The quest to improve the Dynamics User Group

The quest to improve the user group is a task which will never end.

And lately I have head the same comment several times, all telling me that DUG is too difficult to navigate, especially the forums, and especially in the Navision group, where we currently have 17 different forums.

The comments are that it’s simply too difficult to find out where to post your question. And when asking a question, then often you don’t know if it’s a “developer” or a “end-user” problem.

I therefor like to ask YOU the following questions:

  1. What do you think? Is the current forum structure ok?

  2. If we were to change it, how should we do it? Merge everything into one big Navision forum, one AX forum etc, or going back to original structure with only a “end-user”, “developer” and “technical” forum for each product, or a forum for each major version, like a forum for Navision Financials (ver. 1 and 2), Attain (ver. 3), Navision/Dynamics NAV (version 4 and 5) and finally one for Navision version 2009 (maybe even one for RTC specific issues).

  3. Do you have any other suggestions to improve the usability of this website?

Hi Erik,

I think the navigation and usage of the DUG website is wonderful, its easy to use and much much better than mibuso.com. I don’t have anything in my mind that can be changed here as it is truly good.

Thank you.

Hmm… On average I move 1-2 threads per month to different, more corresponding to question theme, forum. And almost all are that meber’s first postings, when he hasn’t yet got used to forum structure.

Maybe some Navision subforums with very little activity might be joined… For example, RIM is one of such, but again - it’s easier to see all threads regarding RIM together for those who are looking for this info, than digging through a heap of all posts.

Separate forum for specific theme allows faster finding / browsing existing posts than Search, which is rather clumsy - I myself had problems searching for my own earlier posts (which I know do exist…) to refer to them when someone asked the same question which I remeber I answered a couple of months ago

To me it seems OK, but it’s only my subjective opinion - as I’m used to current structure, plus, I almost “live” here in contrary to majority of members, who don’t visit DUG daily.

this would lead to bigger mess - seems it’s better not to put everything together… say, EndUser / Developer / SQL are completely different themes.

It’s of course neccessary to know which version the poster used and had a problem with, but most questions aren’t SO version specific -exception here might be RTC as completely different from Classic interface.
MiBuSo – our friend & competitor in one person-- has somewhat like forums by version, but not even by major versions, it’s bigger “chunks”, and there comes the funny question about forum named Upcoming versions (or Future as here in DUG) - one day future becomes current, what then? Mass moving of existing threads to correspoonding version forum?

As summary - Erik, maybe some forums might be “joined” together, and is it possible to make Search more advanced, or here we can have only what Taligent offers? Many members even haven’t noticed, that Advanced search appears only at the very bottom of first search results (not initial) page in tiny font…

But once more - these are my subjective thougts, let’s see what other members have to say.

Thank you both.

To answer Modris question about search: No it’s basically not possible to change the way search works today. One of the reason I really would like to move to a different platform.

Erik,

One more issue I already wanted to raise some time ago - after upgrading to current CS version the behaviour of Unanswered filter has changed.
Previously it showed threads with zero replies only, now it returns all threads without Verified answer, the scope is much bigger.

Maybe it’s actual for me as moderator only, as I regularily need to scroll back to find such completely unanswered posts, and for me it would be easier to find them with the previous method of filtering out what is really left unanswered.

Hi Erik,

Have you got some post & search stats per Dynamics product range ?

Hi Tarek,

What do you mean by “post and search stats per Dynamics product range”?

Sometimes I miss the possibility to print a topic. In a printer-friendly format, that is

So can I understand it this way that no one thinks that the structure of the forums as they are today should be changed?

hi erik,

I just have a few suggestions, I was browsing through all the posts and i just found one major difficultly. Can you please try sorting the forums post according to their platform? Like for AX, there is seperate beginer,developer,end-user,technical. similarly for others lik NAV etc…

It basically Took me a lot of time to go through all the Post, I just started to Learn Dynamics.

Sorry It is already like that only! now only My collegues taught Me. Wish i had Known it yesterday. Had a really Hard time:) Anyways thanks:)

Erik then i think its very useful As it is:)

Hi Erik,

I think forums in DUG are well structured and don’t need to be changed, particularly Nav technical forums, i really liked the way how it is organized.

To answer your second point, if we were to change it, i think functionnal Forum might be improved, how about structuring it by Module (Financial management, Warehouse, Manufacturing…) for example…

Thanks,

comments can vary, because it’s tightly related with looks and feels. i’m not saying it’s good or bad, but just express my opinion.

like north pole and south pole, there are microsoft’s way and linux’ way. linux taste, we normally recognize it easily by make use of much php (sometime) ajax, linux server, apache server, java script, and so on. microsoft taste, is build of asp, vb script, iis, and so on. i normally think that microsoft way is complex way and confusing way. while linux is guarding simplicity - tho this seems start to switch position.

i can say, this forum is way too microsoft. … then what? … nothing … just expressing my opinion. i feel i’m too much microsoft in my live, i work on microsoft erp, i work in microsoft office, within microsoft window, and get sync’ing to microsoft mobile.

in the future, no wonder if i can see microsoft gas station, microsoft suv, microsoft live insurance (wow, there is live.com - belong to microsoft), microsoft hospital, microsoft grave (oops, there is groove - pretty close to it).

Hehe Jo, funny.

But yes, this is a site running on Microsoft technology and dealing with Microsoft business software, so I guess that we are will continue to see a lot of Microsoft in here.

And yes, otherwise we are seeing a lot of Microsoft and we properly haven’t seen it all yet. On the other hand, then personally I feel that we are seeing even more Google this and Google that than we have ever seen Microsoft this or that. Microsoft will stay primary on the business side, whereas Google are much more dedicated towards the home side.

You are kidding right?

Couldn’t you take an axe and a laptop into a forest, read DUG on the laptop, then chop down and burn a tree for the same effect? [:D]

I fully agree with Modris’ observations …

I like the structure, but I would do something with the forums that aren’t as frequently used. Half the NAV forums haven’t had a post in a week or more. I think their usefulness to the community could be evaluated.

Personally I just look at new posts, don’t even look to see which forum it is in.

Hi,

I’m new here, so my post will be both a question and suggestion. Is there a mobile version of DUG? m.dynamicsuser.net …[:D] Should we have a mobile version of DUG?

Regards,

-TR-

hi

the current setup is well layered… some users might feel we have plenty of sections, but then it provide clear seperation when you want to focus on particular areas…example, technical or end user support… this is useful for info seekers as well as for helpers, as some helpers would like to focus on their area of expertise.

Hii

Erik

According to me please divide forum into sections as you already precribe, and it also requested please make add friend easy.

Thanks