Forum changes

About DUG Announcements
1

Dear members,

The Dynamics User Group has always been known for our many forums where you always can find the right answer, or ask it, if it has not already been asked. And if we go back just 2-3 years, then almost everything was about Navision. Now most new questions asked are about Axapta - Dynamics AX. But NAV is still the most active, as many users doesn’t actually ask new questions, but only read old replies.

Here on Dynamics Users we always had our forums divided into many different sub-forums, allowing users to subscribe just to questions/answers in that particular forum. But the many forums also makes it harder for new members to find out exactly where to post, with the result that we then have to move the post to the right forum.

So I want to simplify this. Currently there are 12 different NAV specific forums. In the future there will be

End-User Questions - Forum for end-user questions, how to invoice, how to print a report, how to do a bank reconciliation etc.

Developer Questions - Forum for developer questions. Everything regarding programming and development.

Technical Questions - Forum for technical questions, ex. about installation, configuration, backup and restore, security, servers etc.

Training-Certification - Forom for questions about Exams, Certifications, Training, the different Training Materials and Course ware.

For NAV we also have a Beginners Forum.This is basically just a place we created some years back to “filter” new members questions from all the current questions to prevent the members to ask the same question again and again. The members shouldn’t be shy about asking something which most likely is very simple for more experienced users.

Before doing any changes here, then I would like to hear your comments about this forum. Is it good? Could we do without it? And if it’s good, do we need a similar forum for Dynamics AX?

When doing these changes then initially the forums will continue to exists, but as “sub forums”. Example: NAV SQL Server forum will be under the NAV Technical Forum. Warehousing will be under End-user questions, etc. For smaller forums the posts will just be moved to the new forum (sorry - this might give you an update notification by mail - if you have subscribed to the post or forum).

2

I think that’s a great idea. There are too many subforums now. Most of the moderating that I do is move stuff from the technical forum to the developer or SQL forum, while everyone agrees that they really ARE technical questions, just with a specific topic.

3

Hi Daniel,

Happy you agree. But there will always be questions which could be both end-user, development or technical and thus needs to be moved.

The user asking “How can I save my report as a PDF?” - is that technical, development or end-user? Well it really depends on the solution more than the question. The above simplification will not really solve that problem. And that’s why it’s important that the moderators help in by adding “tags” to the posts, so that it can be categorized according to the tags. I think tags are more important in the future, if used correctly. So alway tag with product, version, issue type (development, end-user, sql server etc.) so that in the future the individual forums are no longer required. Just go by the tag code.

I just hope it’s going to be less moving around, so it allows the moderators adding value (new answers and tagging) instead of just being movers.