With NAV 2009 having taken Microsoft Dynamics NAV into the world of Role Centre I have recently returned from a new training and exam passing experience which has not really extended my knowledge. I am sure it was not the fault of the trainer or the training company, but apart from being told we were “entering into a new paradigm” and “job specific metrics” as well as “working with interface components” there seems no considered approach to the training as laid out by Microsoft.

 

I did achieve a pass rate of 88% in the exam, but I was simply trained to pass the exam and not to understand what the extraordinary changes have been, or how to translate these changes to the clients that I will be developing for.

 

There has to be an understanding from Microsoft that as fantastic as the new era of Microsoft Dynamics. It is fantastic that the new generation of AX 2009 and NAV 2009 have taken a new look at the way in which Microsoft Dynamics is used by the clients. The role centre is at the centre of the new approach and they are, from what I can see, taking NAV 2009 into a much easier way to work.

 

As a developer I am a huge fan of the new way in which it is now possible to engage with the clients super users, and to show them how to configure NAV 2009 to suit them and their role, and then use this template to be duplicated across others with similar roles. It is not selfish, in that it creates less work than the previous route of having to develop forms to capture and present data as well as forms to explain the functions the super user performs.

 

It really does set the Business Processes of the Business free. It also allows me as a developer to take a more intuitive vision of the development as well as concentrating on those jobs we are paid to do which those on the client side cannot do. It has given me more time to investigate a new way to debug reports I am developing by using F1 and CRTL and ALT in Service Pack 1 you can enable the zoom feature in the dataset. It allows you to access and debug any report and has saved me hours. It is a simple fix and it is fantastic, but that came from my own development and not from an expensive training course.

 

The subject was even brought up in the course but passed on. As I said before it is not the fault of the trainer, it has to be something that Microsoft change, a key responsibility of experts in ERP and in Microsoft Dynamics, is to transfer the knowledge we have to the clients.

 

But this transfer of knowledge is so vital that it has to begin with Microsoft down.