Ten years ago I started to implement Microsoft Dynamics NAV.  Back then it was called Navision and Vox ISM was enlisted as the Canadian Launch Partner for the new role tailor product. Over the years Microsoft’s development team started to work closely with the office team and the product has dramatically changed and evolved and with each new release every year, fast forward and we’re on Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2017.

From those early days Microsoft has increases every aspect of the product

• Mobility
• Reporting
• SQL – back end
• Cloud
• Office Integration
• Enhanced Functionality

If you haven’t looked at Microsoft for a while or are on an older version, then you are really missing out.

Every release the Microsoft marketing department advertises about 5 cool new features but there are literally hundreds of undocumented features and other user based improvements.   Some are as simple as key stroke short-cuts, others are features that you would have assumed were in a modern Microsoft product like e-mailing to a pdf.

#1 Favourite Feature = Mobility + Speed

Having worked with the new product now for several months I would have to say that my favourite feature is SPEED.  The mobile applications are slick, streamlined, easy to use and super-fast in 2017.  Microsoft has done a great job of eliminating from the screen some of the unnecessary fields and options.   The result is a very clean looking and functional system that presents well.

The speed is coupled with user based enhancements like a global search, so you no longer need to select a field first to search, you simply start to type and press enter.  Or that fact that they have hidden the numbering fields and have templates for creating customers/vendors.  Or that the system will automatically find your part number by typing either the number or description.

Don’t get me wrong we saw NAV 2016 introduce mobile, tablet and web clients for people on the go but its functionality was limited and so we didn’t promote it as much.  You can create sales orders or invoices, check inventory status, approve purchase and sales orders.  With so many new cool features on the mobile and tablet clients, they are no longer just weak cousins of the Windows and Web clients. Get more out of the license that you paid for!

#2 Favourite Feature = Power BI

It makes so much sense for a user to have his or her reports available in the application they are working in.  Microsoft has now given us the toolsets to create our own reports and add them to the dashboard, with rich content, slicers and drill down capability, all from one interface.   The part that I like the most is the information that helps you make business decisions is front and centre and presented every time you open the software.  It makes it easy to find and simplifies the experience for the user.  Frankly it is a bit confusing to tell people to go to their desktop to run some reports and the business system for other reports.

#3 Favourite Feature = Office 365

NAV 2017 comes with some great Office 365 Add-Ins that you will find especially useful, such as being able to invoice your customers based on scheduled entries on your calendar within Outlook or being able to edit the lists that you have on NAV in Excel.  What I really like about Office 365 is being able to run reports from my phone or tablet that are integrated directly to the business system.   This means if you are short on user licenses you can still look up information like ‘where is that product’ or ‘who’s in the building’.  For the avid One-Noter’s such as people at customer service, it’s nice to be able to have one-note integrated to customers and shared amongst the group.  For people in production I would think this would be a great tool for product development meetings, white board discussions, etc.  There is also skype integration but I like using this functionality better within the Microsoft CRM product.

Now that you’ve heard of the powerful new features that come with NAV 2017, why not see it at work for yourself?  Click here and sign up for a free trial on what the software can do.