Newbie to NAV, where should I start?

Business Central/NAV General Discussions
1

Hi all, just browsing the web and found this forum, saw some very useful stuff on it so had to join. My question is, I am a complete newbie to NAV, I have only started learning how to use it in the past three weeks, any tips on where I could look, or what I could use to improve my knowledge of NAV role tailored client and sql? Please excuse my lack of terminology, as I said, newbie! Thanks in advance

2

Availability of resources depends on what your status is:

  1. you’re a MS Partner company’s employee;
  2. you’re an End-user’s employee;
  3. neither of the above, but willing to acquire NAV skills.

NAV has no user manuals as such, has never had - partially because it’s impossible to write them for such a highly customizable system.

  1. gives you the maximum opportunities - access to MS extranet PartnerSource containing tons of materials, courses etc etc, and mentorship from your senior colleagues.

  2. as End-user, you have access to another MS extranet site, dedicated for NAV users - CustomerSource. It contains training materials and courses, whitepapers and How-Tos.

  3. DEMO versions of NAV are available to everyone for downloading, and Dynamics NAV section on MSDN is publicly accessible, too. Many books are available, check Books page here in DUG.

Both 2) and 3) lets you obtain information needed to learn how to use NAV. If your target is to become a NAV developer, then 1) should be your choice. Nevertheless there is info available on MSDN about NAV development, an individual can not obtain “developer” license, therefore you can’t practice in development.

Foreseeing your next question, I should clarify - in fact, there is no such thing as “developer license” anymore. Those times are long gone, when everybody who passed DEV exams and obtained NAV Developer’s certificates was given a personalized license allowing to do development. Nowadays only Partner company license gives full access to dev environment and objects. (To be precise - an End-user can buy development “granules”, but they cost tens of thousands $$$, and are still limited in comparison to Partner’s license).

3

That would be number 1, thank you very much for your reply :slight_smile: have been reading through manuals and will soon be sitting my first exam. This along with the use of NAV has greatly increased what I can do, and what I know in the past few weeks, but im always wanting to improve…

I am finding this forum very useful and simply reading around is helping me better my terminology and knowledge of NAV.

Thanks for your reply!

4

If there’s anything you need to know, a great way is to just ask on here! Submit a question and someone will help you I’m 100% sure. I’ll be on this a lot now so I’ll help out whenever I see a question I know.

Would you mind me asking what your purpose for improving your NAV skills is? It will help me in finding you some helpful information. :slight_smile:

5

Hey, thanks for your reply!

Well the main reason is I will soon be sitting the financials exam, and was just looking for some guidance on this. To date, I have been reading the various manuals, doing the demonstrations provided within them, and just generally playing around trying to get familiar with NAV.

Thing is though I am a complete newbie, not having used NAV at all before, so im still getting to grips with the terminology, functions, and user interface.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance