It is no secret that, using programmers in Eastern European or Asian countries is a lot cheaper than using inhouse resources in European or North American companies. Therefore, many Dynamics NAV partners have created departments in these countries or use an external partner for the more “heavy” development tasks, and we just have to realize that there are a lot more resources in those countries than we have. I met a CEO of a consultancy company in a hotel in New Delhi and whilst small-talking, I naturally asked how many consultants do you have? The answer was 54.000 consultants. Ok, so since outsourcing-companies have that amount of resources, we might as well benefit from that and use them to lower our average hourly rate. Very often these employees have college degrees that matches our own, and when you travel in e.g. India, it becomes evident that here are employees, that are eager to please you and to learn more about your product and about the culture, that you come from. However, this is not just another department in your company. There are cultural differences that needs to be handled somehow. In my time as a department head in a Dynamics NAV partner, I got involved in the remains of one of the first Danish outsourcing adventures. Another Dynamics NAV partner had outsourced the programming of an entire add-on module to a company in India. Of course, we were all eager to hear the result of the project to see if we should mirror the action, outsourcing our own projects. However, a call from my colleague from that partner, requesting all the consultants I could spear to help him to get the project back on track, made us a bit reluctant. The problems started early in the project and only escalated. The problems were the result of a lot of “trial and error” from both sides. The outsourcing company had problems understanding what the partner wanted. But the problem was mostly the expectations of the Dynamics NAV partner, that treated the outsourcing department of the company as any other Dynamics NAV department. This project and many others later taught me some of the issues there are: Project Management There is a huge difference in how a project is managed in Europe and North America and in India. So therefore, it is necessary to find project managers that understand the demands and the culture at the Dynamics NAV partner. Some Dynamics NAV partners think that the project manager can work from remote supervising the project via Skype or others, and that can work, but more often it doesn’t. In some cases, project managers are sent to the outsourcing country to supervise. However, a newcomer is not always appreciated to “come here and tell us how to do our job”. Education Even with the eagerness to obtain knowledge about Dynamics NAV and the standard application, there is a gap between a European or North American consultant with many implementations behind them and maybe twenty years of experience, and someone who never implemented Dynamics NAV on their own. Cultural differences Working with companies in other countries is always interesting. Working with the Middle East there are different holidays and different working days (Sunday to Thursday). In many Asian countries there is a different culture of “not wanting to lose face” meaning that you might not get the full truth about, if they actually understood the task, and therefore worked in a different direction because they didn’t get back to you to clarify if that was the right path. Communication Communicating with the employees in the outsourcing company, it is very often done in English. However not all Europeans speak English well enough to explain the problems to the employees of the outsourcing companies, whose English is very often called Singlish (Singapore English) or Minglish (for Malaysian English), not to mention that the English of many Indian and Pakistanis can be difficult for other nationalities to understand. Documentation Often the level of documentation in Dynamics NAV partners is based upon a consensus that “we all know which direction the project should be taking”. It could also be that the information of the task is somehow implicit in our country, but for all other nationalities it is totally unknown. Just last week someone asked me where he could buy a gift basket with Swedish specialties and a bottle of wine. He didn’t know that wine and other alcohol is only bought in special government shops in Sweden. Infrastructure We, in Western Europe and North America are used to having a stable electricity and Internet connection. That is not something to take for granted in some of the outsourcing countries. Therefore, a certain amount of down-time must be expected. Knowledge of the culture at the client companies Employees at the outsourcing company cannot know, what the organization and culture is at the client companies they program for. Even within Europe it is hard to know the differences between the countries not to mention the differences in the legislation. Time difference Lastly, there might me a time difference to handle. Some companies have introduced shifted working hours in the outsourcing company matching then with the Dynamics NAV partner working hours, but that might be a tall order for other companies. So, am I saying that we should not use outsourcing? Not at all. We should just be prepared to handle the issues that I described above: Use a project manager that has experience with working with other cultures Have daily skype meetings if the project management is off-site Invite the developers to join the Dynamics NAV partner for education and bonding with the other employees Read up on the culture in the country where the outsourcing company resides Use a spoken language that everybody understands and do not be afraid to admit that you didn’t understand, what he or she said. Use written communication if the spoken communication fails. Document the programming task in the smallest details. Explain the functionality as if they do not have opportunity to ask you questions about it. The documentation must include information that you or the client company consider implicit information. At the Skype meetings, ask questions to clarify if the programmer have fully understood the task. Incorporate slack in the time schedule to handle down-time and make sure to calculate the local bank holidays in the time schedule. And of course, make sure to handle the time difference so you don’t assign a task, just before you leave for the day, leaving them with no possibility to get answers to questions that they might get. I have seen many projects successfully completed on time and on budget using partly local developers and partly outsourced developers. And in many cases the reduced hourly rate on some of the development tasks help to land the project in the first place.
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Blog Post: 10 ways to improve the profit in your Dynamics NAV department – Part 4 – Outsource your development tasks
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Forum Post: RE: dynamics nav problem help me
Hi Ahmed, Did it help, have you solved the problem?
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Blog Post: MSDW Podcast: Talking Microsoft Dynamics platform plays and eclipses with Steve Mordue
After an eventful week at Directions North America , Steve Mordue of RapidStart CRM joins us to look back at the impact of some key announcements for partners, especially those that sell Microsoft Dynamics 365 customer experience (CRM) apps. Since this episode was recorded, Microsoft has read more ...read more
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Forum Post: RE: How to search across multi columns in the drop down window? set as default filter column can be multi columns?
Thanks Erik. Yes , I can not get the filter text . As I wrote the code here: opnepagetrigger， And I even can not set the descending for the column. Below is my code, if there is any error, I hope you could point out. Thanks in advance. Item list (page) OnopenPage(trigger) FOR x := 0 TO 5 DO BEGIN FILTERGROUP(x); IF GETFILTERS <> '' THEN HasFilters := TRUE; MESSAGE(GETFILTERS()); END; IF NOT HasFilters THEN BEGIN SETCURRENTKEY(Inventory); SETFILTER(Inventory,'>%1',0); SETASCENDING(Inventory,FALSE); END;
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Forum Post: RE: Serial No.
Done....! Thank You It's working fine.
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Forum Post: RE: Find and Replace function In nav 2013r2
Hi Seemab, It does not exists as a standard function in NAV 2013 R2. But check out this blog post from Microsoft. It shows you a way to create a function, which could do it.
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Forum Post: RE: Find and Replace function In nav 2013r2
Hi Seema, Go through this link i hope it will be useful for you. blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/.../
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Forum Post: RE: Find and Replace function In nav 2013r2
how can i import this file
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Forum Post: RE: Find and Replace function In nav 2013r2
You have to download the text file and import it into NAV. There is one object in the file, a page 50050. So make sure you don't have this object number in your database. If you do, then you can edit the object no. directly in the file before you import it. But notice that you need a developer license to import the file.
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Forum Post: RE: Find and Replace function In nav 2013r2
The "AS-IS" message means that whatever you do with this is your own responsibility. Just like if you create a new object yourself. Microsoft takes no responsibility if you end making your data inaccessible. Like if you implemented this in the G/L Entry table! [:o]
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Blog Post: Using Microsoft Dynamics NAV on Windows, iOS, and Android
Here is some insight into Dynamics NAV’s upcoming support for Windows 10, Windows Phone 8.1, iOS, and Android. Windows 10 We've added support for Windows 10 Creators Update released in 2017 and are preparing for the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update. We've also thrown in support for some interesting Windows features and devices - keep a look...
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Blog Post: Microsoft Dynamics Webcasts, September 25-29, 2017: Beyond Management Reporter; Next-level ecommerce; Query optimization
Here's what's happening on this week's live webcast schedule. Register to attend live or get access to the recorded event. Wednesday, September 27, 2017 Replacing Management Reporter and Automating Budgeting with BI360 12:00 PM EDT Register Join Solver CEO Nils Rasmussen to see how you can deploy the BI360 reporting solution, a modern Excel-based... read more ...read more
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Blog Post: “DYNAMICS NAV 2018” later this calendar year
Hope you guys have followed Directions NA Updates from Waldo blogs here http://www.waldo.be/2017/09/18/directions-2017-keynote-dynamics-365-tenerife/ http://www.waldo.be/2017/09/18/directions-2017-key-note-2-new-client-rendering-release-date-information/ One of the disappointing news was that next NAV release will be in Sprint 2018. Microsoft proved it again that they are hearing us. MS decided to release NAV 2018 in this calendar year only. Hooah!!
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Forum Post: RE: Nav 2016 Lanham E-Ship. We have a customer that is needing a signature required on all FedEx Ground packages. I have setup under there customer card within Eship FedEx indirect signature but it's not printing on the lablel. Any ideas?
Hello, Go thru below link, it should give idea for configurations. How to Set Optional Services in Lanham E-Ship
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Forum Post: RE: NAV updates
Hello, go thru below link: Microsoft Dynamics NAV ‘Tenerife’ Developer Preview
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Blog Post: Videotraining: Dynamics NAV Einführung in Design und Programmierung
nav2017, dynamics365 #office365 msdyn365 #d365 #financials #development #entwicklung #learn4nav #d365fo #videotraining, #nav2016 #nav2015 Hallo zusammen! da man immer wieder an uns herangetreten ist ob wir nicht zur vorhandenen Einführung zu Anwendung auch für die Technik ein Videotraining machen ...read more
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Forum Post: RE: NAV updates
Hi singh, In that link only they are saying nav version 10.0.14540 but i am not getting that setup ...so i installed for more update version (10.0.15601) but in that one also in Administration server the devolopment option is not getting .. please see the above screenshot ...i want that last mode in my navision thanks & Regards.
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Forum Post: RE: Find and Replace function In nav 2013r2
Hello Mr. Erik, i have downloaded file but it is a text file.how can i import the text file in page. and page 50050 has been already used in objects
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Forum Post: RE: Find and Replace function In nav 2013r2
As I wrote: "So make sure you don't have this object number in your database. If you do, then you can edit the object no. directly in the file before you import it."
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Forum Post: RE: NAV updates
NAV version 10.0.14540 and .15601 are just very early builds. Visual Studio Code requires the Dynamics NAV "TENERIFE", like: But you cannot download it as such. You can try it out by setting up an Azure VM by following this link for the September version of the Developer Preview. But once you have setup your Azure VM, then what Ashwini Tripathi suggests is that you then copy the NAV files on the Azure VM down to your local PC (or local VM). It's a rather technical process do do it. But it will save you the running costs of the Azure VM (remember to shut it down when you are down, otherwise it continues to run up costs).
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