At almost all our implementations the users need to have the capability of importing data into the General Journal. Most often this is data from their payroll system, but also from their bank etc.
Of cause we could create a dataport (or for that matter an XML port). But I would rather create something my users could use for imports without we had to do any special development for each company. Not just because we talk about around 50 countries with several companies in each country and it would be a lot of work doing this. I’m actually more concerned about the maintenance, and the fact that it really would “mess up” our otherwise clean database.
So we were considering either directly using the Excel Mapping Tool from the RIM tools, as this looks like something in the direction of what we want. It’s rather clean, it’s easy and it does not have too long a learning curve for the users.
Many times ask me for dataports for specific tables (Post Codes, other external files, etc). Recently I decided to explain how works Excel Mapping Tool. They were able to import data directly to Navision without nay problems and they have being using it for a while. So it’s safe now to tell that it’s a nice tool and end users can import data from other applications to Navision.
Hello,
since I’m working on NSC - everything in dataports… it was strange for me after being a freelancer and using this tool for data import… RIM reduces time and it’s very user-friendly.
And at all … working on NSC makes developers degrade in some manner But we should make another topic for that
Exel Mapping tool is a great Tool. I used that for my last implementation BUT What I did to make sure that it works fine was to:
Make sure all the SETUP Was done in advance ( Financial, S&R, Purchase etc…)
Make sure I have all my tables that need to be filled also ( This was espeacillay crucial when I used CRM for Contact table as this table hase several relationhips with other tables such as Business Code, …).
Otherwise once used, it is good. Also implementation time is really fast. I had all my master files ( Item, Customer, Supplier, Price list, Contacts) after one week . Key users were ready as their files were already clen into Excel.
So that was my experience with the Exel Mapping Tool.
Well everybody here. I fully aware of the advantages of using the Excel Mapping Tool. I have used it for some time now, but for it’s original purpose: Data Conversions. And in this situation it’s for use by experienced consultants.
What I’m really asking about is if you have experience in letting the end users using the tool for something as rather simple as journal imports? For me of cause I’m also concerned about security, and that they not suddenly start to make exports of tables they should not be touching… So as I see, then the tool is not usable out of the box…
I am not the biggest fan of the RIM for most cases, because in the real world, it takes as much work to customize the methodology tools as it does to just do the job. The big area where RIM shines, is for verticals. In these cases, it makes sense, since you can leverage the work against multiple implementations.
In your case, really one could consider your company as the developer of a Vertical solution much as Adidas did. Actually your one implementation is so big, that alone its bigger than most Vertical solutions out there for Navision. So why not look at what you do as the project managment of a Vertical solution, using a series of external resources for delivery.
When you look at it from that perspective, it makes sense to start using not only the Excel mapping tool, but all the rest of RIM as well.
To answer you actual question though, YES I think the Excel Mapping Tool is the way to go.
If you want to promote a tight security then Excel mapping tool is unusable out of box. If you want only to import data, you can easily control that. You can customize this tool to apply filters to tables that can be imported. Avoiding a user importing data to a wrong table witch has write permissions. It depends a lot of the final purpose you want end users achieve. If you look at budgets you can export data to Excel and importing it again from Excel. I know if you apply this tool to end users you will have a problem, not all users will be able to accomplish that, but by other hand some end users have better knowledge then some consultants. I personally think that you can use this tool to import HR data, it’s a better alternative then having a dataport specific for each country. In this case it will be only a setup for each country.
I think you missed the point, as I understand it, this is only to IMPORT data into the General Journal Line table. There is no security issue at all, if they user is not permitted to create a journal, then they can’t import. [:D]
I explained myself incorrectly [:P]
For example if you have write permissions to Customer table you can easily mess all data with this tool. It is necessary witch tables user can write using this tool.
But we should make another topic for that 