Keeping Our Microsoft NAV Skills Sharp

Last November, we took our annual visit to NAV TechDays in Antwerp, Belgium.

NAV TechDays describes itself as the place where some of the best developers and leading business owners cross paths, exchange ideas, find partners and conceive projects. It is where community ties are strengthened and where boundaries will be broken. It is hosted by the people from mibuso.com and its owner Luc Van Dyck.

I always look forward to the keynote address that is presented by people from Microsoft that are designing and developing Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (formerly Dynamics NAV). As the product evolves, there is always a lot for them to say. The keynote focused on many things, not the least of which is the newest release having no windows client (web client only) and no more of the old development environment. Development is done with Visual Studio Code and the AL language creating extensions from now on.

t Dynamics 365 Business Central (formerly Dynamics NAV). As the product evolves, there is always a lot for them to say. The keynote focused on many things, not the least of which is the newest release having no windows client (web client only) and no more of the old development environment. Development is done with Visual Studio Code and the AL language creating extensions from now on.

Central (formerly Dynamics NAV). As the product evolves, there is always a lot for them to say. The keynote focused on many things, not the least of which is the newest release having no windows client (web client only) and no more of the old development environment. Development is done with Visual Studio Code and the AL language creating extensions from now on.

I was worried about the web client not having sufficient functionality but now I can see that the web client as just as good or better than the Windows client.

During breaks I had the chance to reacquaint myself with the various vendors of add-ons and tools for NAV and Business Central including Anveo, ForNAV, Idyn, ALOps.

There is usually a shopping list from my clients who are interested in some of the add-ons that are at the exhibition hall. For example, calendar and scheduling, visual scheduling of jobs and production orders, etc.

After the keynote, the next day and a half is filled with sessions related to Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

I attended a great session that was presented by Gunnar Gestsson from Iceland that was related to exchanging and saving files, Azure BLOB, file services like drop box etc.

I attended a couple of sessions related to integrating the Microsoft Power Platform with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

One of the main takeaways I have is to focus on using the Microsoft Power Platform which includes applications like Microsoft Power BI, Microsoft Power Apps, and the recently renamed Microsoft Power Automate (Flows). I believe the future will be to customize Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central as little as possible and rely on using the Power Platform where possible to do the heavy lifting instead of customization.

Sandham Adams specializes in assisting organizations with ERP implementations, specifically using Microsoft Dynamic 365 Business Central (formerly Dynamics NAV) services. Contact us to start a discussion about how we can help your organizations.