Hi, We have been working on our implementation for quite some time now (end user with full solution developers license) and I have been absolutely amazed at how much time has gone into building/modifying standard reports like the sales quote/order confirmation, purchase order, sales invoice etc. The standard Navision documents do not look that great and to get them to look like we wanted it has taken about a day for each document (including building the facility to print to .pdf). This includes things like including corporate logo’s, repositioning the layout, changing the fonts etc. Just wondering what everybody else does with these, do you all use the standard ones, or does everybody customise them? I have seen quite a few Navision implementations and generally the documents seem to come as an afterthought, yet it is vitally important to get right. Interested in hearing other experiences…
Hi Meint In my experience the majority of customers during an implementation see the output of forms as a very low priority, data conversion, system processing, training, set-ups etc take priority as “using” the system becomes the priority. The main reason for this is time - in todays market the necessity of a shortened implementation period invariably leads to an mplementation where not all the boxes are ticked, and the pilot period is non existent with user training happening at “live”. These will also be where no customer project manager has not been dedicated to the job. With all of the rush rush of the implementation the output of the forms can easily be left behind. This of course not all implementations, but around 50% of them in my experience (nice easy statistic [:D]) have elements of this. As for the time spent - during Implementation we would allocate 1 day per for each document prior to the pilot period. This allows for the designing to the required specification, testing, customer acceptance, changes, retesting etc etc. Of course the customer has to know what they want - sometimes they want to see the output before deciding on a format as the new system has new functionality. From the “quoting” perspective no one likes paying for this, unfortunately it is work that needs to be done, so you agree to get what you can for it (depending upon the customer of course). In my experience - everyone customises them, even the customers who are brand new and had nothing previously.
I have to agree with Steven he is pretty much on the money here, except for the comment about 50% of implementations being like this. I would say it is nearer to 100%. The only real difference** between implementing Navision and many other products is the time to write code, this is generally a LOT faster, but all the rest of it takes the same time, training, testing, design, management, these all require the same amount of time. Unfortunately too many times, people think that if you reduce your programming costs/time by 70%, then all the rest of the costs/time also decrease by 70%. this is just not true. ** I am refering here to the difference between how long it takes to implement the system. We are all aware that there are thousands of other great reasons that navision is different.
There is an addon you should look at that has documents that atleast look like something a business could send out. Check out http://www.costcontrolsoftware.com/Reports%20Pack.htm . It contains many reports and some documents and is priced around 1000 USD. Tom Roberts Parente Technology