Tag: Dynamics 365

Directions NA 2017 Recap

It’s been quite a week at Directions in Orlando. I’ve written about the confusion in the halls of the JW Marriott Grande Lakes resort, and I wanted to follow up about the closing keynote, and share an article by Microsoft’s General Manager for Business Apps & Strategy.

First the closing keynote, which was a very impressive thing to behold. This week has given me even more respect for Marko Perisic than I already had, because of the way that he owned what he said during the opening keynote, the way he listened to the event attendees during a few Q&A sessions, and how he has taken responsibility to do something with the feedback that he’s received this week. I already knew how much he cares and how much his team cares. Over the past decade I’ve gotten to know many of them quite closely, and they are really a great group of people that have their hearts in the right place. We are in good hands with them.

So, there are 4 items on the todo list:

  1. The ‘white label thing’ is not going to work. We are Microsoft partners, and we need the Microsoft brand.
    • I think the white label thing got taken out of context a little bit. I know someone said “once you change 1 line of code you own the product” but of course it’s more complex than that.
    • The point is that this is a Microsoft product, and we create things to extend it. We add to it, but it is still a Microsoft ecosystem, and we need to be able to leverage that
  2. Delaying the release until spring is creating confusion, and the delay in decision is going to cost many partners a LOT of money. Marko has committed to see if he can fix that
  3. Non-NAV Partners have nothing to sell at the moment. Microsoft needs to be more clear about how non-NAV partners can move into Dynamics 365
  4. Microsoft needs to be crystal clear toward the user group, and there is a firm commitment to be more involved with the user groups

Now toward the end, Marko shared a picture of a word cloud. This was the result of an internal survey, where everyone in the NAV team expressed their feelings toward the product and the greater community. I don’t know about you, but this gets me going every time. If I may speak for myself: the feeling is mutual.

One other thing that was posted a couple of days after Directions was this:

I think that the whole “NAV is dead” thing was totally misunderstood. Maybe someone was talking about the name NAV, but I really don’t think it actually is dead, or even that there are plans to kill it. I do think Microsoft at the corporate level doesn’t always have a clue (which is a polite way of saying that it seems like sometimes they have no clue whatsoever), and I also think that one way or another there is going to be just one “ERP” in Dynamics 365.

Personally I think that the NAV flavor has a really good chance of being that one flavor. For sure we are NOT dead, and there is a LOT of really good and exciting stuff ahead of us.

Directions EMEA 2017 – Madrid

For Directions EMEA, we are going back to Madrid. I am really looking forward to this one, because I have some business to take care of on Mallorca. While I am there I will spend some quality time with some great friends there, and in the planning stages my wife and I decided that it is of utmost importance for her to come with me. So my business trip now has a personal flavor as well.

My company is going to host a record number of sessions (13) and workshops (10), of which I will be hosting 3 workshops and 3 sessions. We also have a booth, but I am worried that we will not have much time to actually BE at the booth since we are all very busy with sessions. My contributions are:

  • Build your 1st extension in VSCode – This is a 2 hour workshop in which we will introduce you to Visual Studio Code, and you will build your first real extension using this development tool. This is the same workshop that we did in Orlando at Directions NA this year.
  • Migrate your IP to VSCode – in this 2 hour workshop I will present what you need to look at when you want to move your IP into Dynamics 365, we’ll take a look at how you can assess your current IP and do a feasibility study. In addition, you will get your hands on some PowerShell scripts to convert your C/AL objects into AL objects.
  • SCM Simplified – this session covers an introduction to Source Code Management, and why it is important for you to start using it today
  • ISV Development Center (session) – At the Inspire conference in Washington DC, my company was announced as one of only a handful of ISV Development Centers. At Directions we will host a session to explain what this means and what we can do for you.
  • Technical partner panel (Q&A session) – a bunch of Microsoft people and some MVP’s will answer any technical and non-technical questions you may have about the upcoming version of NAV and the new technologies that are used to develop extensions and apps for Dynamics 365.

Some of these sessions are a repeat of the ones that we did in Orlando, and some of them will be converted from mere sessions to workshops, since we had gotten some feedback that it would be great to get some hands on material in addition to the presentations. We are always happy to oblige such requests.

Come look us up at our booth, and leave us a message if we are not there, we really want to talk to you!

What’s Going On Out There?

In case you missed it, there were some unexpected announcement this week at Directions North America in Orlando, and as a result there’s some growing trepidation among my people of the NAV partner channel.

Over the past few years, Directions North America has become the time when Microsoft announces the new version of Dynamics NAV. All year long, the partner channel goes out and tries to time sales around this time, and they make promises like “just wait for Directions, the new version will come out, and we can get your project started right away”. Usually, partners go to the conference, attend all the sessions they can catch, and on their way back home, they put in their license orders.

This year, however, the announcement was that there would be NO new version right at Directions. Microsoft is working on the next greatest cloud product, and they have not yet decided what to call it, how licensing will work. We are told that the code is ready to go, but they’re not yet ready to pull the trigger, mostly because of marketing reasons. Since Microsoft wants to go big bang with this new product (identical “full NAV” on premise as well as in the cloud).

This announcement was made by Marko Perisic during the opening keynote, and that afternoon there was a Q&A session that got quite heated. I was not present at the first one, but because it was so “popular” they decided to do a repeat, and of course I did go to the repeat.

At the same time, some event was taking place with some big shots from Microsoft and some inner circle partners, where someone said that someone else high up in Microsoft said that “NAV is dead”. When I heard this, I was immediately skeptical about the accuracy of the quote, and even if it was accurate, that it was probably (likely) taken out of context.

I listened to Marko do some damage control, and to a number of people put forward their points of view, which were made with varying degrees of validity. My takeaways of this session were these:

  • In My Humble Opinion – Marko made a big mistake by using the product codename in the official announcement. Granted, it was in quotation marks, but still, that was not a good thing. Now we have ‘NAV’, and we have “Tenerife” and we also have this unknown product name. Lots of lobbying by the way for ‘Dynamics 365 Navision’ which I actually like, but is probably too retro.
  • No new NAV version is a BAD BAD BAD thing. Postponing the release until spring 2018 is an even worse thing. Many people have been postponing sales for the new version, and not having this new product will defer revenue until spring of next year, and that is going to cost a LOT of people a LOT of money.
  • What I thought was an excellent suggestion was for Microsoft to release the product as it is today (after all, they DID say the code was ready to go), only for on premise, and use current licensing. That way we can start implementing the new product, and we can just call it NAV 2018 as everyone was expecting anyway
  • This rumor that “NAV is dead” must be dispelled at once. Nuff said.

This Q&A session was brutal, there was a LOT of anger in the room. But one thing that I also took away from that session is that we are SUPER lucky to have someone like Marko at the helm of this great team at Microsoft. I observed this guy talk to everybody at Directions, and he always had a smile while he was being chewed out. He’s a very direct person (which I actually appreciate a lot) and that can sometimes be misunderstood. I’m in a fortunate position to be one of the MVP’s, and we had a private meeting with Marko this evening. Because of NDA I can’t share what we discussed, but I can assure you that this guy cares deeply for this community of ours. I for one have gained a TON of respect for how he stood up and listened to everyone that wanted to talk to him. He has heard everyone, and has taken everything to heart.

It’s still the middle of the conference. I have lots of session/workshop stuff to work on, so I gotta get going. Can’t wait for the closing keynote.

CRS is an ISV Development Center

After months of intense scrutiny by Microsoft, and after having kept this quiet for a while once we knew that we were going to be accepted, we’ve finally come to the announcement part at the Microsoft Inspire conference that was held this week in Washington DC. I am very proud to say that we are one of only a handful of companies that have Microsoft’s trust to be a partner to their ISV partner channel.

My company, Cloud Ready Software, is one of only 7 companies globally to be selected in the initial group of ISV Development Centers, of which only 4 have a real competency in Dynamics NAV and Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations Business Edition.

The program was founded by Microsoft to be a buffer for getting the ISV partner channel’s IP into the cloud. There is only a small number of companies worldwide in the Dynamics 365 area that really focus on building products for the cloud. Cloud Ready Software had been helping partners develop their products for the cloud for years, and we have held countless workshops to teach the partner channel about the latest technologies. It seemed like a great fit for us to apply for the program, and we are very excited about the prospect of making this our niche.

Essentially, our job is to help ISV partners in any way we can to get their IP into the cloud. We can do workshops and training for their staff, but we can also participate in projects directly. We can be a way to extend bandwidth in analysis, design, or development efforts, and we can also help with project management and/or guidance in any capacity necessary.

As an ISV Development Center, we have access to the latest technologies, and we are actively involved in developing and promoting those technologies into the partner channel. We can even help be part of a proof of concept to prove the viability of new technologies in cutting edge projects.

It is important to note that we are the partner’s partner. We are not after end users, in fact one of the stipulations of being in the IAV Development Center program is that we are not allowed to work directly with the end user without prior authorization by the partner. Should an end user company contact us, we are obligated to get in touch with their partner of record, to make sure that there is no conflict of interest.

 

Extensions V1 vs V2

You might have heard people talk about “Extensions v2”, and maybe that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Let me take a few minutes and try to explain the concept to you.

Back in 2015, Microsoft announced the concept of extensions to us, in this blog post. I remember reading this article, and being thoroughly confused. At the time I was not in a technical role, and I had let my technical knowledge slip for just a minute it seems.

Extensions v1

For extensions v1, development is done in good old C/SIDE. There are severe limitations as to what you are allowed to do. For instance, you cannot add values to option strings in table fields, and you cannot add code to actions on pages. I won’t get into the details of those limitations, but you must be aware of what you can and cannot do for extensions, because in C/SIDE you can do a LOT more than what you are allowed to do.

The extension itself is compiled in a so-called .NAVX file, also know as a NAV App file. To get to this package file, you must use PowerShell Cmdlets to export the original and modified objects, calculate the delta files, and then build the .NAVX file. To deploy this .NAVX file, you then must use another set of PowerShell Cmdlets.

Especially the development part can be cumbersome. There are many things you are not allowed to do, and as you build the .NAVX file, the system will yell at you when you did something wrong. There are many moving parts, and it takes a lot of discipline to get it right

Extensions v2

For extensions v2, development is done in Visual Studio Code (also known as VSCode), using the AL Language extension. Since you are no longer working in C/SIDE, only the allowable things are allowed. You simply cannot do anything that the tool is not capable of doing. You no longer have to export original objects and compare them to modified objects. Essentially, you are programming the delta files directly in VSCode.

Deploying the solution works simply by building the project from VSCode. You hit F5 and VSCode will build the package and deploys it to the service tier that you specify in the launch file. Deploying the app to a test system still happens with PowerShell Cmdlets.

Hopefully this clears it up a little bit. Once you understand the differences, it’s not so intimidating any longer.

Registered for NAV Techdays 2017

It’s that time of the year. The official announcement came in on Twitter that registration is open for NAV Techdays 2017, which is again held in Antwerp of course. The official two day conference is 16 and 17 November, but I consider the pre-conference workshops to be part of the event, so a full 4 days of deep technical knowledge sharing.

The session schedule has not been published, but we do know the pre-conference content, go take a look at the Sessions page to check out what is available to you. The familiar sessions will cover PowerShell by Waldo, JavaScript by Vjeko, automated testing by Luc van Vugt, SQL Server performance by Jörg, and of course the 2 day design patterns class by Mark. The new topics include how to SaaSify your software architecture, how to use Visual Studio Code (it is very important to learn about this one) and how to develop extensions with it by Arend-Jan. Another exciting one is the SCM workshop by Sören, he will show you how to make it work directly in VSCode.

Only a few regular sessions have been announced (some fantastic content by our friends at Microsoft), but I have a feeling that we will see a super deep dive into all things related to Dynamics 365. I cannot wait to go to Antwerp, and I hope to see you there.

NAV codebase for Dynamics 365

Something that was kind of a big deal happened this week. During the keynote at Directions ASIA in Bangkok, Marko Perisic (General Manager, Microsoft Dynamics SMB) announced that Dynamics 365 for Financials and Dynamics NAV will operate on the same codebase.

There are two reasons why this is a big deal. First it falls right in line with Microsoft’s “AND strategy” when it comes to cloud ERP and on premise ERP. BOTH are essential to Microsoft, and BOTH will have a place in their product line. Second, and this is where NAV is kind of unique, it will allow Dynamics 365 for Financials to be “Full NAV” in the cloud. Let that sink in: Microsoft is committing to having full Dynamics NAV functionality in Dynamics 365. Whether you implement in the cloud or on premise, your ERP will operate on the same codebase. As far as I can tell, there are not many ERP products that provide this. I have a feeling that it is a trend that many will follow though.

The Dynamics 365 codebase has always been the same as NAV, but only parts of its functionality was exposed. The assumption was that the Dynamics 365 codebase could potentially diverge from the on prem version of the product, although how that would happen was not always very clear. Now that there is a firm commitment to keeping a single codebase, the next step is that Dynamics 365 will at some point provide “Full NAV” capabilities, which was in fact also part of the same keynote.

The nuts and bolts are still in progress. Dynamics 365 is updated constantly and NAV only gets monthly cumulative updates and annual version updates. There is also a lot of movement in how add-ons and customizations will be implemented, although the magic word there is “Extensions”.

For Microsoft to come out and announce the equal codebase though….. that is a Very Big Deal.

Get Started with Dynamics 365 Apps

Dynamics 365 for Financials has been out for a while, and by now you have probably learned about how the functionality can be extended rather than modified. Instead of modifying the application objects directly, development is done using “extensions”, which are published as an “App” in AppSource.

What is unclear to a lot of partners is how this works exactly. What do you need to know? What do you need to do? Where do you get the help that you need? Microsoft has put together a few resources to get you started and to get you the help that you need.

You may need a partner source login and/or an Azure account to be able to access these pages. These links won’t answer all your questions, but you should find enough information to get started. Good luck!

Webinar – Dynamics NAV Dev Tools Preview

This morning I was part of a panel to host a webinar to show the development tools preview. It was my pleasure to provide the demo part and show the attendees a taste of what is to come in the new development tools for Dynamics NAV. The demo part was just about 25 minutes, and then we opened up the floor for questions. We had some good questions, and it was a lot of fun to be able to share that with everyone.

The webinar was recorded and uploaded to YouTube, and you can watch it here. Oh, my name is not Erik Ernst, not sure how that happened 🙂

Early Christmas Present – NAV Developer Tools Preview

At Directions in the US this year, Microsoft announced that they would release a preview of the new development tools for Dynamics NAV. Today, they have delivered on that promise, and you can try them out in your Azure subscription. Head on over to the Development Tools Preview for Dynamics NAV to read all about it. You will find instructions on how to get started there. Go to the New NAV Development Environment on MSDN to read more about the details.

If you decide to take the tools for a test run, and you find any issues with them, you can report on those issues in the AL Github issue tracker. Go to The Microsoft/AL Github page, click on the ‘Issues’ tab and create a new issue there. Microsoft is monitoring the issues there.

The important part to keep in mind about this preview is that it gives us a preview of how development for extensions is evolving. The goal is to simplify the process to where all we need to do is write the code and hit a build button, and all internals are taken care of by the environment.

Remember, this is just a preview of the tools. It is not supposed to be flawless. Microsoft is also working on many other tools to complement VSCode and provide a development experience that will meet the NAV developer’s needs.