Auto-hide Taskbar Does not Autohide in Windows 7

This post is not Dynamics NAV (Navision) related, but I hope it’ll be extremely helpful because real estate space is really scarce on the desktop. Especially when you’re trying to cram all that data on to your screen.

This was troubling me for the longest during one of my demo sessions. Basically, I set my start menu to use auto-hide because I want to utilize all the space on my screen. The taskbar really gets in the way of everything we do.

Sometimes, the taskbar will not auto-hide. After browsing Google, the problem is caused by some notification or processes running in the background. What troubled me was that this only occurs every so often.

The problem is caused by the SQL Server Management Studio. You know, the annoying notification that asks you to give them your opinion on SQL Server. It turns out, you can’t just ignore that or else your taskbar will never autohide. The way to resolve it is to do this:

Basically, you have to set the Behavior of the SSMS notification to Hide Icon and Notifications. After changing this, my Auto-hide taskbar is working again.

If you don’t have SQL Server running in the back end, then I would suggest hiding the Icon and Notification for the different programs to see which one is causing it.

Price does not find the Lowest Price

Working with Navision for the last 12 years, there are certain functionality that you assumed worked a certain way. I was under the impression that Navision always finds the lowest price whent he sales order is entered. Recently, one of our customer pointed me to the contrary.

Note that this scenerio will only occur if an item has a Sales Price and a Sales Discount setup. If the Allow Line Discount is checked off on the Sales Price, NAV will not use the best price for the customer if a Line Discount gives a lower price for the customer.

It will always use the price on the Sales Price. The reason, from the explanation I got, is that the contract price (on the Sales Price table) should take precedence over any discounts given to the customer.

For our client, it doesn’t make sense because as a service to their customers, if they promised the lowest price available it should be the lowest price available. Again, we had to create extra logic to consider the discounted price as part of the lowest price given to the customer.

So if your client gives special pricing and a discount, you will need to ask the client whether the special price takes precedence.

Abnormal Item Charges

Overview
Dynamics NAV is a ERP software that’s built on best business practice. However, that’s not to say that the users of Navision operates on best business practice.

This post describes what I would like to call Abnormal Item Charges. Again, as with what I’ve described with Abnormal Posting Date, don’t bother looking it up on any GAAP dictionary or NAV website. It’s a term that I made up because I lack the vocabulary to think of a better name. English, afterall, is my second language.

What is Abnormal Item Charge?
Abnormal Item Charge are posted item charges that are applied to the open Purchase Order that has not been received or invoiced.

An Example
A lot of times when a company orders some items from factories, they will buy the finishes of the goods that you want to order, i.e. special metallic paint. Because of the competitiveness of factories, they will sometime offer the company to pay only partial (or no payment at all) until the products are successfully manufacturered. The special finishes they will have to pay now.

So at the time of the PO creation, the company will only have paid for the special metallic paint. The company wants to pay for the paint while allocating the cost of the paint to the inventory that they will possiblity receive in the future. So an item charge line is created on the PO and allocated the cost of the paint ot the purchase lines.

The Effects on G/L
As we discussed previously, this item charge will post to the following G/L accounts:
+ Inventory
– A/P
+ Item Charge G/L Account (Purchases)
– Direct Cost Applied

So the additional cost of the item is correctly accrued to the inventory value.

The Problem
The additional cost components of the item has been allocated and correctly posted to the G/L. The problem is, there’s no inventory for the additional cost to apply to.

This means that the value entries will be created, but it will not reflect on the inventory valuation report until the items are received.

The Solution
In version 6.0 (NAV2009), they put out a fix for this in codeunit 90. Now if you try to post an item charge when there are no item ledger entry, it’ll give an error. However, this solution causes problems for the business case described above.

The solution for this was to comment out the code in NAV2009, then create a report that captures the additional cost posted to the G/L that did not have the corrosponding item ledger. We call this report the Abnormal Item Charge report. It’s a pretty simple report. If your company has the same problem, let me know. I’ll send you the report.

EDIT: One of my colleagues reminded me that we can also use the Prepayment Functionality in the US version to handle this. Basically, we would set the item charge line prepayment percentage to 100. Doing this will post the transaction into the prepayment account instead of the inventory account.

Conclusion
Again, NAV is designed to be best practice. This cause in particular forces us to break that best practice because it makes business sense. Note that I don’t usually like to break NAV’s built in best practices, but in this situation, it was a frequent part of the some of our client’s business, especially when factories are competing for orders in a down economy.

Dynamics NAV 2009 Reporting Book Released

Looks like I jumped the gun when I wrote about the book release on this post.

For real, the Dynamics NAV 2009 reporting book is now officially released. Again, you can buy a copy of the book here:
https://www.packtpub.com/microsoft-dynamics-nav-2009-for-professional-reporting/book

Back when I was asked to review this, I knew this was going to be a must read book for any people out there wanting to develop reports in Navision. After the final product is delivered to me, I have to say that the final book blew away even my original expectations!

Aside from the content it provides, Steven Render (the author) really made an effort to document all the necessary steps to create good looking and complex reports with step by step examples, and… PICTURES! For all of you future NAV book writers, it really doesn’t matter if you can construct the most beautiful sentience in the world. Well done pictures will always win. Better yet, draw/write within the pictures, as what Steven has done in his book.

I’m not alone on this as Eric Wauters (Waldo), a fellow NAV MVP, also had some good things to say about this book here.

As I mentioned before, this book really patches up the lack of documentation on the reporting side for NAV2009 and its capabilities. The information here is definitely not something you can just download from Partnersource or Customersource.

Recap of Directions 2011 for Dynamics NAV (Navision)

Overview
This post is an overview of my experiences at Directions 2011 – Connect Learn Execute. Again, if you don’t already know, Directions is THE single event that any partner dealing anything with Dynamics NAV (Navision) absolutely has to attend. Not only do they preview a lot of new stuff, it’s also a great place to learn from what other partners are doing and the challenges they’re facing in the market.


The Vibe

The event itself was spectacularly put together by the Directions people. Everything was very organized and well put together. Having been to Directions since 2006, every Directions I attended since had been better than the previous. There were always incredible key takes aways and new friendships that are made.

However, this year I felt something missing. In particular, the energy level to be low. The problem wasn’t the event itself, rather, it was the attendees lacked enthusiasm and energy. In addition, I significantly noticed a lot of partners that I’d use to see (even until last year) did not come to this year’s event.

There are a number of theroies on why I think the energy level is low:

  • The presenters from Europe speak and present with no emotions, like robots. If there’s a competition for monotone speak, the European presenters would be clear winners, no doubt. 
  • There was a couple of presentations that I would like to call the “Doom and Gloom”. Basically, we have to significantly change our business model to be volume based seller. 
  • RTC. Apparently, many partners are still struggling with this.

Demos Dynamics NAV 7 (Navision 7.0)
Looking at Dynamics NAV 7, Microsoft really made significant improvements in usuability, development environment, performance, etc. etc. They’ve addressed everything (and I do mean everything) that I thought was a problem with Dynamics NAV 2009. It’s really a product that everyone can really be excited about.

The reason I can’t blog much about Dynamcis NAV 7 is because as a Dynamics NAV MVP, I’m under the NDA. And since Dan Brown mentioned that everything we saw in Dynamics NAV 7 is not to be made public in the beginning of the event, I have to follow it. Fortunately, not everyone in the conference cares about what they signed, so you can find a lot more about Dynamics NAV 7 if you did a Google search.

One thing I found strange on this event was how Microsoft showing off freely how Dynamics NAV 7 looks and works, even though the product release date is scheduled for Q3/Q4 2012. I can tell you also that Dynamics NAV 7 that I saw in the MVP program is different than the Dynamics NAV 7 they showed at Directions.

Within one year, anything and/or everything can change. After seeing Dynamics NAV 7 in its current form, and knowing people and rumors will start of fly about Dynamics NAV 7, I really hope Microsoft can release it sooner than later.

Key Take Away
Microsoft has moved to the cloud. Dynamics NAV is moving to the cloud. From the sessions in “Doom and Gloom” series, the message was clear: “Move to the Cloud or DIE!”

Yeah… They were fun sessions to attend…

Inventory Value to General Ledger Reconcilation in Dynamics NAV

I recently signed up to be a guest columnist on the Microsoft Dynamics NAV community site. I wrote an article with the list of common steps to finding and reconciling the difference between your inventory valuation and the inventory G/L account. The article is posted in the Dynamics NAV Community site hosted by Microsoft.

The article is found here:
https://community.dynamics.com/product/nav/navnontechnical/b/navguestcolumn/archive/2011/09/12/reconciling-inventory-value-to-your-inventory-general-ledger-account.aspx

Again, the focus is to save you time so you can go home on time.

Magento and Dynamics NAV (Navision)

E-Commerce
Magento is an unstoppable force.

There are NAV e-commerce add-ons out there, however, the websites that are created, at least from what we’ve seen, looks very outdated and “old”. In addition, it’s hard to add features and customize the website to your liking. The end result is probably not the best foot you want to put forward if your e-commerce webstore is the first thing your potential customers sees about your company.

Even if the integration works flawlessly, if you have a terrible looking website that’s hard to navigate in, you’ve just wasted your money. This is true for B2C (Business to Consumer) or B2B (Business to Business) websites.

Integration
The infrastrucutre is basically the same, to have real time, you must host the the web server in house. Not a lot of companies like to do that because of reliability and the cost (IT people, hardware, software, etc) of hosting the most vital order taking system for a company inhouse.

When it’s hosted, then we’re just uploading and downloading data and syncing anyways, so there’s really not that much benefit for you to purchase an expensive e-commerce add-on for Navision.

This is where Magento comes into play. Magento is an open source webstore software that’s gaining in popularity. How do I know this? Well, I hear a lot of new softwares and services that our clients are excited about. Usually when I hear a product once or twice, I’ll make a mental note.But more than that, it will require some investigation because I know the next thing the client will ask for is integration.

There are usually 2 components when designing the integration piece:
1. Getting the data to the Magento site
2. Getting the data back from Magento to Navision. i.e. Authorize.net approval amounts

There are a couple of ways to go about it:
1. Webservice directly to your database
2. Flat file transfer to Magento web database
3. Pump data to SQL Express and have Magento do query on it

I’m not a fan of having web services connected directly to your production database as, depending on the traffic of your site, it may cause performance problems. You probably don’t want people around the world to be querying into your production database when the customer service people are on the phone with your customers.

Personally, I prefer options 2 and 3 because if the website is down, you still have your ERP to take phone orders. If your ERP is down, you still have your website to take orders.

For real time, or as close to real time, you can use NAS to pump data in/out as much as you like, which is what option 2 and option 3 is for.

Your Magento developer(s) shouldn’t have any problems with the import/export of the data you give them.

Conclusion
There are probably a lot of other methods of integrating your Dynamics NAV (Navision) solution to Magento. The important thing is to not get caught up with what you need and what you’re being sold. Usually simple is good and simple is more than enough.

Having said that, I’d love to hear some other methods you use to integrate Dynamics NAV and Magento. If Magento is the next best thing for web stores since slice bread, us Dynamics NAV (Navision) community should be ready for it.

Dynamics NAV 2009 Reporting Book

Let me first start by saying that I’m not a fan of doing book reviews. In my very humble opinion, most books about Dynamics NAV that are released, although a good read and provides some valuable information, does not bring much INCREMENTAL value to the NAV professional. What do I mean by Incremental value? It’s the money and most importantly time and attention, that you spend reading the books verses what you get out of it.

Most information written can be obtained for free on the Customersource or Partnersource website. In fact, the training materials that can be downloaded for free goes into greater detail than what’s covered in the books. Well, not exactly free. I’m assuming if you can access Customersource, you’re a customer that’s current on the Enhancement Plan, or if you can access Partnersource, you’ve bought a Partner Plan.

To be a good NAV professional, I don’t think there’s a good substitute than what’s on those training manuals or even on the Application Designer’s Guide that comes with your product installation disk.

Reading the training manuals is, personally, where I get the most incremental value on becoming a good technical and applications person.

In addition, there are Navision forums such as http://www,mibuso.com and dynamicsuser.net that frequently has contributors to give you ideas on a particular problem you’re having.

My general feeling is, why pay for something when you can get the better stuff that you’ve already paid for (Customersource) or for free (online forums)?

Having said that, recently, I’ve been granted a sneak peek as a reviewer at a book that a fellow NAV colleague, Steven Render, has been writing. The book is titled Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 for Professional Reporting. You can find the book here:

http://www.packtpub.com/microsoft-dynamics-nav-2009-for-professional-reporting/book

From my previous blog posts, I’ve been pretty disappointed at the lack of documentation and training material available for the NAV 2009 RDLC reporting feature. The only document released by Microsoft is the training manual #80146 and the information that you can gather from NAV blogs.

Training manual #80146 is pretty good at going through the RDLC for Navision, but that’s about it. By moving to SQL, it really opens a whole new world of reporting possibilities, other than the RDLC. What this book does is that it goes through and explains the different options out there and shows you how to go about creating reports based on these different options.

I understand that there are books out there about RDLC and SQL Reporting Services, but most of the information on those books does not apply to me as a Navision professional. This is why this book appealled to me because it was a Navision book that talked about reports.

I highly recommend this book, until Microsoft can release additional resources for download on Customersource on reporting and truly take advantage of the “Microsoft Stack”.

Switching to a New Dynamics NAV (Navision) Service Provider

The Disappointment…
Frustrated by the long lead time? Mad at the frequent bugs received and being billed for it? Disappointed at the decisions you made based on bad advice received? Tired of not getting responses? Angry at the billing practices? Are you considering a switch to a new partner?

I can understand the frustrations felt by the clients each time I speak with end users looking to switch. It would really frustrate me if something I paid a lot of money for didn’t live up to their expectations. Similar to buying a Porsche Carrera GT and being limited to only go 30 miles per hour.

Adding fuel to the fire, sometimes the delays and mistakes from your solution provider actually cost your business real dollars.

Making the switch to a new partner is very daunting, and personally, I don’t recommend it and should only be considered as a last resort.

What do you mean you don’t recommend it?
Why am I saying this even though I’ve made a career taking care of clients that weren’t happy with their previous solution providers? The reason is the transition to a new partner involves establishing a relationship with a brand new company. Depending on the company, it may or may not be a big deal. Establishing a new relationship will take some time and effort both for you and the new Navision partner.

There’s no guarantee the new partner is any better. They may have a great sales team, but crappy technical team. Or they may use the old “bait and switch” technique by promising you good technical people only in the sales demo.

Instead of just going out and shopping for a new partner, have you tried to work out the differences between you and your partner? Have you initiated the dialog with your Navision partner regarding your concerns? Or are they constantly giving you lame excuses?

Are your expectations reasonable? Are you expecting your partner to work for you for free? Are you not considering the work done for you “work”?

The key is the communication between you and your partner. Once you stop that communication and if you hold everything in and not express your concerns, it will naturally erupt like a volcano. And we all know that making business decisions based on emotion is often a bad decision.

If the solution provider’s attitude is poor and keeps blowing you off, then it’s time to go. Whereas if your current provider is intent on listening to your concerns and makes an attempt to at least salvage the relationship, then they may be a keeper.

Just make sure the problem isn’t you because no partner in the world can fix that.

When You Do Decide To Make the Switch…
If you just can’t stand your current Navision solution provider anymore, there’s really no point to torture yourself and your business. Make the switch. You don’t even need to notify your partner that you’re looking elsewhere for support.

Make sure you have a valid reason for wanting to switch. In fact, that’s one of the first questions I ask people when they call us for help. If I don’t believe it’s a good reason (i.e. price is too expensive, want a competitive quote, being unfairly billed), my first response is to ask the user to try to resolve their difference with their existing partners first. You can’t put a price on good service and a company that delivers.

In addition, having valid reasons will ensure the new partner will be extra careful in that area so you’re not having the same problems again.

Once you have a valid reason, make sure you have prepared a checklist of the outstanding issues that needs to be resolved. You’d be amazed at how many calls I received where the user is looking to switch, but they don’t know what they want. It’s hard to build a relationship if you don’t know what you want. Make sure your old solution provider has the same checklist so they can at least give you a response to your satisfaction.

Ensure you properly communicate your expectations for your new partner. This is very important to prevent the vicious cycle of you going through multiple partners and spending unncessary time and money.

Misconceptions About Switching to a New Partner…
Despite what the salespeople out there will tell you, there’s absolutely nothing preventing you to switch to a new partner, in another words, Microsoft does not care who you choose to help you with the software.

It’s incredibly easy to switch. You just need to sign a Change of Partner Request form and fax it in to Microsoft. Dynamics NAV belongs to Microsoft, not the service partner. The software contact itself is between you and Microsoft, who you chose to service your company is entirely up to you.

A new partner, assuming they’re technically able, should be able to pickup where the old solution center left off relatively quickly (this is perhaps one of the strong selling points of Dynamics NAV). This is also a good test to see your new partner is up to par, if they’re having difficulty getting acquinted with your system and having to constantly request more hours, it may be time to look for a new partner again.

Distance shouldn’t be an issue, however, timezones will most likely be an issue. A few hours may be okay, but if your 3pm is their 3pm, it’ll probably not work.

Conclusion
In the end, ensure that changing solution center is really the solution to the problem. There will be a lot of companies out there for you to choose from that will be fighting tooth and nail for your business, the important thing is to be prepared as much as possible so you can make the transition smooth for you and your company.

That’s Just The Way It Works

There’s a dangerous trend in the ERP service industry. I frequently encounter this when I’m speaking with client sites that’s asking to migrate to Navision and existing Navision clients asking us for support.

One of the first things we do when we walk in to a new client was to ask questions. Why are they switching? What is your current problem? Why are you doing certain things the way you do it? When going through the questions, one of the more common responses I get when we talk about their existing process in the system is “That’s just the way it works”.

Really? Is that really the way it works? Is your business not running efficiently because that’s just the way it works? Are your competitors gaining market share while you’re losing market share because that’s just the way it works? Are your customers buying from your competitors instead of you because that’s just the way it works? Is there nothing you can do to find out more because that’s just the way it works?

More often than not, the response they received when they’re processing a particular function in the system are given by their software consultant. As experts in the system that was implemented, there’s not much the clients can go by in terms of verifying whether the consultant’s response is accurate or not. There’s not much reason to doubt the reponse given.

This is a lazy consultant’s response. Your consultant is basically saying “Don’t bother me, you’re not important enough for me to find an answer so I will just blame it on the software”.

There are questions that are totally out of the consultant’s field. That’s understandable. Everyone gets stumped, even the most experienced Navision implementors and developers. There are some instances where the the consultant’s hands are tied, like functions related to the executables which we can’t modify. But it’s the consultant’s job to give you an satisfactory answer on why things are the designed the way it is, or if there’s no answer, what are the work arounds or if it can be reported to Microsoft as a future update.

Working with Dynamics NAV (Navision) a little more than 12 years, I know enough that 99% of the coding in the system are there for a very important reason related to your business and the best business practice. And with Microsoft Connect, there’s an outlet to make suggestions to improve the product that you use.

Especially with an open source software like NAV, there’s no reason that you, as a customer, should accept answers like that. That’s just the way it is.