If you talk to enough people within a certain industry, do enough presentations, read enough blogs, you begin to draw certain conclusions of the time. My conclusion of the time since joining NETRONIC two years ago has been this: the visual scheduling add-ins we build for Microsoft Dynamics NAV are no longer a 'nice-to-have' for customers, they are a 'must-have.'

This blog post will dive specifically into the Visual Production Scheduler for Microsoft Dynamics NAV and the features which must be shown during demos to really win over prospects.

Have you been looking for a way to connect with your peers? The Summit EMEA conference knows how important networking and exchanging knowledge with your peers is to you, so we bring you the ultimate opportunity to connect and learn over three days!

Summit EMEA is a peer-to-peer focused conference that is dedicated solely to end user education and networking. At this year's event, experienced Microsoft Dynamics users and partners will lead instructional sessions, showcases, and how-to's, focusing on past and current versions of Dynamics AX, Dynamics NAV, Microsoft CRM, Power BI and Dynamics 365.

After jam-packed days of keynote & general sessions join your peers at our welcome reception to share your experiences.

Don’t just take it from us – here’s what past attendees have said:

“When you're walking around the halls of the event, you will hear people talking about that one piece of information they learned that paid their ticket to attend. It's that type of sharing of knowledge that makes it worth coming.”  Henning Lund, VP Senior Executive Advisor, Rapidi Online

Don’t miss the opportunity to join your peers April 4-6 at the RAI in Amsterdam to connect on the products & solutions you care most about! Register today.

• Suzanne Scanlan's blog
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Transparent inventory management is always crucial for warehouses and manufacturers. Without accurate inventory counts, they could encounter major hang-ups or have regular cost overruns. However, companies that invest in the latest warehouse management systems and other software platforms that regulate inventory control will likely have more success as time goes on.

Although companies may devote significant resources just toward maintaining inventory, it's usually a good idea to also invest in WMS platforms that help to provide better insight into how inventory flows on an ongoing basis, according to Business 2 Community. There are many ways to approach streamlining inventory tracking even beyond a software solution. Some examples include committing to better physical organization, labeling or barcoding systems, and so on. When taking that next step, it's also a good idea to do an inventory audit every once in a while just to make sure the data in WMS systems syncs up with physical counts.

Taking the next step
At a certain point, modern WMS and inventory management systems should run smoothly enough that they can be automated to reorder items when stock runs low and send out alerts to pertinent parties when potential issues arise. Moreover, these systems can be used to determine how supply lines should operate when everything works in sync. Executives can utilize that information to set better standards for baseline operations. That, in turn, helps to not only allows facilities to reach higher levels of efficiency but maintain them in the long run.

For some facilities, part of the transition to the latest and best possible tools for improving inventory counts might include the use of mobile and wearable technology, according to Shahid Mansuri, co-founder of the mobile app development firm Peerbits​. Writing on Customer Think, Mansuri noted these types of tech can be important when it comes to increasing the efficiency and accuracy of physical inventory counts. By scanning items into a system, there's less of a chance users will miss something or enter data incorrectly. In addition, these systems upgrade automatically as time goes on and are typically easy to use, even for employees who might not be familiar with how older systems worked.

Make sure it works
Finally, upgrading to the latest WMS can reduce the number of hours devoted to inventory controls, said Paul Trujillo, a Product Marketing Manager at Informatics. Once these systems are up and running, the number of times adopters physically counts inventory can fall year after year, potentially freeing up hundreds of hours for workers and executives alike.

While businesses should by no means abandon the counting process altogether, combining new management systems with mobile platforms that allow for a simpler, more efficient scanning process can help do the job as quickly and easily as possible, and with less oversight because of fewer errors.

It's crucial that logistics or manufacturing decision-makers do all they can to ensure their facilities have the tools they need to move into the 21st century. Legacy systems may be useful to a point, but when it comes to integrating the latest inventory data, an upgrade to cutting-edge WMS platforms will provide a big boost.

The post Accurate inventory counts are crucial to warehouse management appeared first on DMS.

From this week's Microsoft Dynamics NAV blogs:

• Create Advanced Charts in Dynamics NAV: Best Practice - SQL Script
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Integration On Premises and Online with Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016/2017
• Service Management within Dynamics NAV
• About "UI Elements Removal" Feature

Create Advanced Charts in Dynamics NAV: Best Practice - SQL Script

On his TharangaC - Dynamics NAV Blog, Tharanga Chandrasekara offered a best practice to save some time if you are working with SQL Server Management Studio. 

According to Chandrasekara, a number of people who work with Microsoft Dynamics NAV aren't really that familiar with SQL Server Management Studio ev...

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Hi Guys, a new book is available: “Building ERP Solutions with Microsoft Dynamics NAV”, by Stefano Demiliani (Author) and Duilio Tacconi (Reviewer).

… I spoke yesterday with these 2 guys (my colleagues and friends) during a workshop about “New Modern Development Experience“, i didn’t know that today would be released the book .. i thought later…  but today Amazon quickly provided me a copy (ebook) for review, i will read in next days….

About This Book

• Integrate NAV with various offerings of the Microsoft stack to create enterprise-ready and service-oriented solutions
• Use Power BI and Universal Windows Platform for effective data analysis and real-time tracking with NAV
• Discover the services offered by Microsoft Azure and implement them in different industries using real-world case scenarios

This Book is for

“This book is for NAV developers and solution architects who need to implement real-world enterprise solutions based on Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Knowledge of the NAV programming language (C/AL) and C# language is recommended. Knowledge of ASP.NET and Visual Studio development would help, but is not necessary.”.

You can find this book on:

Amazon
https://www.amazon.it/gp/product/B01N1JKBMQ/ref=kinw_myk_ro_title

PacktPub
https://www.packtpub.com/application-development/building-erp-solutions-microsoft-dynamics-nav

Fast first look: for now it seems very interesting, some nice topics (that were not included before in other books) are exposed, i recommend it.

Have a nice reading !

This article focuses on the importance of forecasting.

I’ve written about Forecasting versus Budgeting before, but in the face of the trend of forecasting becoming more impactful and desirable, I wanted to focus on it in the task of planning.  Is it true that forecasting is the most important process for corporate performance management today?

Besides budgeting, forecasting also fits into the planning picture with a business plan.  I know that people get budgeting and forecasting confused, so adding a business plan into the mix might confuse things even more.  A business plan is a written statement of your strategy for the future of the company.  Included in a business plan are market share changes and assumptions about the economy, the competition, costs, new and retired products, investments and more.  A forecast is a rolling capture of the company’s performance, so this planning exercise is updated frequently.  A budget is traditionally created once a year also bringing in intel from actuals versus projected and assumptions for the following year.  If it’s not already clear, let’s discuss how these three tasks work together.

A business plan helps recognize where your organization currently is and where the leadership team wants it to be.  It should push you in the decision-making process. Therefore, this article should reflect a strategy that accounts for those changes. A business plan is a foundation of sorts for your company.

A forecast should be created at the same time as the business plan.  If your business plan is for 4 years, your forecast should be the same length.  Forecasts can be rolling or current month through the end of the year and reflecting any changes in the business plan.  The record-keeping of a forecast also affects the business plan, so they are impactful on each other.  At this point in the evolution of business culture, in terms of how much companies rely on all data types – and to be able to track on a monthly basis where the organization is heading and how they’re getting to their goals, it seems like forecasting is logically the most important when it comes to planning.

A budget is a procedure that is driven by taking a micro analysis approach.  A budget usually breaks down the year plan from the company to the customer, product, and employee level.  While budgets capture actuals as well, they have their own column next to the projected numbers.  Your budget should be in sync with the year as it is shown in the business plan and the forecast, but is confined to the coming year.  In other words, all three of these processes are linked and changes should be consistently made across the board. Once you understand the difference between the three in theory and in practice, you’ll be able to establish a plan that fits best for your company.

To learn more about the importance of forecasting, click here.

By Solver, www.solverglobal.com

• Gwendolynn Britt's blog
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Most of us that’s been programming in Dynamics NAV for a while are aware of the Excel Buffer table. It is a super useful table that can be used to create and read Excel files from C/AL code. This table have been around as far as I remember, and now it has some siblings, the XML Buffer and CSV Buffer tables.

The concept is the same, a table with functions to create or read files, this time XML/CSV files instead of Excel files. Just like with the Excel Buffer table, the XML buffer and CSV buffer table should be used as temporary tables.

This blog post describes how those tables can be used. With some examples where the task is to export/import items through XML/CSV files.

Create XML File using the XML Buffer Table

First the XML export; to do this I create a function in a codeunit that has the XML Buffer (table 1235) as a temporary variable. As a first step I use the ‘AddGroupElement’ function to add an ‘Items’ group element. Then to that element I add an attribute using the ‘AddAttribute’ function, the attribute contains the company name from which the data is exported. Below that I add the code to loop through the item records where I use the same functions to add an ‘Item’ group element with the item number as an attribute. To add child elements for the fields in the item table I use the ‘AddElement’ function and when I am done adding all the fields I use the ‘GetParent’ function to go back up one level in order to add the next item. Simple, right? If not, look at the code below and the screenshot of the file and it probably makes sense.

After the items have been looped through the ‘Save’ function will export the data and create an XML file with the given name and path (note that the XML Buffer table also have some functions to handle the upload and download of the file and to add namespace information, etc. I have skipped all that to keep it simple).

The file created then looks like below.

As easy as it gets to create an XML file with data from NAV. Almost too easy!

Import XML File using the XML Buffer Table

So, how does the import work using the XML Buffer table? It is as easy as the export. You create the table as a temporary variable and just use the function called ‘Load’ to load the XML file into the XML Buffer table. The records in this temporary table can then be processed as any other records. There are some predefined functions in the table to find the child notes, attributes, etc. but when I did this I found it easier just to go through the records in the table, something like below (which might not be the best written code but at least an example).

So that was quite easy as well.

Create CSV File using the CSV Buffer Table

For the CSV export I basically just create a new function that’s very similar to the one for the XML export; but instead of the XML Buffer as a temporary table variable I use the CSV Buffer table (table 1234, cool table number btw ). The syntax is slightly different, you use the ‘InsertEntry’ function to add data by specifying the line number, field number and value. And then the ‘SaveData’ function to create the file. The ‘SaveData’ function is called with a file name and field separator, in the below example I use a comma as a field separator, I think something like a TAB is much better, but it seems like you will have to modify the CSV buffer table itself to get that.

The file created then looks like below.

Nice!

Import CSV File using the CSV Buffer Table

Importing data from a CSV file using the CSV buffer table is also very easy. You use the ‘LoadData’ function to import the data from the file into the temporary table. Note that in addition to the file name you also specify the field separator. Once the data is in the table you can process it, the table only have three fields; Line No., Field No., and Value. The code to import the data and then process it could look something like below.

Also nice and simple.

Buffer Tables vs. XML Ports

So, the question now is when to use those two tables instead to creating an XML Port. To me if it is a simple structure of the data that should be exported or imported and the amount of data is fairly low then I would probably use the buffer tables, as you can see above they are very easy to work with. If the export or import are more of a complicated nature I would probably use an XML Port, you just have some more configurable option with that. An XML Port will most likely also have better performance if you are handling large amount of data, this since the buffer tables created one record per field in a temporary table which is not a very sufficient way of doing it.

An XML Port also have the advantage of being able to be passed through a codeunit that’s exposed as a web service. So if that’s the requirement, the an XML Port would be the obvious choice.

Personally I think I will use the two buffer tables quite frequently and I think it is a nice addition to Dynamics NAV.

Feel free to share this post if you like it. Cheers!

Olof Simren - Freelance Microsoft Dynamics NAV Expert

Naviona - Microsoft Dynamics NAV Partner

Belgian Dynamics NAV MVP Steven Renders has a mission for Summit EMEA 2017: Those who attend his four sessions will leave knowing how to get actionable intelligence out of Power BI, or Power BI plus NAV. He will present for both the Power BI User Group (PBIUG) and NAV User Group (NAVUG).

Renders is both a Dynamics NAV MVP and a Microsoft Certified Trainer who provides training and consulting services focused on Dynamics NAV, SQL Server, business intelligence, SQL Server Reporting Services, and database performance tuning. He is also the author of...

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In this post, we'll cover how to integrate your Dynamics 365 for Financials instance directly with Power BI (free version).

Prerequisites

Office 365 account with Dynamics 365 for Financials and Power BI (free) accessible. This is not normally an issue unless you are in an Office 365 demo/tenant environment with limited apps.

Contents

1. Verify User Account and Web Service Authentication Key
2. Verify OData URL to Connect to Power BI
3. Power BI Get Data - Connect to Dynamics 365 for Financials
4. Add Power BI to Dynamics 365 for Financials Role Center

1. Verify User Account and Web Service Authentication Key

1. In Dynamics 365 for Financials, navigate to the Users page. (Either use the search for Users or navigate to Company Settings > Users.)
2. Select your User Account and click Edit

1. Verify your User Name (which may be different from your Office 365 account)
2. Verify your "Web Service Access Key" if the field is blank or you'd like to generate a new one, click "Change Web Service Access Key" in the ribbon

We'll be using the User Name and Web Service Access Key in upcoming steps.

2. Verity OData URL to Connect to Power BI

1. To find the OData URL in Dynamics 365 for Financials:
   • Use the search to find Web Services
   • Copy the OData V4 URL from one of the services and strip off the end

In the current integration, we need to modify this URL to use with Power BI. 

1. Copy the URL to Notepad or a similar text editor. It should look something like the following:
   • BEFORE: https://myinstance.financials.dynamics.com:7048/MS/ODataV4/Company('My%20Company')/powerbifinance?tenant=mod408643.financials.dynamics.com
     • Remove any content between "Company('My Company')/" and "?tenant="
   • AFTER: https://myinstance.financials.dynamics.com:7048/MS/ODataV4/Company('My%20Company')/?tenant=mod408643.financials.dynamics.com

We'll use this modified URL in the next step.

3. Power BI Get Data - Connect to Dynamics 365 for Financials

With your Dynamics 365 for Financials OData service and authentication verified, you are ready to connect Power BI to Dynamics 365 for Financials.

1. Go to www.powerbi.com (sign-in with Office 365 credentials)
2. Get Data > Services

1. Search for Dynamics 365 for Financials. You'll notice three out-of-the-box dashboards. We'll use the standard dashboard for the remained of this walk through, but the steps can be repeated to pull in all three. Select Dynamics 365 for Financials and click Get it Now.

1. In the OData Feed URL, enter the URL you modified in the Verify OData URL to Connect to Power BI step.

1. After clicking next, this will ask for an Authentication Method. Choose Basic, fill in the user name and password and click sign in.
   • Username = Your username from Dynamics 365 for Financials, which may be different than your Office 365 account
   • Password = Your Web Service Access Key
   • NOTE: Be careful of spaces at the beginning or end of your key. You can paste the key to Notepad to verify. 

Once imported, your Dynamics 365 for Financials dashboard will be accessible on Power BI.

Dynamics 365 for Financials Dashboard

Dynamics 365 for Financials - CRM Dashboard

Dynamics 365 for Financials - Sales Dashboard

4. Add Power BI to Dynamics 365 for Financials Role Center

After you have connected Power BI to Dynamics 365 for Financials, you can also pull the stock (or your modified) Power BI reports onto your Role Center(s). Here's how to do that:

1. Open a Role Center in Dynamics 365 for Financials and scroll down to the Power BI Reports section.
2. Click Power BI Reports and select Reports.
3. Select the Report(s) you want to see and click Enable and then OK.

You'll now see the initial report visualization added to your Role Center. You can click and focus on different sections or click the Power BI Reports drop down, which will have additional features to expand, show previous, or next report in the series.

Expand:

You may find that there is a particular visual you'd like to emphasize on your Role Center. You can always modify a report in Power BI and pull that into Dynamics 365 for Financials. Find more information on modifying Power BI reports here.

Troubleshooting

Verify the OData URL is Accessible

If you are unsure of access to your OData URL, you can walk through the following steps outside of Power BI to troubleshoot. The steps are initially the same as Verify OData URL to Connect to Power BI.

1. To find the OData URL in Dynamics 365 for Financials:
   • Use the search to find Web Services
   • Copy the OData V4 URL from one of the services and strip off the end.

In the current integration, we need to modify this URL to use with Power BI. 

1. Copy the URL to Notepad or a similar text editor. It should look something like the following:
   • BEFORE: https://myinstance.financials.dynamics.com:7048/MS/ODataV4/Company('My%20Company')/powerbifinance?tenant=mod408643.financials.dynamics.com
     • Remove any content between "Company('My Company')/" and "?tenant="
   • AFTER: https://myinstance.financials.dynamics.com:7048/MS/ODataV4/Company('My%20Company')/?tenant=mod408643.financials.dynamics.com

Using the modified URL:

1. Open a new tab and open the modified URL
2. When you enter your URL, you will be prompted with a login.
   • Username: Your username from Dynamics 365 for Financials, which may be different than your Office 365 account
   • Password: Your Web Service Access Key

NOTE: Most versions of Internet Explorer will give a message "Cannot display this feed."

Using another browser such as Google Chrome will work to display/verify the feed.

About Stoneridge Software

Stoneridge Software is a unique Microsoft Gold Partner, with specialties in Microsoft Dynamics 365, Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM, we focus on attracting the most knowledgeable experts in the field to our team, and prioritize delivering stellar solutions with maximum impact for your business. At Stoneridge, we are deeply committed to your results. Each engagement is met with a dedicated team, ready to provide thorough, tailored, and expert service. Based in Minnesota, we intentionally “step into your shoes,” wherever you are. We focus on what you care about and develop trusting, long-term relationships with our clients.

If you'd like further assistance regarding Power BI and Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Financials, please reach out to us at solutions@stoneridgesoftware.com or 612-354-4966.

Warren Young is a Senior Program Manager at Stoneridge Software. Warren brings more than 10 years of Microsoft Dynamics NAV experience serving in many capacities, as a project manager, consultant, developer, product manager, and architect.