Attached in this post is the installer for the .NET project. It requires, as far as i remember .NET framework version 2.

Just run the setup and it should install and also register the .fdb extension, for you that still use the native databases in local installs.

When running the NAV Launcher the first time you need to assign the path for the correct versions of the executables. After that it should work automagically! I have not tested in other systems than my own, so there might be some compatability issues, please let me know about any.

How it works? For SQL databases it basically just does this query to find the current databaseversion:

In native versions it reads directly in the .fdb file, at the position 0×2005 and from that determines the correct version.

If you would like to do enhancements, like automatic discovery of clients installed, please email for collaboration info at gotcal@navtilus.com.

download: Navision Launcher (236.76KB) added: 31/10/2011 clicks: 469 description: Opens your Dynamics NAV database with the right client version. Works on both local .fdb and SQL databases.

I got this list of entries for the innovation award, so check them out:

See more here at this link: http://navdirections.com/email/201108-innovation-award.html

This is a great functionality, but as it is now, you can only see the notes from the My Notifications and the notification fact boxes. In this blog post i will take a look at how you can print these notes in a RTC/RDLC report.

Lets take  closer look at what is stored:

In the table lets take a look at some of the fields that tell us we are dealing with a Notification:

• Type=Notification
• Notify, boolean that tells us if another user is to be notified
• To User ID, the User ID of the user to receive the notification

The actual data for the note is stored in the Note (BLOB) field. To get this to print on a report, lets just create a quick and simple report layout in the report designer. Just add the Note field (remember you need a CALCFIELDS on it) and put in the sourceexpression of a textbox in your report. On the RTC/RDLC report just add the new field and then test the report.

As you will notice it just prints: “#ERROR”. Hmm! This is due to the way the Note is stored in the database. The RTC clients writes the note through a BinaryWriter: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/yzxa6408.aspx. As you can see the first bytes tells us the length of the string, and the remaining data is what we need to actually look at. In .NET that is very simple, just write a function to do that:

Public Function Convert2String(Value As Byte()) As String
	Try
		If Value.Length = 0 Then
			Return ""
		End If
		Dim utf8 As System.Text.UTF8Encoding = New System.Text.UTF8Encoding()
		Dim mem As New System.IO.MemoryStream()
		mem.Write(Value, 0, Value.Length)
		mem.Seek(0, System.IO.SeekOrigin.Begin)
		Dim reader As New System.IO.BinaryReader(mem, utf8)
		Return reader.ReadString()
	Catch ex As Exception
		Return ex.Message
	End Try

End Function

As i usually code in C# and the RTC reports to my knowledge only works with VB.NET code i am using a neat little conversion tool, that can be found here: http://www.developerfusion.com/tools/convert/csharp-to-vb/. Also information for how the text is stored in the BLOB was found here: http://www.mibuso.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=43416

TIP 1: Using the Try/Catch structure in the code, has been a great help in “debugging” my code in the RTC reports, as it would actually return any error messages from the Try section in the TextBox on the report, as well as help you figure out what Object data you are working with.

TIP 2: To make sure the code you have written in the RTC report can compile, you can do a build while you are in Visual Studio. Or just use the shortcust CTRL+B. That way you dont have to first save the report and wait for NAV to compile the code and return any errors.

In my next blog post, i will show you how to use the RTC notes in the classic client and NAS.

Actually he already published tempates back in 2009, as you can find on this link: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/cabeln/archive/2009/11/16/resources-to-my-add-in-sessions-at-directions-09-in-austin-tx.aspx.

His new updated templates that VS extensions can be downloaded here:

A link to the blog post:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/cabeln/archive/2009/11/16/resources-to-my-add-in-sessions-at-directions-09-in-austin-tx.aspx

Keep an eye out for the next post here, regarding RTC reports and printing RTC Notes.

The next major releases of Dynamics AX, GP, NAV and SL will be developed to run on Windows Azure, Microsoft’s cloud development platform that’s been available for a year, Tatarinov said, beginning with the next version of Dynamics NAV that’s due in 2012. The applications will support multi-tenancy, he said.

Here is the complete link: http://www.crn.com/news/cloud/229401347/microsoft-unveils-plans-to-adapt-its-erp-applications-for-cloud-computing.htm

Guess the weatherforecast is saying it will be cloudy out there ….

For some reason i had not really seen it before, must have missed a blog post about it . It is basically a web based object model of Dynamics NAV. I know you can use other tools like Developers Toolkit to provide the same functionality, but having it online and available without any setups is pretty cool.

Here is the link to the site: http://www.navutils.com/navutils/demomodel/index.html.

Do you have other NAV hidden gems to share, let me know.

Suggestion for Available Databases Form in Dynamics NAV

It reminded me of a tool i basically use on a daily basis, as well as many other people in my company. It is an extended version of the Navision Starter v1.2 orignally created by Sergey Gazizyanov back in 2006. I have added support for the latest version, as well as shell integration for native databases (*.fdb), so you just double click on the FDB file.

The launcher will determine the database version from both SQL and native databases, and choose the right client executable to open the database with. It also can do automated login with database login, by using a default password like sa/sa.

See here for a quick overview…

The whole project is in the .NET and very easy to extend. I have talked with Sergey a while ago, and long as there is a credit to his original project we can extend and use it.

If anyone is interested let me know, and we I can put the source code up on either google code or MS Codeplex.

With christmas time just a few weeks past, i think i know what one of our customers got for christmas . Well, here is the story… you know for troubleshooting issues remotely screenshots of the process and error messages are always a big help, so our support department requested that from a customer.

Here is what they send us:

I must admit i have never thought of doing screenshots this way! But how logical it is now that i see it. And with the digital cameras you can even see the timestamp directly on the picture. I love it….!!

Well, as you readers all know Windows can actually do screenshots just by pressing the “PrtScn” key – and places a bitmap picture on the clipboard, so you can paste it into your favorite application. Here are some uses of it:

• PrtScn by itself captures your whole desktop
• Alt + PrtScn captures the active window

Or you can do as i and use a 3rd party application such as SnagIt, or a free version called Jing. Also for you running Windows 7, there is a new tool included called the Snipping Tool.

Anyways, back to work – and hopefully some interesting blog posts later in january. Until later – let me know your favorite support story…

Lets do this example, enter in a new cell with Number Format General, the value “001010″, and you will see Excel stores this as 1010, since it determined your value to be a Number. Of course we wanted it to be the equivalent of a NAV Code field, and expected Excel to keep it like “001010″. In order to do this you can for the field tell it is text by adding a ‘ in front. So far so good….

But when doing a copy/paste you dont have that option, so what to do?

Before doing your copy paste set the specific column, or the whole Sheet to Number Format = Text. Then the values you paste in will stay formatted the way exported them from NAV.

Not really a NAV trick, but related. And just learned this today, as a customer was getting audited and they needed the data out to Excel.

A quick blog scan will give you loads of information about the new features, the hype and what not. But Microsoft also released these hot topic videos covering some of the new features. For some reason i had not seen them until today where they caught my eye on the frontpage of MIBUSO. Thought i would share them with you as a little advent calendar present.

The topics covered are:

.NET Interop, Online Payments Service, What’s new for developers and a general overview.

Here are the actual links:

Dynamics NAV 2009 R2 – Overview

.NET Interop by Stuart Glasson

Whats new for Developers

Online Payment Services

If you have access to Customer/Partnersource you can find the R2 Readiness page here: https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/marketing/campaigns/prospect/nav2009r2readiness.htm?printpage=false.

On the developer readiness page you will also find information about the SSRS reporting capabilities, and information about using the testability features. All in all lots of great information.