Article Posted by Alex Chow on May 30, 2011 (Confessions of a Dynamics NAV consultant)
Improvements
Having made a big deal about how bad the current RDLC for Dynamics NAV 2009 (Navision 6.0) has lead me to numerous disucssions with Claus Lundstrøm. For those of you who doesn’t know, Claus is the main guy behind the new reporting tool in Navision. He blogs regularly at the Dynamics NAV Team Blog on reporting and how to make it better.
Not being able to write too much on our discussion because of the NDA, Claus assured me that RDLC will not go away. It was important for everyone at Microsoft to emphasize that what partners had invested with learning the RDLC in NAV 2009 (Navision 6.0) will carry over to NAV ’7′ and beyond. The RDLC will NOT go away.
Initially hearing this, my heart sank to the floor. I could not believe how customers can be better served with the current RDLC tool. That is until Claus showed me some improvements with the new RDLC tool and additional improvements that’s been moved to high priority after our discussion. Again, not being able to disclose too much, I can only say that I’m very optimistic about the improvements that will be made in NAV 7 (Navision 7.0). If not, you bet I will have more long discussions with Claus again.
NAV 7 Classic Report to be Discontinued
As many of you know by now, in NAV 7, the classic report will be discontinued. That’s not to say you have to convert every report to RDLC right now. Classic client report will still work, it just will not work if you decide to convert the report in NAV 7. Yes, there’s a button that you push in NAV 7 to convert each report.
On the side note, even though Microsoft has said that the classic report will be discontinued in Navision 7.0, I wouldn’t be surprised if that support would be removed when NAV 7 actually hits the store shelves. I remember when Microsoft announced in version 5.0, the classic client will be discontinued, only to continue support to what we have now.
The point is, the product has to be ready before partners can safely say “ok, we’re ready to move our clients to the new environment”. The new technology has to make our lives easier, not just prettier. As to what kinds of improvements can be expected, at least on the reporting side, in NAV 7, I’m just as in the dark as you.
Jet Reports Express and ZetaDocs Express Now included in Dynamics NAV
In case you haven’t heard the announcement at Directions EMEA 2011, Jet Reports Express and ZetaDocs Express is now available for customers who are current on their enhancement plan. The draw back is that this is only applicable to customers who are on version NAV 2009 and later.
I’m pretty excite about this. Jet Report is a very good tool for generating quick reports in Excel. Perhaps, with this tool, we won’t need RDLC anymore to generate quick reports for the end users. Jet Report is also very trainable to the end users. The only drawback with Jet Reports is that for complex and reports with a lot of data, it’s very slow and consumes a lot of resource. For more complex reports, we still prefer to suffer through the RDLC.
Improvements
Having made a big deal about how bad the current RDLC for Dynamics NAV 2009 (Navision 6.0) has lead me to numerous disucssions with Claus Lundstrøm. For those of you who doesn’t know, Claus is the main guy behind the new reporting tool in Navision. He blogs regularly at the Dynamics NAV Team Blog on reporting and how to make it better.
Not being able to write too much on our discussion because of the NDA, Claus assured me that RDLC will not go away. It was important for everyone at Microsoft to emphasize that what partners had invested with learning the RDLC in NAV 2009 (Navision 6.0) will carry over to NAV ’7′ and beyond. The RDLC will NOT go away.
Initially hearing this, my heart sank to the floor. I could not believe how customers can be better served with the current RDLC tool. That is until Claus showed me some improvements with the new RDLC tool and additional improvements that’s been moved to high priority after our discussion. Again, not being able to disclose too much, I can only say that I’m very optimistic about the improvements that will be made in NAV 7 (Navision 7.0). If not, you bet I will have more long discussions with Claus again.
NAV 7 Classic Report to be Discontinued
As many of you know by now, in NAV 7, the classic report will be discontinued. That’s not to say you have to convert every report to RDLC right now. Classic client report will still work, it just will not work if you decide to convert the report in NAV 7. Yes, there’s a button that you push in NAV 7 to convert each report.
On the side note, even though Microsoft has said that the classic report will be discontinued in Navision 7.0, I wouldn’t be surprised if that support would be removed when NAV 7 actually hits the store shelves. I remember when Microsoft announced in version 5.0, the classic client will be discontinued, only to continue support to what we have now.
The point is, the product has to be ready before partners can safely say “ok, we’re ready to move our clients to the new environment”. The new technology has to make our lives easier, not just prettier. As to what kinds of improvements can be expected, at least on the reporting side, in NAV 7, I’m just as in the dark as you.
Jet Reports Express and ZetaDocs Express Now included in Dynamics NAV
In case you haven’t heard the announcement at Directions EMEA 2011, Jet Reports Express and ZetaDocs Express is now available for customers who are current on their enhancement plan. The draw back is that this is only applicable to customers who are on version NAV 2009 and later.
I’m pretty excite about this. Jet Report is a very good tool for generating quick reports in Excel. Perhaps, with this tool, we won’t need RDLC anymore to generate quick reports for the end users. Jet Report is also very trainable to the end users. The only drawback with Jet Reports is that for complex and reports with a lot of data, it’s very slow and consumes a lot of resource. For more complex reports, we still prefer to suffer through the RDLC.
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