Integrated Innovation In Microsoft Dynamics NAV

Editor's Notes

• #4: The term integrated innovation is the way we describe how Microsoft Navision utilizes other Microsoft products and technologies to help companies get the most out of their solution in a cost-effective way. Better Together: A Successful History of Integrated Innovation Integrated innovation is not new. Microsoft Navision has a long history of utilizing Microsoft technologies and products. As early as 1993, the development team behind Microsoft Navision recognized the potential of the Microsoft® for Windows® NT 32-bit graphical user interface (GUI)-based software. At that time, a major development effort was initiated to create a new generation of Microsoft Navision solutions with a highly adaptable and easy-to-customize user interface. This resulted in the successful launch of Microsoft Navision Financials Windows 95 and Windows NT versions in 1995 – making it one of the first accounting solutions for small and medium-sized businesses based on Microsoft Windows. Since then, innovative enhancements have been made to Microsoft Navision making it even easier and more cost-efficient to sell, implement, upgrade, use and maintain. And, Microsoft products and technologies have been and continue to be an integral part of these enhancements. For example, in 2000, Microsoft Navision Commerce Gateway was one of the world’s first solutions based on Microsoft BizTalk Server. Today, Microsoft Navision represents a significant number of the total sales of Microsoft Biz Talk Server. And, again in 2000, Microsoft Navision User Portal was one of the first the world’s first solution based on Microsoft’s Digital Dashboard. Today, Microsoft Navision is leveraging the benefits of Microsoft SharePoint technologies with a new employee portal based on Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services. Integrated innovation and Microsoft technologies continue to be the foundation for the future development of Microsoft Navision. The next major release of Microsoft Navision (code-named Corsica) will be the first Microsoft Business Solutions product to ship with a new client based on the Microsoft Business Framework (MBF) and will utilize brand new application architecture based on a new Microsoft .NET middle tier. All of these improvements will enable us to achieve our ultimate goal of empowering both Microsoft Navision customers and partners to realize business success by working more productively without increasing costs.
• #5: But what does this all mean for you? Integrated innovation helps your company work faster and smarter. First, your employees will work with and in applications and programs that they are familiar with so they work more efficiently. Second, your entire organization is connected to real-time data and information so employees have what they need to make smarter decisions faster. And, integrated innovation helps companies turn data and information into insight. It’s not enough to know the facts – the who, what, where and when of your business – today you also need to understand why or why not something happens. Integrated innovation makes that possible in a way that’s fast and thorough so your employees can react, respond and take advantages of new opportunities quickly.
• #6: Lets look at the first advantage of integrated innovation – increasing employee productivity. Customer research shows that employees waste valuable time re-keying redundant information and data into disparate systems, switching back and forth between different applications and getting reacquainted with applications that look and feel different. Microsoft Navision’s intuitive, task-based design looks just like Microsoft Windows. The familiar user environment enables employees to work faster and more efficiently because they feel “at home” with the application. The Microsoft Navision Navigation Pane has the familiar look and feel of the Navigation Pane in Microsoft Office Outlook 2003. Its main menu content has been structured around departmental areas to reflect employees’ roles and tasks. Each of these areas has its own menu. This makes it easy for employees to find the functionality they need, quickly. The main menu in Microsoft Navision looks and feels like Microsoft Windows The Navigation Pane displays one menu at a time. Menu buttons at the bottom of the pane enable users to switch from one menu to another. The menus are organized in intuitive, logical tree structures, just like the folder structure in Windows Explorer. Menus contain menu items for the windows, reports, and batch jobs that users have access to. To make it easier to navigate within a menu, related menu items are gathered in menu groups.
• #7: Microsoft Navision’s tight integration with Microsoft Office enables employees to draw on the functionality of familiar programs such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Excel. Users can build queries that will extract data directly from the Microsoft Navision database from within Microsoft Word to create customer letters. Or users can export data from Microsoft Navision directly into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to produce reports or create a pivot table for analysis.
• #8: Here’s an example of what I mean. Tight integration with Microsoft Office enables users to create letters using Microsoft Word from within the Microsoft Navision application. Here, the user is about to create a letter from the customer contact card in Microsoft Navision. Note, right now we are in the Navision application and about to write a letter in Word. Integrated innovation means that there is no “jumping” from one application to another.
• #9: And, here is the letter in the Word application – complete with the information we obtained from the Navision contact card. Integration between Microsoft Navision and Microsoft Office make all of this happen automatically. Let’s go on to an example of how MIcrosoft Navision automatically synchronizes a meeting in Microsoft Outlook.
• #10: SmartTags give employees a more effective working environment The tight integration between Microsoft Navision and Microsoft Office enables employees to access information that is stored in Microsoft Navision without leaving Microsoft Word, Excel or Outlook. Smart Tags functionality provides predefined information such as a name or an address and is recognized in Microsoft Office applications and more detailed information from Microsoft Navision can be added. Request a meeting in Outlook while working in Navision
• #11: Here is the letter we were looking at earlier. Integration enables Smart Tags that helps me find information I need fast – without leaving the application. The Smart Tag will take me to the MIcrosoft Navision contact card – again integration enables the user to experience this as working in one single application.
• #12: Here we are in the Microsoft Navision application with the informaiton we requested from the Smart Tag.
• #13: Employees can book meetings, manage contacts and tasks and send email in Microsoft Navision and synchronize automatically with Microsoft Outlook. Users can also access up-to-date contacts, tasks and calendar information from Microsoft Outlook directly in Microsoft Navision. Users can also keep records of e-mail correspondence, business contacts, meetings, tasks, appointments, and so on, in both Outlook and Microsoft Navision and share selected records with colleagues. For example: when an e-mail from Microsoft Navision is created, the e-mail is also registered in Outlook, and when a task is assigned in Outlook, the task is also registered in Microsoft Navision. Integrated innovation enables better communication with customers and colleagues. E-Mail Logging gives a greater overview of e-mails. Employees can integrate e-mails between Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Navision. Companies are able to maintain current e-mail records in both systems and employees can share and publish knowledge about external contacts.
• #15: To remain competitive today, small and medium-sized businesses must be able to connect and share data and information cost-efficiently among employees, customers and business partners and across different systems. Commerce Gateway helps customers efficiently unite systems, employees, and trading partners and automates their interactions in a flexible way. Information sent or received by Microsoft Navision Commerce Gateway is automatically updated in Microsoft Navision. This eliminates the need for manual data entry and significantly increases data accuracy. This tight integration enables companies to become more competitive. They can reach out to new trading partners cost-efficiently – regardless of the system they use or the standards they require. Companies can work faster. The time it takes to respond to requests for information and documents decreases so companies can do more. And, Microsoft BizTalk Server works with the Navision Application Server to immediately handle sales orders. This improves service and makes companies more attractive to new trading partners.
• #16: For example, Microsoft customer, CRT Group was the first organization in the Asia Pacific region to implement Microsoft Navision Commerce Gateway. CRT Group is a leading transport company in Australia and they needed an integrated financial and transport logistics management system with an e-business interface. According to CRT, their customer service staff saved up to 50% in order entry time in just one month following implementation of Commerce Gateway. Tony McAvaney, Logistics Project Manager of Qenos, one of CRT Group’s most important trading partners, reported that Commerce Gateway eliminated the double entry issues. Data errors, as a result, dropped 75% – virtually eliminating the costs of those errors – a benefit for both organizations.
• #17: Companies today are buried under an enormous amount of data and information – so much so that companies end up analyzing too much of the wrong information and missing out on profitable opportunities. For example, information in their system is not up-to-date so employees are notified too late of problems or opportunities to make a difference. Often, when needing data from other departments, employees must have someone send them the data since it is stored in departmental data sources which are not shared. And moving data from one source to another and reformatting it for analysis can cause errors. The challenge lies in being able to access the right information and transform it into insight and knowledge.
• #18: Business Analytics in microsoft Navision integrates with MIcrosoft SQL Server Analysis services, Microsoft Excel, MIcrosoft SharePoint to help employees get access to the info they need to do their job.
• #19: Integration between Microsoft Navision, Microsoft SQL and Microsoft Excel helps users transform data into better business decisions. Here you can see how information from Microsoft Navision is used in Microsoft Excel and then analyzed in Microsoft Navision Business Analytics.
• #21: A cost-efficient way to deploy a Web-based interface and share information The Microsoft Navision Employee Portal is a very convenient and powerful .NET- based product to cover distributed information needs. It’s an Intranet and Extranet solution that utilizes Microsoft SharePoint Services and integrates with Microsoft SharePoint Portal making it possible to work with real-time business information such as invoices, customer data and reports directly – and in a secure environment – from Microsoft Navision. Employees can access and share Microsoft Office documents, receive information or updates quickly or update relevant business information in Microsoft Navision. Security is driven from SharePoint
• #22: Like all Microsoft Navision solutions, the employee portal has been developed with the user in mind so that it’s both intuitive and simple to use. Customers save on training costs, and employees can start working immediately. There are no extra software costs. Microsoft SharePoint Services is included in Microsoft Windows 2003
• #23: Sum-up: Integrated Innovation in Microsoft Navison means: Increased productivity – without increasing costs Seamless connectivity of people, processes and information – in a cost-effective way Increased business insight – better business decisions And a lower total cost of ownership of your solution – more value