ArcherPoint Dynamics NAV Developer Digest - vol 67

ArcherPoint Dynamics NAV Developer Digest - vol 67

As they run into issues and questions, find the answers, and make new discoveries, they post them companywide on Yammer for everyone’s benefit. We in Marketing watch these interactions and never cease to be amazed by the creativity, dedication, and brainpower we’re so fortunate to have in this group—so we thought, wouldn’t it be great to share them with the rest of the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Community? So, the ArcherPoint Microsoft Dynamics NAV Developer Digest was born. Each week, we present a collection of thoughts and findings from the ArcherPoint staff. We hope these insights will benefit you, too.

Michael Wong on RDLC (SSRS) Reporting:

RDLC (SSRS) can display running totals or subtotals without having to use a global variable or a vbscript function. The function RunningValue() can be used inside the expression of a textbox inside the body of the report.

RunningValue is used like so:

RunningValue( [expression], [function], [scope])

[Expression]
Typically this is the field that you want to subtotal, but you can use an expression in the box, e.g., Field1+Field2

[Function]
Acceptable functions are: Sum, Count, CountDistinct, Max, Min, Avg

[Scope]
This can be the dataset, table, or a group name

When using this expression the running value will reset when the rows have exceeded the scope.

Bill Warnke on joining NAV Object text files:

Quick tip courtesy Per Mogensen:

Have a directory of NAV Object text files you want to join into a single text file?

Go to a command prompt: Copy *.txt AllObjects.txt

After the Copy command you could either specify your directory or, if you’re in that folder, just leave it as shown. The same applies to where you want to copy the files to. They’ll be copied into a single text file called AllObjects.txt. You’ll still need your object text splitter to go the other way. 🙂

Helle Madsen: You could also use PowerShell cmdlets: Join-NAVApplicationObjectFile and/or Split-NAVApplicationObjectFile

Alan Campbell shared a quote from Mike Cohn on Agile Project Management:

Mike Cohn answers a question on User Stories that are too big to fit in a sprint:

A question I’m commonly asked is what should a team do if they have a story that is too big to fit within a sprint or iteration. I’ve got a three-step answer to that.

First, try harder to split the story so that it does fit. I know, I know, you’re probably going to tell me you’ve already tried and it won’t fit. But, I have to include this as the first part of my answer. As a team becomes more experienced with agile, they discover many more ways to split their work into smaller pieces. I can almost guarantee a team that struggles to split work up today will find many more ways to split that work up a year from now. So, Step 1 for me is try a little bit harder to split it up.

The second step is just allow the work to take two iterations. It has to be this way. There’s really no option. We’ve said the user story (or, more generically, any product backlog item) cannot fit within a single iteration. So, it must be allowed to span two (or more) iterations. I don’t want this to happen often. And I’m not giving a team permission to do this all the time or multiple times per iteration.

And to make sure a team doesn’t do this too often, we include Step 3: Feel a little guilty about doing this. I want the team to feel a little guilty whenever they take more than one iteration to finish a story so that they don’t start doing it very often. I don’t mind when it happens occasionally, but I really don’t want a team to get comfortable with it.

So there you have it: it’s OK to let a story take longer than one sprint, especially for a team that is fairly new to agile. But, whenever that’s necessary, I recommend:

1. Trying a little harder to split the work, just to be sure it’s really needed
2. Going for it and just letting it take more than one sprint
3. Feeling a little guilty so it doesn’t become too much of a habit

Until next week, let’s go help our teams succeed with agile

Mike

 

If you are interested in NAV development, check out our collection of NAV Development Blogs.

For step-by-step instructions on how to perform specific tasks in Microsoft Dynamics NAV, see our collection of How-To blogs.

If you found this post useful, you might also be interested to read through our archive of the Dynamics NAV Developer Digest.

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