With Navision 4.00 released in Beta 2 there not much time until it will hit the streets! As I wrote last year after the MBS Tech 2003 show in Minneapolis, then there are several new features: - XMLPorts - Allowing you easily to define XML import/exports. - New menu in Office XP style (officially called Microsoft Office 2003 Wonder Bar style). But now I finally had a chance to check it out on my own. And it’s looking really good! I’m excited and can’t wait… The other new features are: - BIGTEXT - A new variable with a max. lenght of 2GB!! Finally we can create real text/comment fields directly in Navision… Super - I’ve just waited 15 years for this! Only down on this is that you must save it in the database as a BLOB field and convert it to and from BigText on the fly. - Intercompany Postings - You can send documents to partner companies in the same or several different Navision databases. - Business Analytics Basic and Advanced - You can analyze different areas within Navision and using external tools such as Excel, a report writer and a web interface with the possiblity for simple data mining. - Analysis Reports - You can use analysis reports to create customized reports based on records of your posted transactions, for example, sales, purchases, transfers and inventory adjustments. In a customizable report, the source data, which is derived from the item ledger (with associated value entries), can be combined, compared and presented in meaningful user-defined ways. In this sense, the analysis report is very similar to a PivotTable report in Microsoft Excel and the dimemsion analysis on the General Ledger side. - Inventory Analysis by Dimensions - The existing Advanced Dimensions feature has been extended into Inventory area by providing the possibility to set up and use inventory analysis views. For each analysis view, you can specify up to three dimensions, as well as specify criteria for items, dates and locations. - Item Budgets - With this facility, companies have the possibility to prepare and record a sales budget that may serve as an input to decision-makers in other operational areas, i.e. purchase and logistics, about future expected demand and form basis for business discussions with the customers. Once budgets are made, they can be used to track the actual sales performance by means of calculating the variance. The possibility to move budgeted figures between the system and Excel provides additional flexibility to the budgeting process. - New consolidation tool. Has been rewritten with better support of currency translations. - Information Pane on the Sales Document Forms - They are violating all their previous design guidelines - but it makes the forms much better to use for the users. Direct access to relevant customer and item information such as ship-to’s, contacts, sales history, item availablity, prices and discounts and substitutions. - Manual Planning - This feature is a simple supply planning tool that functions as a manual MRP system, where the user makes planning decisions order-by-order based on visibility and manual planning functions. The Order Planning feature uses parts of the existing planning engine to find and analyze new demand but it does not consider planning parameters defined for the items and is therefore much more transparent than the automatic system. - Graphical Scheduling This feature provides a graphical representation of production orders and capacity loading in an integrated Gantt component and allows a user to reschedule operations by drag and drop in a graphical interface and thus update the related production order data. - BizTalk 2004 integration - The BizTalk interface has been rewritten to support Microsoft BizTalk 2004. The interface is now using the new XMLPorts. And than finally - and as always - there are a large number of fixed errors… Microsoft Business Solutions-Navision 4.00 is expected to be release in 3rd. quarter 2004. And I’m looking forward to this!
Do you know if we have to wait for warehouse management functionality like in the version 3 release?
Two other long time coming items are the Unapply in AR and a Reverse Posted register function. Good stuff. Tom Roberts Parente Tech
little corss posting here and there ([:D]), but anyhow: In the netherlands, each NSC ahs received a presentation of the changes in 4.0. In addition to ernst’s list: user experience: outlook 2003 look and feel Shorcuts (personalization) View graphs within navision Product enhancements: Commerce Gateway, new functionality and support of Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 Supply Chain Management simplicity improvements User Setup Toolkit XML I/O New ODBC Driver Smart Tag as part of solution Partner Tools: Updating Navision Developers Toolkit Data Migration Tool Industry Templates Improved installation services Improved designers Programming Self-study Course Solution Developers Instructor-led Course Finance area: Intercompany posting IAS – Statement of Compliance (legal requirements) Consolidation Modifications – SFAS 52/IAS 21 (legal requirements) Partial Payment Unapply Reversal Postings Plus: simple manufacturing will be added and the navision portal will replace commerce portal and the user portal, and is expected to be provided in share point web parts… Can’t wait to see it, W1 is expected this month, dutch localisation in october / november…
Erik, Do you know if the Inventory Analysis by Dimension and Item Budgets can be done by Quantity as well as Amounts? (Thanks for a really great post!)
Do you know something about Graphical Scheduling in 4.0? Thank you?
Hi Erik Thanks for a really great post! Marco
The Programming Self-study Course looks interesting for consultants like me who would like to improve their development knowledge. Anybody know how I can get my hands on it? Thanks Meint
Hi Erik, Would like to know more about the ganttchart too. Currently i’m developing a ganttchart as well using the embedded controls technique. Didn’t know this functionality would become available in Navision 4.0. If you have info about what functionality it has, i would be very interested. Regards, Jan-Pieter
Does anybody know what the release date will be in the Netherlands? We are preparing a 2.01 to 3.7 conversion but waiting a few months is a possibility.
Our technical director was in Frankfurt lately, has seen it and was not impressed… Release was announced around october, but W1 was announced in april, so… I think we can expect it in december…
Not impressed: by the gant chart i mean of course…
quote:
Originally posted by Sam Bartley
Erik, Do you know if the Inventory Analysis by Dimension and Item Budgets can be done by Quantity as well as Amounts? (Thanks for a really great post!)
Yes. It’s in sales amount. COGS amount and Qty.
quote:
Posted - 16:55:32
Our technical director was in Frankfurt lately, has seen it and was not impressed…
Posted - 19:09:28
Not impressed: by the gant chart i mean of course…
I was a very unhappy Navisioner for 2+ hours… [:I] Peter, you and your company usually have very good info on Navision, so I was a little worried with your comment. Luckily, it only applies to the gantt charts. [:)] My hopes for this new version remain, therefore, very high.
quote:
Originally posted by Lars Westman
quote:
Originally posted by Sam Bartley
Erik, Do you know if the Inventory Analysis by Dimension and Item Budgets can be done by Quantity as well as Amounts? (Thanks for a really great post!)
Yes. It’s in sales amount. COGS amount and Qty.
Lars, Thanks for that update; it’s exactly what I was hoping for!
No worries Nelson, can’t wait to see it myself… about the gant chart: if navision makes it possible to drag-drop items from in a gant chart within navision, it will be a pretty easy move to integrate our own planning solutions…
Hi Erik, Actually surprised at the length of functionality added. I dont remember if they mentioned earlier that the above mentioned functionality shall be added. Thanks for the information.
Peter, To be honest, i’m glad that your technical director was not impressed, cause we have invested a lot of effort creating our own Gantt Chart. So i was kinda sad that it would have been for nothing because it would be standard functionality in NAV4. Now it may have some potential … Jan-Pieter
I did attend the aforementioned Frankfurt meeting. The Gantt Chart functionality is created using a program by Netronics (www.netronics.com) You can download the program for free there with a one-month trial period. It’s already in use in Germany for some time. Another thing is the “Manufacturing foundation”, basically splitting up the manufacturing modules into smaller parts so it’s easier (cheaper) to start using it. Also, Navision introduces bar-graphs: these are programmed as forms so not printable, but you can drill-down on them. Planned availability ww=Q3, Netherlands=Q4.
hm, www.netronics.com looks like an e-comerce site. However searching with google is www.netronics.de Isn’t that what you mean? Well can’t wait to get my hands on the beta … !