I have been using consultants from a NSC, but I am thinking of having someone within my company trained and take care of the development internally. If I send someone (a seasoned programmer with no knowledge of Navision at all) to take Navision training classes, what is this person supposed to learn before he feels comfortable to do the development work? How long does it usually take? Is there a formal procedure at Navision to train a developer? Can anyone recommend a good Navision company in mid west USA, particularly in Chicago area?
Moved from (User Group Polls to Open Subject forum).
Hi, If you need full time internal programmer you probably choose wrong system. Try to find industry specific solution that most suitable for your company. Try to concentrate on things you know and can do best instead try to spend time and money on training your programmer. I think it make sense to have internal person who can write and change reports. 4 day training + couple of month experience should be enough.
Ben, Just to help you out in your decision making process. Navision US will not train anyone that is not associated / employed by an NSC. So if you can find an NSC that is willing to give up potential services revenue and send someone internally from your organization under the guise of being their employee to official Navision training, then you could do this. However, I don’t think you’ll find any that are willing…especially with the risk of falsifying documentation and Navision US finding out. The best path you need to head down is to purchase the Navision development tools and either get your NSC to train you themselves or go find someone who has previously worked at an NSC in this development capacity. Good luck.
Hi Ben. I am an enduser developer without training from Navision and support from experienced Navision programmer. I knew nothing about Navision at all when I first started. What I had was a computer science and technology degree and ten months experience in VBA and Oracle database system. From modifying a report to developing an add-on module including forms, reports, tables and codeunits it took me about six months. According to my self-learning Navision, anyone with previous non-Navision programming experience and problem solving skills can do the job. My employer used consultants from NSC for a year and is left a lot of unsolved problems. They create new problems when they solve problems.[:(!] They don’t consider long term maintenance for you and don’t tell you what problems their solutions can cause in short or long run as they are not your employees . Perhaps that is the way to keep you calling them in. Sometimes the problems are caused by the solutions were not tested properly. Now my employer enjoys that the system is well maintained and developed to satisfy growing business requirements.[:)]
Hi! Speaking as a professional Navision consultant, I find it very dispiriting the number of end users who say such things. Surely if their MNSC was any good, these situations wouldn’t occur? Perhaps you should get your MNSC to have an agreed spec & ‘sign off’ procedure? If all the agreed boxes are not ticked, the job isn’t finished. I consider it a matter of principle that what I do or deliver is as good as I could make it/do it, within the time available, according to what was agreed on the specification. One of the reasons I left one of the MNSCs I used to work for was because I thought their attitude to customer service was lazy & complacent. We’re not all [}:)]
Our firm, Liberty Grove Software, has regularly scheduled classes for end users who want to do their own Navision development. The classes are taught by a former Navision senior instructor with excellent ability and credentials. Navision US refers end users (both directly and via their NSCs) to us for both introductory and advanced development training. We have many satisfied students now doing development for their firms. We also provide training and consulting in the use of the functional modules for Accounting, Sales, Manufacturing, and Distribution. It is necessary for the end user firm to have purchased the appropriate granules before attending our classes. If you are interested, please send me an email and I will refer you to our training registrar for additional information.
Ben, We have been doing our own development since we purchased Navision Manufacturing in 1998. We’ve done countless customs, and love the ability to respond quickly (same day) to issues that come up. I’d recommend formal training on Navision first before sending a programmer to a developor’s class. You need to know how the system works and what it can do out of the box before trying to fix it. The biggest problem we face now is reconciling our changes with Navision’s changes. On rare occassion we are able to abandon a fix because Navision has dealt with it. Our last reconcile from 2.1 to 2.6 took two programmer several months to complete (we have a lot of customs). The more we customize, the harder it is to get support from our NSC. Make sure you establish good procedures for identifying your modifications up front! We trained with Aston (Frontline) in Ann Arbor. It was a while ago, and most the people we trained with are no longer there. Make sure you work out the details of who will provide updates, including all of the data conversion programs that don’t seem to come with the standard updates. Despite the costs, having in-house customization capability is well worth it. Good luck, and welcome to the elite group of end-user developers. Milton Watts Salt Lake City
Well… that’s how i started too… and the best you can do for learning it’s practicing and trying things on a test database… 
BTW, Milton… Several months to complete an upgrade from 2.1 to 2.6 ??? That seems TOO much for me… so many custom non compatible things are you having on your database??? Regards,