2015 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 75,000 times in 2015. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 3 days for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Advertisement

My 2015. Infograf

See you next year…

InfografTotovic2015.png

The last year in this time, I said I had the one of the best year ever and I didn’t want the better year than previous. However I had a better year.
The last year I wanted for you a better year than mine and I want the same this year, as well. I hope, you will have the best year in your life, just a bit better than mine.
If it happens, I’ll be happy because of you and me. Happy New Year to all of you!

A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

This is almost the end of this year and I want to wish to all of you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

merry-christmas-and-happy-new-year.jpg

It is also the time to make a small retrospective of this year. Personally, this year was really great for me, as well as the previous year. I had a lot of very good projects, I started with publishing new magazine (and already got the award for this idea), I traveled a lot of countries and I was speaker on lot of very interesting conferences all around the world (and also in my country). I met a lot of new good friends. We got a new really exciting NAV version… I hope the next year will be the same and maybe even better.

I want to say thanks to all people that supported me. Of course, thanks to all people that do not supported me :-); they are a reason I am trying to be better. I want to all of you to have a year that is better than I already had this year (this is not so easy, but I really wish this for you 🙂 ). I also hope, we will get an awesome new version of NAV (‘Madeira’) next year; I already know some features and I am sure it will be really amazing new version.

And, of course, special thanks to my friends all around the world and especially to my family (my wife, son and dog).

NAV 2016 Video Courses

Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016 is about two month and half here. Currently, you can find a lot of instructions on MSDN and very interesting How Do I videos.

But, you can also find official video courses on DLP and Microsoft IT Academy. Microsoft already published these seven following courses:

  • Introduction to Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016
  • Finance Essentials in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016
  • Finance Advanced in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016
  • Application Setup in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016
  • Installation and Configuration in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016
  • Development Environment Introduction in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016
  • Data and Code Upgrade in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016

I really recommend to see these courses. And you can expect some new courses soon, as well.

Also, you can expect more exams about NAV made by Association of Dynamics Professionals.

Administering Azure SQL

Now we have Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016 on Azure SQL Server, I’m getting a lot of different questions about this topic. One of them is related with database administration.

If you want to administer Azure SQL Server, you can do it through SQL Server Management Studio. You just need to use your full Azure database name (YourDatabaseName.database.windows.net) and login to database using SQL Server authentication. Of course, previously you have to add your IP address to Azure SQL firewall.

But unfortunately, you cannot use SQL Server Profiler for Azure SQL (maybe in future, but currently not). You can use some other useful tools, for example Index Advisor.

Also, you cannot use SQL Agent on Azure SQL. The most of tools we used to are not available. But, instead SQL Agent we have feature on Azure as Scheduler. To use this, you need to create your new mobile service on Azure for your database. More about this tool, you can find here and here.

New Azure Portal

Few days ago we got a new Azure Portal general availability. You will open new portal (codename Ibiza) if you use the following URL: https://portal.azure.com/

This portal looks like the following picture and this is now default Azure portal:

AzureNew.png

Microsoft promises really better performance and usability, but I need to test completely portal longer period before I can give my opinion. On the first sight, we can see some new features, but I’ll write more soon.

If you still want to use old Azure portal, you just need to use the following URL: https://manage.windowsazure.com/

Development Environment on Azure SQL

After my session on NAV TechDays about deployment of NAV 2016 on Azure SQL Server, I got a lot of questions about using Development Environment in this situation.

Using Development Environment can be done absolutely normal. If you want to use DE from your local computer, first you have to add your IP address to Azure SQL firewall (SQL Databases > Servers > choose server > Configure). You can do it to allow connection between your computer and Azure SQL server.

DE01

After that, open Development Environment and type your full Azure SQL server name to Server Name (xxxxx.database.windows.net), choose Database Server Authentication, your username and password and on the end normally choose your database.

DE02

You can work with design, but if you want to open table for example, you have to make some additional configurations. Before it, you have to make connection between your local NAV Windows Client and Azure VM. You need to use certificate and encryption key. After you configure them, everything will be OK.

If you want to use Development Environment directly on Azure VM, you just need to open DE and login to Azure SQL server (I already described), nothing else. In this situation you can work what you want.

DE00

You can see it on previous picture. Database is opened from Azure SQL and you can do everything as you used to.

CU2 for NAV2016 has been released

Microsoft has been released new, second Cumulative Update for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016 in Saturday. This CU is actually Build 43897. You can download this CU from this link.

We can find a lot of platform hotfixes. If you are one of Android users for Universal Apps and you had some problems, now there are solved. Also, there some important improvements in working with Extensions.

Application hotfixes cover Administration, Finance, Inventory, Jobs, Manufacturing, Prepayments, Purchase, Sales, Service, VAT and Warehouse areas. There are also a lot of local application hotfixes (AT, AU, CH, CZ, DE, ES, FI, FR, IT, NA, NL, NO, RU, UK)

Cannot Connect Web Client to NAV on Azure SQL

In my last two articles, I’ve showed you how to deploy Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016 on Azure using Azure SQL Server. Now, if you already finished it any you want to use NAV Web Client, you have to install Web Server components on VM you configured as service tier and create Endpoint for WebClient on this VM, opening port 8080. Now you have to login with different username (for example, Admin username you already used on your VM). Now, you have to type the following URL: http://<AzureVM_Name>.cloudapp.net:8080/DynamicsNAV90/WebClient/

If you have problem with connecion and get the error message, this is probably because port 8080 is not opened. If you want to open this port, you have to open Remote Desktop Connection to your VM and run the following: Control Panel > Windows Firewall > Advanced Settings > Inbound Rules.

AzuWC_CP_Fw.png

If you can find “Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016 Web Client” as rule, you need to add 8080 as Local Port. But if you cannot find it, create a new rule (using the command in the right pane) and add this name and local port.