Software Answers

Postcode Lookups

For years you have had the ability to use postcodes to accurately retrieve addresses in the UK.  For most companies the  high cost to licence and pain to install and update was such that it was not viable however given that licence costs per annum per user where anything up to £300+. Unless a large proportion of your time was spent entering addresses the return on the cost was simply not there. 

Now however a company called World Address have changed that. First point is that you pay per query as as the pricing table shows below even for small usage its not so expensive.  At between 8p each for less than a thousand per to 7p for ten thousand plus its justifiable to make sure you get accurate addresses entered rapidly.

Secondly there are no installation or maintenance costs, its a service over the web that your systems can just call when they need it. This means that you don’t have to install it on each computer and get and distribute update files from the provider, much better.

Finally the interface we have to link it seamlessly to your existing systems is very good, From CRM, NAV, AX or Pegasus you can just enter a postcode in the normal box and a new window comes up to display the alternatives i.e the house numbers and names in that postcode, you select the one you want and it updates the relevant fields, simple and easy.

Technology Management have been using it both internally and with clients for a while now, it gets our clear recommendation. If you think it could help your business let us know. 

Are you invoicing electronically?

Technology Management, in partnership with Equisys, has introduced an electronic document management solution, Zetadocs, which integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Dynamics NAV. We can provide advice on how adopting a secure, sustainable approach to invoicing can benefit your company.

With seamless integration to NAV, Zetadocs allows invoices to be delivered via email and/or fax, providing the following benefits:

· Reduced costs - no postage, reduced stationery and less time spent by staff preparing invoices

· Improved cash flow – delivering documents in real-time encourages faster payment

· Increased efficiency – time spent preparing and sending invoices can be spent on other tasks

· Improved customer service – automatic archiving of documents allows quick retrieval for quicker query resolution.

· Reduced carbon footprint – eliminating paper from your invoicing process can help your organisation meet sustainability targets.

Electronic Invoicing for Microsoft Dynamics NAV Web Event

Our software partners Equisys are running a series of free webinars. The upcoming event on “Electronic Invoicing” focuses on how Zetadocs can help you improve business efficiency and save you money:

Date: Wednesday 22^nd February 2012

Time: 3.30pm

Cost: FREE

To register for the event follow the link: http://www.equisys.com/products/zetadocs_for_nav/einvoicingwebinar.html

For more information on how Technology Management can help your business, contact Jason Tromans at Jason.Tromans@tecman.co.uk or call 01902 578300

Dynamics NAV 7 missing Forms

Information about the next version of Dynamics NAV is starting to hit the public domain now think and fast. Michael Neilson, one of the people in charge of NAV development, has just posted a screenshot of the new ‘classic client’ replacement onto the community Mibuso site.

Three points to note,

1. There are no Forms, forms are dead, you will not be able to upgrade to NAV 7 with forms, you have to use RTC pages.
2. There is a new option of Query to help simplify reporting.
3. The Run button is not active, you cannot run NAV business logic from the classic client.
4. Its headed Microsoft Dynamics NAV Development Environment and its only to be used for development. This means ‘classic’ reports no longer work as well.

Its worth taking all of the above into consideration when planning enhancements to your systems, make sure they are RTC based and have a long term future.

Current date for NAV 7 release is September/October 2012.

Dynamics NAV via a Browser & Sharepoint

Last year Microsoft announced that the next version of NAV (codenamed NAV 7 but likely to be called NAV 2012) would allow you to access NAV not only via the full RTC windows client but also via a standard web browser and also through SharePoint. Now we have the first screenshot examples of how it will look that are not covered under the non disclosure agreements that we normally see previews under. As you can see it is completely recognisable and pretty cool.

And the SharePoint alternative looks good to, web parts from NAV can be mixed on pages with any other SharePoint web parts such as document library's.

Scheduled release seems to be September/October of 2012. You could be using this before the year is out!

QR Codes now available in Microsoft Dynamics NAV

Quick Reason Codes are barcodes for the 21^st Century (well ok they were devised in 1994).  Because they work in 2D where data is stored horizontally and vertically like a crossword, they contain a lot more information than a standard barcode and as a result have a greater range of application.

Because QR codes can be read with a camera this makes them more accessible than the standard barcode.  Many people now have phones and tablets with a built-in camera and web connection.  All you need on top of that is a barcode reader app.  These are free, can read both QR codes and standard barcodes, and are easy to use.  Simply placing the QR code in the frame will activate the QR code’s function. This can be anything from opening a website to picking an item out of stock.

So why all this talk of QR codes?  The clue is in the title.  Microsoft have released an add-in for Dynamics NAV that allows it to create and use QR codes.  A quick update to your NAV implementation will enable QR codes to be placed almost anywhere in the NAV environment – pages, forms, reports, you name it.  So once you’ve got the ability to show and print QR codes, how are you going to use them in a way that improves your business?  Here are four ideas we’ve come up with:

 

1. Warehouse Stock Tracking

- Items can be scanned in and out of locations around the warehouse as usual.  The twist is QR codes carry more information enabling additional traceability.

2. Point of Sale

- Customers with a loyalty card printed with their own QR code, can wave the card under a webcam at the point of sale.  From this action a discount could be applied to their purchase, trading details brought up on the screen, loyalty points added to their account etc.

3. Track and Measure Trends

- By allowing your customers to vote for products you can track and measure what they’re thinking and plan for the future.  This can also work internally to see which systems your colleagues are using the most.

 

4. Promotion

- So you send out an invoice to a customer.  Payment is made.  End of transaction.  Well what if you put a QR code on the invoice that will take your customer to your company website?  As an example, scan the QR code at the top of this blog post and see where it takes you.

- Notice that the code has our company logo on it?  Another exciting feature of QR codes is that they can be customised.  As long as 70% of the black/white pattern remains visible the code will scan accurately.

 

If you have Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 SP1 or R2, or Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0 SP1, then this is a simple update that opens up all sorts of opportunities for improving efficiency in your business.  If you’ve been holding back from upgrading then this may just be a good enough reason for you to make the jump.  The ideas above aren’t the only way to use QR codes.  Take a little time and think how QR Codes can improve your business.

DynamicsFood Events

With the latest release of our DynamicsFood software (combining Dynamics NAV and Microsoft Certified for Dynamics add on, SI Foodware) due at the end of February, we have been busy updating our website and arranging some events to coincide with this.

We will be demonstrating the total food journey right through from the initial entry of the sales order using various different methods,via purchasing,production and quality control and ending with the final delivery of the goods to the end customer showing you where your business can save time as well as improve accuracy and traceability.

 

Events will be held at our offices in Wolverhampton, Microsoft’s offices in Reading and the home of Yorkshire County Cricket, Headingley during February and we look forward to welcoming everyone to these. To book a place, please register at www.tecman.co.uk/events or spend some time browsing our new website at www.dynamicsfood.co.uk and register from there!

If you can’t make these dates but would like to know more, please contact Claire Evans at claire.evans@tecman.co.uk

New Schedule of Free NAV workshops at TecMan announced

The popular free monthly workshops that have run for several years, are now scheduled for the 1st quarter of 2012.

We are covering VAT settlement returns and reconciliation, Jet Reports and Fixed Assets.  These run at our offices in Wolverhampton and hosted by our support team which means its a guaranteed sales person free event! 

If you have a support contract or are interested in moving your support across to Technology Management, book on, meet the team and maximise your investment in Dynamics NAV by finding out what's possible with the software.

Book on at www.tecman.co.uk/events

Liam

Microsoft Certification Gold in CRM and ERP for 2012

Pleased to confirm that we continue to hold Gold Certification with Microsoft for Dynamics ERP and CRM for the next 12 months.

This certification is the highest available from Microsoft, and requires a minimum of 6 certified employees in each competency. A number of case studies plus the completion of a customer satisfaction survey was also required to be successful.

The CRM team now stands at 10 dedicated people while our Dynamics ERP teams number 16. The investment in quality people all trained and certified to the highest level in implementation, consultancy, development. training and dedicated support is recognised by this certification.

CRM 2011 Role Tailored Forms

I have come across many CRM implementations where the fields on various forms can start to get cluttered and confusing. The fields always tend to be required by someone within the business but without proper management the sheer number of fields can start to take up un-necessary real estate on the form. Take for example a sales manager, when they open an account record they probably want to see key information such as year to date revenue, sales forecasts and turnover. This is fine, we can add that information to the form and the sales manager will be happy, but what about the poor support technician? When they open the account form they want to be able to see support contract details and case history, without having to scroll past a boat load of sales information first. Thankfully CRM 2011 has a great feature that means you can tailor forms based on the role of the user, so the form for a sales manager can now have completely different content and layout to what a support technician may see. All we need to do is create a relevant form, with the desired layout, and then assign a security role to that form.

So here’s what a sales manager will see when they open up an account record:

And here is what a support technician will see when they open up an account record:

As you can see, they are two totally different sets of fields, but very relevant to the user accessing it. The forms are clean and un-cluttered, which makes the user experience a whole lot better as they don’t need to search through a maze of fields to get to the information they need.

This feature doesn’t stop there though, not only can you customise the form layout on a role by role basis; you can also specify the code driven business logic too! This means you can add different sets of validation and actions to a form, depending on the role of the user accessing it. The combination of these features makes quickly implementing a UI, which fits all users’ requirements, a lot more achievable then previous versions of the product. Feel free to contact Technology Management should you require more information about Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, email crm@tecman.co.uk or visit our website http://www.tecman.co.uk/Products/Microsoft-Dynamics-CRM

Nathan.hawkins@tecman.co.uk

Support for Dynamics NAV version 5

Recently we have heard of Dynamics NAV customers who are being told by their partners that they have to upgrade because Microsoft support for their version ends soon. Specifically Microsoft have announced that support for Version 5 ends in April 2012 and even, get this, that support for version 2009 ends in 2014.

While this mainstream support withdrawal does mean that your partner cannot go back to Microsoft for support should you have a problem, in reality, with version 5, this is not an issue anyway.

The first point is that if you have a version 5 system that is unstable then you really have the wrong partner. System stability as in NAV crashing out of the client (v5 didn’t have an RTC remember so it classic client only) is usually caused by the executable that you install rather than the objects in your database. But what we term a client upgrade i.e. changing the executables to the 2009 R2 version can be done quickly and safely. Not only does this ensure stability but means you can install on new platforms such as Windows 7 etc. The point to remember is that it is upgrading the objects (especially from Classic forms to RTC pages) that takes the time and introduces risk.

Secondly what happens if you need a regulatory update as obviously past that date, Microsoft will not provide that automatically? Well first ask your partner how many of those there have been in the last ten years, the answer for most industries should be none. If they start to mention the VAT changes than point out that this was a change of rates that simply needed a data change, reverse charge VAT was supported in version 5 from its launch. Where the government has made regulation changes that have required program changes they have given over twelve months of notice so there will be plenty of time to plan how to cope.

The final point is that if your version 5 system is stable (and systems that old almost always are) then why do you need Microsoft support? At Technology Management I cannot remember the last time re had to refer an issue with a version this old and if we did I suspect that we would be told to upgrade and see if the problem still occurred anyway. You still need application support but any decent partner will be able to provide that for many years to come without needing anything from Microsoft.

In short the telling you that you ‘have to upgrade’ is in the same scale of scaremongering as the millennium bug was before year 2000. People who try to frighten you to upgrade are not acting in your best interests. Am I saying you never need to upgrade, definitively not but you should upgrade because of the benefits you will get not because of the threat that your systems will fail and no one will help you.

With the new Role Tailored Client, Web Services, new Reporting Services reports, as well as the improved functionality there are loads of advantages to 2009 but please do it for the right reasons not because your partner scares you with unfounded fear.

For your information I have included the detail of the Microsoft reminder below.

Mainstream Support for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0 Ends April 2012

Mainstream support for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0, including 5.0 SP1, ends April 2012 per the Microsoft Support Lifecycle Policy. Customers who are current on a service plan can continue to access the following benefits through CustomerSource:

• Previously released Upgrades, Updates, Service Packs, Fixes and Regulatory/Tax Updates
• Self-Help Support through Knowledge Base articles and online content
• Unlimited Online Training
• CustomerSource Community and Tools

For more information related to Microsoft Support Lifecycle policies and product dates for all Microsoft Dynamics NAV products, see the Support Lifecycle Page. For support lifecycle information for Microsoft Dynamics NAV in particular, see Microsoft Dynamics NAV Support Lifecycle Information.