Hi All,
How do the freelancers get navision developer license?
Please suggest me if following is legally allowed or is it illegal?:
A partner is willing to provide me navision developer license if I associate my MCP ID with their company and I can use this license for all my projects as independent freelance developer. Is it legally allowed? Can a license of other country based company be used?
Any suggestions/ comment on this is highly appreciated.
Raj, this practically means you’re becoming their employee, and they benefit your being registrated with them towards getting their Navision competence.
You will have problems with access to your country’s specific localised objects, AND all the mess with .stx etc etc files plus Navision country version will show up - license country must match Navision country.
I’ve been offered this sort of deal too. To me it’s kind of shady. Yes, there’s nothing technically wrong with it, but I’d research the partner. I mean you’re not working with anyone on their staff, not doing implementations for them, no development, no support.
If they only want the points they get for your certifications then are they really a good NAV partner to be associated with? What happens if you want to take your MCP ID elsewhere?
I guess like everything else, definitely nothing wrong with it, but it should definitely be thought through.
The partner’s licensed is supposed to be used by employees only. Letting freelancers use their license for jobs that belong to the partner is I think right on the edge of what is allowed. BUT letting freelancers use their license for jobs that DON’T belong to them I don’t think is allowed.
Your reputation is your most valuable asset, don’t squander it away like that. Associating your MCP number with a partner in return for work is a good deal I think, you know when it is a partnership. If you only do this to get access to a license you are asking for trouble. You are associating yourself with a partner that you don’t work with, you have no control over what happens, they can claim all sorts of things about you.
Hi All,
Thanks for your valuable inputs on this issue. The partner is willing to offer work/ project also along with license, allowing to use it for my own business also.
But currently they don’t have work and hopeful of getting project next month.
Now my main concern is, if it is legally allowed or not? Lets say using their license if I work for a local client and some competitor local partner complains about me to Microsoft, then will it be considered as legally valid and safe?
I can’t speak for what the laws are like in India, but if you have a written agreement with them to use their license on your own projects then you should be fine. Note, though, that your agreement can not override anything in the agreement signed between Microsoft and the NAV Partner.
I do not recall the exact wording, but I know that the certified individuals only have to be contractors (not full time employees) for a NAV Partner to retain it’s partnership. To me that implies that the contractor is allowed to use the license in whatever way the contracting employee deems fit. But again, you should read the partner agreement and NAV contract to see exactly what they say. You can find them on partner.microsoft.com I believe.
That’s the part that I don’t think is allowed.
Hi Dhan
I would recommend getting your own developer license instead of using any partner’s license.
As a freelancer there is the following method of obtaining a developer license (I have used this method myself)
I hope this clarifies things.
Things can have changed, and perhaps there are localized variations in the required procedure, but the above worked for me. 
So… to summarize:
Anyone with a VAT number (in Denmatk at least) can become a MS Registered Partner, and thus, get a developer license.
Some would consider this disturbing - But at least for freelancers this is great “news”, since it allows us to jump out of the closet and free ourselves from using and or borrowing former employer’s licenses.
Hi Søren Alexandersen,
Thanks for the info. Is there any annual fee associated with it and if yes, then how much? Is it very expensive?
Erik, you have suggested this as solution, does it mean you are aware of this process. If I am not wrong, sometime back on similar discussion people had different opinions or had objections, perhaps someone said that above is not true.
Hi Dhan Raj,
Yes I have checked out Microsoft’s partner page: https://partners.microsoft.com/
The only thing is the process as described by Søren does not look quite as easy on the Microsoft page. And in order get your Dynamics partner status, you first need to have all your certifications, plus 3 recent customer references. I found nothing in the documents documenting that this is not required, as long as you promise not to resell licenses.
It’s true with certification part, you need them, but some time ago you were given a year to “collect” required certified personell, but this refers to Partner status. RM status has lower possibilities and thus lower requirements, which are not emphasized on the website - IMHO to keep away from mass registering, as those who are serious RMs, further Partners will still do all effort to contact MS and register. Actually every Partner goes through RM status - it’s first step, and unless all agreements are signed (and Partner fees paid - RM hasn’t any fee to pay, at least in my country), you are NOT a Partner yet. Question is, how long a company “sits” in RM status - for a month or for a couple of years…
What I kow from my experience about customer references - I have worked for 3 Partners, and none of them has ever sent a single reference to MS… Even after years of successful working, when they could easily get a heap of recommendations from long-term stable & happy clients.
Besides, how a company only starting business in Navision area can have a customer already, moreover, minimum 3 of them to give these references? It’s illogical.
It may have changed,but the customer references did not need to be Navision specific, the idea is to show that you are a serious company and customers are satisfied with your work. In my opinion this is a very important factor of becoming a Navision partner.
Hi all.
A lot is happening these days in regard to obtaining a developer license.
From may 2011 there is no way for a freelancer to have his/her own developer license issued to his/her own company.
This is due to the changes in the Microsoft Partner Network - specifically the changes in the requirements in the SPA (Service Provider Agreement).
Until now there haven’t been any requirements to sign a SPA, except from registering your company, getting a VAT no. for your business, and registering as a Partner, on the registered level. This was enough to gain access to the license configurator in Partner Source , and creating a developer license for yourself.
But times are changing, and the new minimum requirements for a SPA is:
Having to spread the exams over two people is what makes it impossible for freelancers.
Of course freelancers are welcome to gather up, creating a partner, combining their exams (by assigning their individual MCP-IDs in one organisation), and sharing the developer license, they then gain access to.
A lot of freelancers are hit hard by these new requirements, but it is a clear message from Microsoft.
And I quote… “We want fewer and larger partners in our network…”
I hope this information was useful.
Hello and thanks for the informaton.
Is this still the current situation, that there is no way for a freelancer for getting a developer license?
What about MCTs, do they get a license with development rights?
What did you do now as a freelancer?
Thanks for information regarding this topic!
Best regards
Astrill
Hello everyone !, here is my question related to this “complex” developers license matter: As a customer having Navision installed and working fine, and also with some capabilities to do some minor development, how can we have a developers license that allow us to do what we need ? I insist, they are minor things but still we would like to have access to create tables, dataports, access triggers, etc. is this possible ? how?
As a NAV customer, you would simply need to have the appropriate NAV development granules added to your NAV license. Your NAV partner should be able to work with you in selecting the appropriate developer granules based on your needs.
Eric. Hi. Sorry for my bad English.
Please tell me now (November 2011) is it possible to get a developer license Dynemics Nav. using theMicrosoft Dynamics Partner Registration Agreement (https://partner.microsoft.com/US/40089018)
What do you think about this?
Do I need to have two certified specialists?
PS: I have my own company, and it has the status ofMSPP ID
With the changes to the partner network it will be next to impossible to get a development license this way. There are revenue requirements based on NAV sales associated with it. If you want a development license your best bet is to pay for it, and it isn’t cheap. You’ll need to weigh the cost of purchasing it against the hourly rate you are paying for NAV development and go from there.
I didnt know you can buy a license (developer) .
Is that an MS supported method ?
g.
You can buy Application Designer and Solution Developer. It’s as close to a developer license as you can get and I never had any trouble having just those when I worked for an end user. I was able to do everything I needed to. We’re talking in the neighborhood of $40,000 US Dollars, though, so you have to really need it. And that doesn’t include your custom object ranges or development training / salary of the developer.