ArcherPoint Dynamics NAV Developer Digest - vol 160
The NAV community, including the ArcherPoint technical staff, is made up of developers, project managers, and consultants who are constantly communicating, with the common goal of sharing helpful information with one another to help customers be more successful.
As they run into issues and questions, find the answers, and make new discoveries, they post them on blogs, forums, social media…so everyone can 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 community—so we thought, wouldn’t it be great to share this great information with everyone who might not have the time to check out the multitude of resources out there? So, the ArcherPoint Microsoft Dynamics NAV Developer Digest was born. Each week, we present a collection of thoughts and findings from NAV experts and devotees around the world. We hope these insights will benefit you, too.
Microsoft Announces Plans to Release Dynamics NAV 2018
The announcement is that Dynamics 365 will soon become a “single collection” of Dynamics 365 applications for any size customer, no more “Enterprise” and “Business” editions. Which is great because having different editions is just confusing to prospective customers. But the big news for us in the NAV (and GP) world is that there will be a General Availability release this year of Microsoft Dynamics NAV: NAV 2018. Can’t wait!
What is This Comment Field Doing on the Dynamics NAV Journal Page?
Gwen asks, “On the Journal Lines, there is a ‘Comment’ field. Does anyone know where the ‘Comment’ goes after the Journal Line is posted? I don’t see the field on any of the Ledger Entry tables. What am I missing? What is the purpose of this field?”
Figure 1 – Comment Field on Dynamics NAV Journal Lines
Kyle responds, “I just went through the journal posting codeunits and I don’t think it goes anywhere. It is probably just there for cases where the person that makes the journal is not the same person who posts the journal.”
Bill confirms, “Yep, Prism confirms. It’s exposed on Journal pages and then goes nowhere.”
Microsoft Excel Getting Smarter
Elly shares that Microsoft Excel is getting updated in the next release. It will have some of the features Power BI currently has of predicting information and creating suggested graphs and information insights, based on this TechCrunch article Microsoft Excel is About to Get a Lot Smarter. Utilizing Bing’s API, new data types, automatic visualizations, and machine learning models means very cool things for Excel users.
Leadership Lines
Kyle shares an interesting read on project management, where TechBeacon warns that focusing too much on predictability and efficiency will kill your software product.
This spurred a thought provoking response from Jon Long, but the important point that he got out of the article is the idea of managing to the product, not the project.
Matt T. responded with his thought that the fourth part of the project is what often gets forgotten. “When features, cost, and time are all fixed, the only thing that can bend to meet them all is quality.”
Figure 2 – Fixed vs. Agile Components of a Project
Stay abreast of what is new in the Microsoft Dynamics NAV community and at ArcherPoint by subscribing to our monthly newsletter, Better Business, by completing the form in our Resource Center.
And, if you are interested in NAV development, be sure to see our collection of NAV Development Blogs.