TVision Technology Limited

Quote by Jenny Hornby

Dynamics NAV add-ons

Microsoft Dynamics NAV traces its roots back to the early 1980s (from Navision to Dynamics NAV). Over time the technology has changed, the functionality has evolved and the community of partners and users has grown. One of the advantages of the growth of Partner Community is the availability of complimentary products that have been developed specifically for NAV.

There are two types of add-ons:

  • Functionality that has been developed for specific vertical / niche industries
  • Tools and solutions that address generic business requirements

Functionality for specific industries ranges from fashion to waste management! TVision’s contribution to NAV’s vertical functionality is in our Agency Time solution for Recruitment Companies and the Wine System for alcohol distribution. We also have access to the add-on catalogue that lists many more solutions; too many to list here. To find out if there is a NAV add-on for your industry’s distinct processes, please contact us.

Tools and solutions that address generic business requirements include add-ons for business intelligence, document management, ecommerce and mobile access. Two of these are now supplied with NAV and available to all users on NAV 2009, Jet Reports and Zetadocs.

Jet Reports

Jet Reports, recognised as Microsoft Dynamics' reporting leader for a decade with over 50,000 users worldwide, offers a complete suite of products:

  • Jet Express: basic reports based on general ledger information, Jet Express is available to all NAV users since NAV 2009
  • Jet Essentials: reporting across all data within NAV
  • Jet Enterprise: self-service BI solution

Jet can connect to your NAV database and other databases in the business. Jet Reports offers direct reporting in Excel with no need for a data warehouse. As Excel is the tool for designing and viewing reports, licensing and user training is minimal.

Zetadocs

Zetadocs for NAV is the document management add-on for Microsoft Dynamics NAV providing document capture and delivery functionality for over 200 NAV installations. There are three versions of the product:

  • Zetadocs Express: available to NAV users since NAV 2009, Zetadocs Express works with SharePoint and Office365
  • Zetadocs Essentials: capture and delivery that can be batched and works with your on-premise Office solution and can use either SharePoint or a server directory for document archiving.
  • Zetadocs Plus: Essentials with the ability to automate processes

Nick Pitcher, IS Manager, Lay & Wheeler, “We had a specific problem to address, the cost of sending out the invoices. Not only have we addressed that, we’re now offering a much better level of service to our customers. One of the first side effects we noticed was the influx of credit card payments immediately after the invoices are available on site. The benefits to the business have been three-fold: reduced cost to invoice, decreased debtor days and more sales enquiries.”

Certified for Microsoft Dynamics

Certified for Microsoft Dynamics (CfMD) is the badge that Microsoft awards to add-ons that have been submitted for testing. The criteria for submission are extremely strict and require a significant number of users of the add-on before it can be certified. Consequently it tends to be the tools and solutions that address generic business requirements that are more likely to be certified as these have the required installed base. It does also include a number of industry specific enhancements, particularly around distribution, adding vertical processes to NAV’s rich horizontal base.

Any functionality add-on for NAV forms part of the integrated solution with source code loaded onto your server. This means any certified NAV partner can access the software for support and upgrade purposes.

The tools that we are currently partners for are CfMD. This does not exclude TVision or NAV working with other third party tools nor has it in the past. Contact us for examples or to discuss integration with existing tools you’re keen to keep using.