Microsoft Dynamics NAV

Microsoft Dynamics NAV

Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 R2 RoleTailored Client (North American edition)
Developer(s)	Microsoft
Operating system	Microsoft Windows
Available in	Multilingual
Type	ERP
License	Proprietary
Website	Microsoft Dynamics NAV

Microsoft Dynamics NAV is an enterprise resource planning (ERP) software product from Microsoft.

The product is part of the Microsoft Dynamics family, and intended to assist with finance, manufacturing, customer relationship management, supply chains, analytics and electronic commerce for small and medium-sized enterprises. Value-added resellers (VAR)s can have full access to the business logic source code, and it has a reputation as being easy to customize.^[1]

For modifications of the system, the proprietary programming language C/AL is used.

History

In 2000, Navision Software A/S merged with fellow Danish firm Damgaard A/S (founded 1983) to form NavisionDamgard A/S. Later the name was changed to Navision A/S.

On 11 July 2002 Microsoft bought Navision A/S to go with its previous acquisition of Great Plains. The new division in Microsoft was named Microsoft Business Solutions and also included Microsoft CRM.^[2][3]

In September 2005 Microsoft rebranded the product and re-released it as Microsoft Dynamics NAV.

The product itself has gone through several name changes as the original Navision company or Microsoft has tried to decide on how it should be marketed. The names "Navision Financials", "Navision Attain", "Microsoft Business Solutions Navision Edition", and the current "Microsoft Dynamics NAV" have all been used to refer to this product.

In December 2008 Microsoft released Dynamics NAV 2009, which contains both the original "classic" client, as well as a new three-tier GUI called the RoleTailored Client (RTC).^[4] Microsoft originally planned to develop an entirely new ERP system (Project green), but has decided to continue development of all ERP systems (Dynamics AX, Dynamics NAV, Dynamics GP and Dynamics SL). All four ERP systems will be launched with the same new role based user interface, SQL based reporting and analysis, SharePoint based portal, Pocket PC based mobile clients and integration with Microsoft Office.

Versions

Navision versions from 3.00 onwards were:

• Navision Solutions 3.00: 3.00
• Navision Attain 3.01: 3.01
• Navision Attain 3.10: 3.10
• Navision Attain 3.60: 3.60, 3.60A
• Microsoft Business Solutions Navision 3.70: 3.70, 3.70A, 3.70B
• Microsoft Business Solutions NAV 4.00: 4.00, 4.00 SP1, 4.00 SP2, 4.00 SP3
• Dynamics NAV 5.00: 5.00, 5.00 SP1
• Dynamics NAV 2009: (aka NAV 6.00) 2009, 2009 SP1, 2009 R2 (R2 was released in 2011)
• Dynamics NAV 2013: Projected for release in September / October 2012 ^[5]

Features

As of 2006, NAV is licensed using the "Business Ready License" (BRL) model. The customer purchases user sessions, which have access to certain parts of the system included. There are two types of user - Business Essentials (BE) and Advanced Management (AM); AM provides access to more functionality than BE. Under the previous licensing model, "Module Based License" (MBL), users came with no functionality - this all had to be bought separately. Microsoft offers a path for customers to transition from MBL to BRL licensing.

The product gives administrators the option of using either a native database server (now called 'Classic') or Microsoft SQL Server, as the DBMS. SQL Server is better able to cope with large database sizes, but requires more maintenance than the classic database. The original database server is often referred to as 'C/SIDE' which refers to Client/Server Integrated Development Environment.

Relative to Microsoft's other 3 ERP products, Dynamics NAV's sector is distribution and manufacturing companies that want more than "out of the box" functionality. The solution has a standard feature set, but it can also be thought of as an "ERP System construction set". The Pascal-like development language is easily accessible to appropriate developers and is designed for rapidly customizing the software. There is no need for complex server side Transact-SQL stored procedures as the one language manages the application and database.

According to Microsoft, Dynamics NAV is being used by approximately 65,000 companies, with over 1.3 million end user licenses. Approximately 13,000 of those companies are in the US. It was the first and only mid-market ERP application to break one-million end user licenses.^{[citation needed]}

Microsoft Dynamics Navision delivers integrated functionality to provide support for:

• Financial management
• Supply chain management
• Manufacturing
• Distribution
• Customer relationship management
• Sales and marketing
• Service management

Add-ons

Microsoft Dynamics NAV Add-ons are software products supplementing NAV functionality. Add-on solutions are developed and distributed by Microsoft Partners worldwide network as granules or modules to improve functionality of NAV system or make it applicable in some business spheres. Microsoft Dynamics Solution Finder is an online tool to search for solutions within vertical markets, with an up-to-date overview and identifying solutions that are Certified for Microsoft dynamics.^[6]

There are vertical and horizontal add-on solutions. Horizontal add-on solutions supplement one of the NAV functions or add new function (e.g. financial management, human resources management etc.). Vertical (or industry-specific oriented) add-ons expand NAV functionality to support some industry (e.g. health care, brewery, financial services etc.) The majority of add-on solutions are multilingual with most supporting English.

Utilities

Microsoft Dynamics NAV utilities are small software modules for Microsoft Dynamics NAV improving programmers and database administrators work convenience and effectiveness. Also it makes program development and implementation processes faster and their cost lower. Eventually utilities will be developed by the NAV developers/implementers for their own needs and will then be distributed as a commercial software product.

References

External links

• Microsoft Dynamics NAV Official Site