ArcherPoint Dynamics NAV Developer Digest - vol 246

ArcherPoint Dynamics NAV Developer Digest - vol 246

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 Teams Messaging Hack

Everyone has made the move from Skype for Business to Teams, right? Well, if you’re like the ArcherPoint team, you may still be getting used to the intricacies of using Teams. Suresh found this hack for helping those of us who are accustomed to pressing Enter for a new line, where Teams delivers our partial messages. Check out Do you hit ENTER in Microsoft Teams for a new line and accidentally post partial messages? Try this hack  for more information.

New Business Central Apps on AppSource

Check out the new apps for Business Central released on AppSource in May, including Suite Engine’s Rental Process Management, which provides everything rental companies need to run their business all in one place.

Microsoft Dynamics NAV Cumulative Updates – May 2019

Below are the links for Dynamics NAV cumulative updates for the Month of May 2019:

Converting CAL to AL: Can You Do It Without the Extra Steps?

Kyle wants to know: “Is there a way to convert a CAL text export to AL without doing all of the extra steps with deltas and multiple directories? I have a single codeunit that is completely custom, and I just want it to become AL.” 

Matt T replies: “I think the Text2Al.exe will work on a text file as well as a delta file. But it might do some things “wrong” if I remember correctly; for example, it will insert object IDs instead of object names for variables. There are PowerShell scripts out there that do all of the ‘extra steps’ for you, though.”

Developer Tip of the Day: Add a Progress Bar When Using Command Line

Kyle shares his Developer Tip of the Day: “If you like the command line and need to copy a large file someplace but also want a progress bar, use the esentutl command, which is part of the Extensible Storage Engine.”

Q:ArcherPoint>esentutl /y kyle.bak /d tsclientcsharekyle.bak /o 

Initiating COPY FILE mode… 

Source File: kyle.bak 

Destination File: tsclientcsharekyle.bak 

Copy Progress (% complete)

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 

|—-|—-|—-|—-|—-|—-|—-|—-|—-|—-| 

………….. 

Using the FILTERGROUP Function

Suresh shares: “To apply the OR filter between columns, you can use the FILTERGROUP function. Below is an example. It finds all customers where the Customer Name or Contact Name contains the string John. This example requires that you create the following variable in the C/AL Globals window: 

Customer.FILTERGROUP := -1;  

SearchString := ‘@*John*’;  

Customer.SETFILTER(Customer.Name, SearchString);  

Customer.SETFILTER(Customer.Contact, SearchString);  

Web Client Printing

Kyle presents this scenario: “In old NAV, we are used to being able to have reports print to a specific printer without any user intervention. This is very useful for checks, labels, shipping documents – lots of use cases where the user doesn’t need to be involved in routing to a specific printer. However, the web client has taken away that ability. It can only return a PDF to the web browser, and then the user can print that PDF to a printer of their choice. It added several steps. 

I’m in a re-implementation where the customer is accustomed to many of their reports printing automatically, so I have one of two bad choices: Either replicate that ability with the web client (which I know how to do, though it is not easy), or force them to print the new way. If I replicate the old way, the solution is not portable to the cloud. But it’s cool, useful, silent, and effective. And the customer will be happy. I also realize that this is not a limitation of the BC web client; all cloud applications have this problem, including Salesforce, CRM…whatever. 

So, there is an argument for forcing them to the new way of printing, but it sucks when they have four reports to print for every sales order, and they are accustomed to being able to print in batches automatically. This article from Kauffmann, Web Services Example 8 – Print from NAV Web Client, will help, but uses .Net and therefore isn’t portable to the cloud (Dynamics 365 Business Central SaaS).”

 

If you are interested in NAV development, be sure to see our collection of NAV/BC Development Blogs.

Read the “How To” blogs from ArcherPoint for practical advice on using Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Dynamics 365 Business Central.

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