didn’t have a cause associated with a badly design customisation.
Even more important to understand is that NAV creates reservation entries regardless of if reservations are on or not. As well as holding all of the data for transactions involving both serial and lot number tracking it creates entries for all item of type tracking or surplus that link the demand to the supply across the system.
This means that if you invoke the tracking function on the requisition worksheet for instance, to see why it has recommended a purchase it will go to the reservation entry table, and use that to show you the sales or production demand that generated that line.
That means that you’re actually using lots of the reservation functionality without knowing it. Why not get the benefits, to offset the minimal risk of it not doing what you expect?
So in summary – yes they do work and they are worth using if you need them. No they will not cause you lots of endless grief.
Note
This post is part of a 6-part series. A link to rest of 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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