How to Use Templates to Create Customers and Other Records in NAV
Microsoft Dynamics NAV gives us the ability to set up the system to pre-populate the common fields when setting up a Customer, Vendor, Item or other master records. This functionality is available in the NAV2009 RTC Client and later versions. For demonstration purposes, I will be using NAV 2013 R2 and the Customer functionality to explain how to use this feature. The functionality is similar with Vendors and Items.
Create a Template
From the Departments Menu, select Administration > Application Setup > Rapid Start Services > Configuration Templates.
Figure 1. Departments menu: Administration > Application Setup > Rapid Start Services > Configuration Templates.
Select “New” to create a new template or “Edit” to edit an existing template.
Figure 2. Configuration Templates screen with “New” selected.
Assign a Code and Description for the template you are creating. In the Table ID you can click the dropdown menu to select the table for which you will be creating the template. In our case, it will be “ID = 18, Customer.”
Figure 3. Assign a Code and Description for the template.
Assign Fields to the Template
After creating the template, you can assign Fields to the template. These fields will populate with the rules you define on the template Lines. For example, on all new Customers, if I want to use a specific Payment terms code, I can assign this in the template, and when the template is used to create Customers, that Payment terms code will be assigned.
Fields typically used in templates are payment terms, payment methods, customer and general business posting groups, dimension values, and customer discount or pricing groups.
To assign fields, open the template and select the fields on the Lines.
Figure 4. Assigning fields to the template.
In the Type Field, select Field.
In the Field Name, you can choose from the Fields in the table. The Field caption will auto populate.
You can enter the Default Value in the Default Value Field.
Note: Leaving this field Blank will allow a user to decide if creating the Customer through a mass data import. For customer creation from the Customer page, it is recommended to populate the default values.
In the Mandatory Field you can specify if the Field requires a value in order to create the Customer. This field will prevent creating a Customer through RAPIDStart with this template if the Field is not populated. For creation from a Customer card, it is recommended to specify this as mandatory.
After entering your requirements, click OK to close the template.
Figure 5. Defining the field values in the Customer template.
Create a New Customer and Apply the Template
After creating a new Customer, you can click the Apply Template button to populate the Default fields set up in the template. From the Customer list, click the New button.
Figure 6. Customer list with “New” button highlighted.
Allow the system to assign a number to the new customer, then click the Apply Template button.
Figure 7. New Customer Card with Apply Template button highlighted.
The system will display a list of templates. Select the most appropriate and then click the OK button.
Figure 8. Displaying the Template list.
The Fields of the new Customer card will be populated with the default values defined in the template you selected.
Figure 9. New Customer Card with default fields populated from template.
Complete the Customer Setup
From here you can complete the Customer setup with name, address and other pertinent data.
Using templates can be a powerful tool to help ensure that the required information for setting up master records in NAV are populated with correct values, as well as saving time and re-entering information.
If you have further questions about this process, contact ArcherPoint.