Dynamics 365 Finance Release Date

11/10/201611/10/2016 atotovic Dynamics 365, Microsoft Dynamics NAV Directions, Directions EMEA, Dynamics, Dynamics 365, Finance, NAV, NAVUG, NAVUG Summit, Project Madeira

Today on NAVUG Summit, we finally got a release date of new Dynamics 365 Finance (ex Project “Madeira”). Dynamics 365 Finance will be available at November 1st.

It will be available just one week after general availability of NAV 2017. But, this availability will be for US and Canada market. I’m still not sure, but I expect Dynamics 365 Finance for Europe market in Q1 or Q2 next year. I cannot wait this moment because I strongly believe this is a product which will make a huge impact on global ERP market.

OK, tomorrow is new day and the start of new conference – Directions EMEA. We will wait and I’m sure we will get some new interesting things from beginning.

NAV 2017 Official Release Date and News from Directions

27/09/201627/09/2016 atotovic Conference, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, SaaS App, AX, Business, Cortana, CRM, CRM Online, Development, Directions, Directions NA, Dynamics 365, edition, Environment, GP, Microsoft, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, NAV, NAV2017, NAVUG, Project Madeira, SL

I’ve finished with a first two days on Directions NA. Both of these days I had sessions and I couldn’t prepare this article earlier. I wanted to say a lot, but I couldn’t.

First, NAV 2017 still didn’t official released, but finally we know when to expect. Not on Directions NA and not on Directions EMEA, but few days after that. Official release of Dynamics NAV 2017 will be at October 24^th. And, Microsoft also promised that we will get official release of Dynamics 365 for Financials (ex. Project “Madeira”) shortly after. OK, we will wait these dates, but generally we already know what we will get with these releases.

Some of these functionalities were presented by Marko Perisic and his team on Keynote, and some of them on other sessions. I’ll noticed some of the in this article, but I’ll write more about them in the future. Now, I want to speak more about future of Dynamics because I think this is something the most important in this moment. As you can see on the following picture, we have something very interested and Paul White said “This is an AND strategy”.

Based on this strategy Dynamics AX and CRM will continue to live only as part of Dynamics 365 solution. Something is not clear enough because we expect CRM as part of both Enterprise and Business edition of Dynamics 365, but AX will be part only of Dynamics 365 Enterprise edition and on other side, Project “Madeira” will be on the same position in Dynamics 365 Business edition. But NAV (GP and SL as well) will continue to exist as independent solution, in this moment available on-premises and as subscription. On the first sight this is the perfect for all NAV fans, but I need more time to be sure.

In any case, we will get new opportunities and we have to learn how to make the most of them.

And what about Project “Madeira” and licensing. We have some pictures earlier where we found recommended priced about 40 USD for each App. That is a true, for example if you want only Project “Madeira”, you need to pay 40 USD, but if you want some other app, for example PowerApps, you need to pay the same amount for this app per user per month. But if you want to have access to all apps (currently 4 of them), you need to pay only 50 USD for all of them as Plan model (and yes, this price will decrease with the number of concurrent users). And you can use Team Members for only 5 USD as some kind of limited users. And what is good more? If some of exiting NAV clients with Perpetual licensing model want to transit to new subscription model, he will get pretty big discount for every month.

And I said that I don’t want to write about all features, but I need to notice few of them. I already wrote about Cortana Intelligence in Inventory Forecast, but now we saw Cortana Intelligence in Cash Flow Forecast; it is a perfect and you can use this in NAV 2017 and Project “Madeira” and the best is that it is very easy for using and configuring.

End something more – new development environments. First you can use Visual Studio Code in the future as new code oriented environment (soon more about it). Marko presented live work with new tool.

And on the end, new development tool for incredibly easy work. You just need to click on Edit button in your Web Client and you will get perfect logical environment where you can change pages, add fields to table and page… And on the end just click Stop and choose how you want to use this development… You can see all changes as preview in Web Client, Tablet Client and Phone Client. And all changes will be finished in Web Client and Windows Client, as well (of course, this is just short description – soon more about it).

End again about dates, the new development environment preview will be available for Christmas.

Sales and Inventory Forecast Using Cortana Intelligence for Project “Madeira”

23/09/201625/09/2016 atotovic Microsoft Dynamics NAV Cortana, Dynamics 365, forecast, Intelligence, inventory, Microsoft, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, NAV, NAV2017, NAVUG, Project Madeira

I’ve just finished with all my jobs and I can start to prepare for my trip to US on Directions. I’ll depart tomorrow morning and I’ve just find some space to put my things about one very nice feature in Project “Madeira” and I hope in NAV 2017 as well (just confirmed on Directions NA, it’s part of NAV 2017 – 25.09.).

This is part of August “Madeira” update, but I finally find enough time to show it. When you run Project “Madeira”, you need to install this feature because it is Extension. But this is very easy in “Madeira”.

After you finish with installation, you can configure this in Setup Scheduled Forecasting using Sales & Inventory Forecast Setup. This is naturally and there is not some unnecessary details.

When you decided how you want to put this feature to work, you can go on item list to see your predictions.

What is the most important? Complete procedure is made by Cortana Intelligence and connection to Cortana Intelligence is automated configured in Project “Madeira”; you just need to use it – nothing more. As I already said, you only can change setup if you need it. This is the new power of new products – the perfect integration with other Microsoft tools to get the best possible results. I cannot wait to start using these new features.

In any case, bye and see you in US tomorrow.

Bricks in Project Madeira and NAV2017

15/08/2016 atotovic Microsoft Dynamics NAV, SaaS Brick, Dynamics, Madeira, Microsoft, Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, NAV, NAV Madeira, NAV2017, NAVUG, Project Madeira, Tiles

Very often, using of standard lists in NAV were not so comfortable because of specific data sets. Now, we will get some new feature that all list pages can be showed as “bricks”. If you remember, we used bricks in NAV 2016 for Phone Client. But now, we can use this for all lists: Customers, Vendors, Bank Accounts, Chart of Accounts, Currencies, Items, all Journals… You just need to choose brick view:

You can configure what you want to see on bricks and optimize space and readability for data that appears in these pages using a Brick Field Group. You can change importance of these data and their layout changing orders of them.

But if you choose Items, you can see more. Not only list and bricks, you can choose tiles as well. Difference is that you can put item picture on both bricks and tiles. Again, you can configure what you want to see by yourself:

Directions 2016 NAV Conferences

08/08/2016 atotovic Conference, Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016, Directions, Directions EMEA, Directions NA, Dynamics 365, Dynamicspro, exam, Madeira, Microsoft, Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, NAV, NAV2016, NAV2017, NAVUG, Project Madeira

In this moment, we have the final countdown until Dynamics NAV conference season will start. We have 47 days until the opening Directions NA and 64 days until the opening Directions EMEA this year.

This year Direction NA will be held the first, but Directions EMEA will be only 17 days later and I’m sure we have something new on both of them. Currently we have published agenda only for Directions NA, but I’m pretty sure that agendas will be similar, maybe with only small changes.

I love these conferences and I’m sure you will find a lot of reasons to attend on one of them, depending where you actually live. I think that the most important reasons will be launching of NAV 2017 and Project “Madeira” as well as Dynamics 365. You will find a lot of sessions about news in these new products. You will also learn more about integration with other systems, about using of PowerShell, how to take advantage of using Managed Services, how to improve your knowledge in lot of different areas… Also, you will learn more about project management, user experience, get some real-life experience… You will enjoy in awesome Keynotes … and maybe the most important – meet new people. I think these kind of events are the best places for networking; people are the most important wealth… and you can find and meet a lot of them on these conferences because they are the biggest NAV conferences.

In the same time, you can attend Cloud Sure Step sessions or try to pass new NAV exams powered by Association of Dynamics Professionals. I advice you to try some of these exams; I had participation in some of them and I think they are very good way to prove your expertise.

And finally, I will be lecturer on both of these conferences and I hope I’ll meet a lot of you – amazing people. See you there:

Create an Invoice from Outlook Calendar in Project Madeira

03/08/2016 atotovic Azure, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, O365, SaaS Azure, calendar, Integration, Madeira, NAV, NAV2017, NAVUG, O365, Office 365, Outlook, Project Madeira

I’ve already wrote about using integration of Outlook and Project Madeira. If you use Exchange Online, you can use a lot of automation. As I wrote in my last article, everything I used is based on Project “Madeira” currently demo features, but I expect we will have minimum the same in new NAV 2017. But OK, we will still wait with this until we get the official new release.

I older articles, I showed you how to use this kind of integration in emails, but now we can use some automation in Outlook Calendar as well. If we make an appointment to make some invoice for example, when we open this appointment we will notice Project “Madeira” button.

Using this, system will as us what contact we want to use and when we choose one of them we will get all necessary information about him. Now, we can make new quote, invoice, order or credit memo for him if we want. We can add everything we want in this document without leaving the Outlook Calendar. When I finish, I can send this document on approval or just post or post and send.

On my first picture, I captured how it looks like in Outlook Online, but everything is a possible using desktop Outlook (as I noticed, you just must use Exchange Online). If we use desktop Outlook and open the same appointment, we can notice two buttons. The first is about Contact Insights and the second is intended for directly creating a new documents. You can type a new document directly in the right part of appointment or click on “Pop Out” button (you can use this in online and desktop versions as well) to get independent window for easier way of typing.

And when you finish everything is the same as in online version. Now you can choose to work in Project “Madeira” or in NAV from email or from calendar and it will make your daily business faster for sure.

Project Madeira with Desktop Outlook

04/07/201626/07/2016 atotovic Microsoft Dynamics NAV, O365, SaaS exchange, Madeira, NAV, NAV Madeira, NAVUG, O365, Office 365, online, Outlook, Project Madeira, SaaS

In my few previous articles, I showed you how you can use Project “Madeira” with Outlook. But in all these posts, I used Outlook Online. You can also do everything the same in Desktop Outlook. You just must use Exchange Online.

Because of that, I want to show just some example in Desktop Outlook using Office 2016. You can use all examples I already showed. In this my small example, I got an email about some Invoice Issue from client.

In this case, you just need to run “Desktop Links” add-in and Outlook will open your invoice in email body. For example, I’ll make an invoice correction and change discount fro 5% to 10% and re-post and re-send invoice to my customer.

You just need to choose Correct and system will make and post credit-memo, the same as invoice and create new invoice with the same data. You will change everything you want and choose “Post and Send”. System will post this invoice and create new email with this invoice in attachment as PDF.

But we have something more. In the right corner, we can find “Contact Insight” button and when we run it, we will get all information about this customer in the right pane. This pane is interactive and that means you can click on any data and you will get new information here.

Also, you can find “New” button and we can create all sales and purchase documents from this place. I think almost all functionalities in the Online and Desktop Outlook are mostly the same, but Desktop Outlook experience is even better.

Advanced Scenario with Project Madeira and Outlook

30/06/201626/07/2016 atotovic Azure, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, O365, SaaS Dynamics, Madeira, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, NAV, NAV Madeira, NAVUG, O365, Office 365, Project Madeira, SaaS

I think in my few previous posts, I’ve already showed some very interesting Project “Madeira” feature in collaboration with Office 365 and Outlook. Now, I will finish this small story with the some more advanced business scenario.

I got an email from my client where he asks an offer for some items. As I expect, because he is my old client, “Madeira” automatically recognized him and gave me possibility to see his company contact card or him as my customer. This second info is more useful for me.

On this card, I can see his balance, past due balance, overdue as a chart and few interesting tiles with information about his existing quotes, orders, invoices, credit memos, posted documents… If I want to see details about his balance, I need just to click on amount and I’ll get all information from Customer Ledger Entry; again everything in mail Outlook client. I can see posted document from this entry or edit if I want it…

And the same situation is if I click on amount in the chart. I also can use these tiles to see all documents with details from this default place.

OK, I decided I’ll give him an Offer. From this customer card, I can make new Sales Quote (I can make other sales document as well). As I expected, system noticed me that he has overdue balance, but I will live with this risk J. Now, I just need to fill what he wanted on quote and choose Send by email.

System will automatically create new email with attached Quote as PDF and all necessary information in mail body. And I just need to click Send. When I get confirmation, I will continue with working making an Invoice and sending approval request. And after that I’ll choose to Post and Send this invoice.

As you saw, we can make almost all sales business processes without leaving our Outlook client. And this is not everything we can; this is only part of possibilities. But we can see all of these in only few months. I am really waiting to see this product in production environment.

Invoices in Project Madeira via Outlook

29/06/201626/07/2016 atotovic Azure, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, O365, SaaS Azure, Dynamics, Invoice, Madeira, Microsoft, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, NAV, NAVUG, O365, Office 365, Outlook, Project Madeira, SaaS

Few days ago, I wrote article about working with contacts in Project ‘Madeira’ via Outlook. Now, want to show something more about integration with Office and Outlook.

What if you get an e-mail with invoice number in mail body? Outlook will underline this number and make link to your actual invoice in NAV if you just click on it. Beautiful.

If invoice with this number doesn’t exist, system will offer you to search document in all your sales and purchase documents. You just need to choose type of documents, and you will get list of your documents as bricks. Impressive.

But what when you find your documents? First, you can continue to work with this document in your mail body or you can choose to open it in new window for a better visibility. And then, you can choose a lot of actions, everything from your e-mail (you don’t need to open your Madeira client during all these actions).

If I choose the first option (Send), system will just make a reply mail with this Invoice in PDF as attachment with the basic details about this invoice in a mail body.

But you can make a different actions as well. Maybe you need to correct this posted document (system will automatically create and post Credit memo and create new document) or you want to create a Credit memo or change your payment service… Everything of this is possible, but only if this contact is connected with your customer.

There are still more possibilities, but in some other article… Currently we can say, Project ‘Madeira’ promises a lot.

New Extensions for Project Madeira

27/06/201626/07/2016 atotovic Azure, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, O365, SaaS Azure, Dynamics, extension, Madeira, Microsoft, Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, NAV, NAV Madeira, NAVUG, O365, Office 365, Project Madeira, SaaS

When I run Project ‘Madeira’ for the first time, I found only three extensions there:

QuickBooks Data Migration
PayPal Payments Standard
Envestnet Yodlee Bank Feeds

All of them were created by Microsoft. But now, we can find eight of them (one new from Microsoft and few of them by ChargeLogic and Sana Commerce).

It looks nice to see new extensions here from other vendors. I hope we will have a hundreds of them in few months as well.

But I’m afraid about their visibility when we have a hundreds or thousands of them. I use brick view for the best visibility, and yes – search works fine, but I think we have to have some additional tags. Minimum I need is Category tag, because we will have a lot of completely different types of extensions (data migration, notifications, integrations, payment, some specific vertical or horizontal solutions, localisations,…). Also, it will be fine to have Market tab because some of extensions are for global market, but some of them will be only for some specific countries.

I expect to have some kind of rating as well. We will have a lot of similar extensions, and we need something for differentiation. I think these ideas can improve ‘Madeira’ experience. But it look it will be a great product.