Do we know all about Default Dimensions? How to make a dimension Code Mandatory for all the the accounts in Chart of Accounts

Simple. Open Chart of Account, Select all the accounts there, Click on Account > Dimensions > Dimensions-Multiple. Choose the dimensions you want to make mandatory for the accounts and mention 'Code mandatory' in 'Value Posting' field. That's it.

That's the most common answer you will have if you ask somebody how to make a dimension mandatory accross all the accounts in Chart of Account. This common answer is the most common mistake functional consultants make during implementation. Yes, the common answer is not at all right answer.

The above descrbed method of making a dimension mandatory is only valid to make a dimension mandatory for a set of accounts only. Not for entire all the accounts of Chart of accounts.

You may argue - Why not? I am selecting all the accounts from Chart of accounts and making a dimension mandatory for them. And it works.

But think again. Think about a situation where you are creating a new account in Chart of Account.
The dimension you made mandatory for rest of the accounts will not be readily become mandatory for this new account.
So you have to make that dimension mandatory for this new account manually following the same method. If you forget, it can be a disaster waiting for you.

Rather the right mehtod of making a dimension madatory accross all the accounts is much simpler and fullproof (foolproof as well). Use the 'Account type default Dim.' feature. Its available in the Dimension window itself.

Open the Financial Management > General Ledger > Setup > Dimension.

Select The Dimension you want to mandatory accross all accounts

Click Dimension > Account Type Default Dim.

Mention the table no. behind the Chart of Account (That's Table no. 15)

And mention that it's 'Code mandatory' in the 'Value Posting' field.

And this will ensure that the particular dimension is mandatory for entire set of records of te table no. 15 (nothing but the Chart of Account). And in future, any new accounts created in charts of accounts will be automatically included in that mandatory list.

This is the way you can make a dimension mandatory for a entire type of account. For example, the customer account, Vendor Account, Item Master etc.

Dimension, Shortcut Dimension, Global Dimension - Confused?

People often gets confused about the terms used to describe dimensions. - Dimension, Shortcut Dimension, Global Dimension - are they same or what? Why we need so many different dimensions?

To understand the concept you need to go back to history of Navision and also need to understand the basic concept of Dimension. Let me try to elaborate it.

Dimension: Dimensions are nothing but parameter for your analysis of data. In other words, they are additional information attached to your tansactions and you can analyse / summarize your transactions on the basis of those parameters. Say, you want to analyse your fuel expenses on the basis of Car no. So you need to define a dimension called 'Car' and put all the car nos in the dimension value list.

Similarly, if you need to analyse telephone expenses on the basis of Telephone nos or travel expenses on the basis of employee nos then, you will define Telephone and Employee Dimensions and list down the dimension values for those dimensions. So at the end you can have a list of dimensions & their values as below:

--- Car --- 1001 --- WB 300356

--- 1002 --- UP5005333

--- 1003 --- DEL678932

--- Tel --- 98444320 --- Ashsih Banerjee

--- 87909098 --- Snehanshu Mandal

--- Emp --- 1001 --- Snehanshu Mandal

--- 1002 --- Vinay Iyer

--- 1003 --- Shridhar Varasala

You can define the dimension in Navision from 'Financial Management > General Ledger > Setup > Dimensions > Dimension'. And then define the respective dimension values.

This way you can define any no of dimensions and attach any no of dimension values while entering any transaction in the system.

Now that's was Dimension. So what is global dimension? Lets go back few years down to navision's history.

There was time when navision didn't have the facility to attach unlimited no of dimensions to transactions. Instead it had only 2 fixed dimensions with each transactions - Department & Project. And to attach these 2 dimension with each transactions, Navision had created these 2 fields in all the transaction tables (e.g in 81 - Gen. Journal Line, 36 - Sales Header, 37 - Sales Lines, 38 - Purchase Header, 39 - Purchase Header and so on). See the figure below.

Now you can't just keep on adding new fields in each transaction table to achieve unlimited no of dimension attachment feature. So navision started storing dimension informations attached to different transactions in 2 separate tables (Journal Line Dimension - for storing dimensions attached to all journal transactions, Document Dimension - for storing dimensions attached to all document type of transactions). So Navision came up with a different method of storing dimension values attached with transactions.

What happened to the 2 fields present in all transaction tables? To reuse these 2 fields, Navision came up with a concept called 'Global Dimensions'. So 2 dimensions from your dimension master can be defined as Global Dimension and their values can directly be attached with any transaction (in those 2 fields present globally - They automatically take the caption of global dimension defined and displayed accordingly to users - using 'CaptionClass' property). Just because they are present in all the transaction tables, these dimensions make it easier to take out reporting based on these 2 dimension and helps you in easy data entry. Ideally they are the most commonly used dimensions accross in Navision Company.

So global dimensions are nothing but ordinary dimensions. Only thing they are globally present in the system and helps in data entry (dimension attachment) and reporting on most commonly used dimensions in a company.

But if you are going to attach more than 2 global dimensions in transactions, then the very attachment of dimension process is slightly lengthy. I mean you need to click on the transaction line > click on button 'Line' > Dimensions > Select the dimension code and dimension value.

Can we make it little easier for data entry where more than 2 global dimensions you need to attach to transaction? Off course we can. Use the concept 'Shortcut Dimensions'

Shortcut Dimensions: There can be 8 dimensions displayed directly on any tabular transaction form (Journal lines or Purchase Lines, Sales Lines etc) just to facilitate the data entry. Remember, these dimension will not be present directly in the table but only displayed in the form. They are shortcuts to 8 different dimensions. So that you don't need to go for the lengthy dimension attachment process. That's why the name came 'Shortcut Dimension'. And the 2 global dimensions automatically gets assigned as first 2 shortcut dimensions. (Check out the General ledger setup).

See the screen left (General Journal) and you will find there are 8 dimensions present (coloured columns). These are 8 shortcut dimensions. First 2 are global dimensions (directly present in the Gen. Journal Line table - the transaction table used here) coloured green are automatically became first 2 shortcut dimensions. Rest 6 columns are just displayed in the form only to facilitate the data entry (not present in the Gen. Journal Line table). If you enter some values in those columns, system will insert the relevant dimension and dimension values in the journal line dimension table for the transaction. If you enter values in first 2 shortcut dimensions, they will be inserted in the global fields present in the current transaction tables as well as the journal line dimension table.

That's the funda of Dimension, Global Dimension and Shortcut Dimension. Hope i am able to clear the idea a little bit. If you want to discuss it further, do send me your comments or simply fire a mail to me (snehanshu.mandal@gmail.com).

See you in next post.

What is No. Series Relationship?

I got surprised when i discovered that so many people working in Navision for quite some time doesn't understand No. series Relationship feature.

So what is No. Series Relationship?

Say you want to generate different invoice nos based on to where (geography) you are selling your service / material. So your domestic sales can have invoice nos which is different from invoice nos of export sales.

Now to implement the above feature, you need to use at least 2 no. series for invoice numbering? But in Sales & Receivables Setup's Numbering tab, you have provision of mentioning only one no. series for Sales Invoice nos. how to resolve this?

You can go for some customisation or simply use the No. series relationship.

No. Series Relationship is a feature in Navision which helps you to group multiple no. series together and use it for one document no. Take an example of a sales Invoice. This feature will make 2 (or more) no. series related to each other and both can be used for the sales invoice nos.

Lets do it in Navision.

Create 2 no. series S-INV and S-INV EXP. First one for the domestic Sales & Second one for Export Sales.

Now relate the second no. series (S-INV EXP) with the first one with no. series relationship. To do that, select the seclect the S-INV in no. series window and click on the menu button series -> Relationships. Select the second no. series (P-INV EXP) in this window. Close it.

Your relationship between the 2 no. series is done. Now to use these no. series for sales invoice nos, you need assign it to sales & Receivables Setup.

Open Sales & Receivables Setup and go to the numbering tab. Choose the first no. series (P-INV) in the Invoice Nos.

Now you are ready to use both the no. series to generate the Sales Invoice nos. To test it -

Open the sales Invoice Window (Sales & Marketting -> Order Processing -> Invoices) and press F3 to create a new Sales Invoice. Don't tab away from the no. field. Now click on the assist edit button (the 3 dot button) next to No. field and you will find system is suggesting both the no. series to you. Select any one series (depending on what type of Sales invoice - Domestic / Export you are creating) and a new no. document no will be generated.

So, you have the option of using 2 no. series (or more) for one single document no. You can extend this functionality further by automating the selection of no. series own the basis of USER ID.

Experiment on it. See you in next post.

Disabling F4 - Stopping inadvertent Delete

Can we disable the F4 function button in Navision?

Few years back, I had a situation in one of my implementation, where users used to delete the sales order inadvertently by pressing F4 (Their intention was to create a new order by pressing F3).

Now how to stop it. I had solved it in a very simple way by creating a new dummy menu item in one of the menu button present in the order window and assigning F4 as the shortcut key to that menu item. It just overridden the default F4 functionality (delete function). Here is how i did it -

Open the sales order form (Form 42) in design mode. Add a new menu item to the menu button 'Order' present in that form. Caption it as 'Dummy' and assign the shortcut key F4 to it.

Don't write any code for this menu item. So nothing will happen if somebody clicks on it.

Now if somebody press F4, system calls that menu item 'Dummy' instead of default delete call and nothing happens for F4. And your default F4 is disabled.

Do you have a better solution? Do write to me.

Inline Editing - Making your Chart of Account ineditable and Editable at the same time

After a long holiday, i am back. Will discuss about an wonderful property named 'InlineEditing'

Chart of account is a window where your list of accounts is displayed. The same window is used to create a new account as well as finding a particular account (you are looking for analysing it).

Now in Navision, in any in editable window, you can simply start typing in any text and system opens the search box to search that text. But as the Chart of Account is editable (its the entry window), if you start typing something intending to search for it, you can inadvertently overwrite any field in this window. And users do this mistake quite often.

Can we arrange something whereas the system will not allow you to edit this window at the first instance but will allow you to insert a new account if intended?

Yes, you can achieve this using the 'InlineEditing' property. Use this property to force the user to click in the table box or press F2 to begin editing the text inside the table box. In other words once this property is turned on, no editing will be allowed when the form is opened. The user must click on an active editable control, press F2 when an editable control is in focus, or choose to insert a new record to begin editing. So if the user start typing in something immediately after the window is opened, the search function (window) will open and no text will be overwritten by mistake.

This particular property belongs to the Table box. The table box is nothing but the control in any tabular form which displays the different fields from a table. Let do it -

Open the form 16 (the chart of account window) and select the tablebox control.

Go to the property of the tablebox and find out the property 'Inlineediting'.

Make it true (Yes). Save the form.

Now reopen the chart of account and see whether it is editable in the first instance or when the form is opened. You will find the you need to click on any field or press F2 to edit it. Otherwise, if you start typing in any text, the search window opens immediately.

Note: You can also set this property dynamically in the runtime depending different criteria.

Hope this serves the purpose of making the chart of account in editable and at the same time, he

same window can be used to edit and insert record.

See you in next post.

AutoCalcField - What's that?

There are so many properties and functions available in Navision that its impossible to learn them completely in few years. Some of them are complex but most of them are simple and we simply unknowingly use them.

You would have been amazed knowing some of the properties which you use quite regularly but never bothered about knowing them. In this series of posts, we will try to under few of them. Today we will start with 'AutoCalcField'

You all know that if you display a flow field onto a form or a report, the system calculates the flow field value automatically and displays it. Do you know why system behaves like this? Just because of the property 'AutoCalcField'.

This simple property is related to any control onto a form or a report which displays a flow field. In other words, you can change this property in those controls whose source expression is a flow field.

Why we don't really notice them? Because 'Yes' is the default value for this property. If you turn it to 'No', the control simply will not calculate the flow field value automatically.

To check it out, open the Vendor card (form 26) in design mode and go to the property of the field "Balance (LCY)". You will find, the AutoCalcField property is set to 'TRUE' by default. You can change it to 'No' and see whether this field is anymore displaying the Vendor Balances or not.












Good Luck.

See you in Next property :)

Sequential Import of Multiple files into Navision Using Dataport

Can you import multiple files sequentially using Navision dataport?

Say you will put all the files to import into Navision in a folder and one navision dataport will import all the files one by one into Navision.

Here is how I have done it –

Created a new form and put a text box where user can mention the folder path from where the files will be imported. Also put a command button which will start the import process clicked.

Took the following variables in C/AL Globals –

WIN Dialog Type -> to display the progress of import
FileRec Record type -> referenced to virtual table ‘File’
CTR Integer type -> to count the number of files imported
TransImport Dataport type -> referenced to a dataport which will be run repeatedly depending on number of files present in the folder
FilePath Code type -> to store the file path of the folder

Also took a text constant for displaying the import progress in the dialog box ‘WIN’

Text50000 Importing File #1#####################\Count of File #2#####

Once the definition of variables are done, write the following code in the OnPush trigger of the command button –

ImportButton - OnPush() <--------- This is the trigger

WIN.OPEN(Text50000); // opening the dialog box to display the import status FileRec.SETRANGE(Path,FilePath); // Accessing the folder path mentioned by the user and stored in the ‘FilePath’ variable.

FileRec.SETRANGE("Is a file", TRUE); // Excluding the sub folders (if any) present in that folder.

IF FileRec.FINDFIRST THEN BEGIN // Ensuring that at least 1 file is present in the folder and pointing the instruction pointer to the first files in the folder.

REPEAT // Starting the loop to read files one by one

CTR += 1; // Capturing the file count

WIN.UPDATE(1,FileRec.Name); // Displaying file name in the dialog box.

WIN.UPDATE(2,CTR); // Displaying file counter in the dialog box.

CLEAR(TransImport); //Clearing the previous instance of the dataport

TransImport.FILENAME := FileRec.Path + '\' + FileRec.Name; // Sending the file name with the file path to the dataport.

TransImport.RUNMODAL // Running the dataport.

UNTIL FileRec.NEXT = 0; // Loop condition till all the files in the folder is read.

END;

MESSAGE('Import Done'); // Informing user that import is complete

WIN.CLOSE; // Closing the dialog box

Note: Your variable name can be different and you need to adjust your code as per your variable definition.

Now run the form and enter the folder path where your files to be imported are stored and click on the button ‘Import’. This will start the import process and will continue till all the files from the folder is imported into the database.

You can automate the same with the help of timer trigger of the form or using an application server. Will discuss the process of automating it in our future discussion.

All the best. Try it.

Have you migrated your Navision to SQL Server 2005 recently

Very recently Nisheel Poddar - IT head RKHS, migrated his Navision server from SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 2005. Can you imagine what problem he has faced?

His users are unable to change their own password using Tools > Security > Password.

Checked with few more people who has migrated to SQL Server 2005 and surprised to find that everybody is having the same problem and they are solving the problem simply by assigning the dbowner role to their general users.

Dangerous. Don't you think?

Nisheel poddar was not satisfied and searched for solutions. What solutions we found you know?

In SQL Server 2000, we used to give the following roles to users while doing the user mapping to any Navision database:

1. Public (by default this is assigned to all users)

2. db_dataReader

3. db_datawriter

These 3 roles are enough for a generic user to use Navision functionlity. Even this gives you the permission to change your own password using Tools > Password.

Here you mention your old password and assign a new password.

But when you migrate to SQL Server 2005, The same roles assigned to users does not allow them to change to their own password. When your users tries to change it, they will see the following error -

"The following SQL Server error(s) occurred:
15151,"42000",[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]Cannot alter the login 'nisheel', because it does not exist or you do not have permission.

SQL:{CALL [sp_password](?, ?)}"

When you change your password from Navision client, the stored procedue 'sp_password' is called and the necessary permission to execute this stored procedure was included in 'Public' role of SQL Server 2000.

But the same permission is no longer associated with 'Public' role in SQL Server 2005. And that's why you will have the problem in changing the password. And you are taking a dangerous decision of assigning 'dbowner' role to your users.

To resolve it without assigning the 'dbowner' role, you need to explecitely assign a specific permission to your 'Public' Role (the permission having execute power of Sp_password). Follow the instruction below

1. Follow the standard procedure of creating a new users and mapping them to a your Navision database. While User Mapping, assign the normal roles Public, db_datareader, db_datawriter.

2. Now, assign the permission 'Alter any Login' to your 'Public' role. Select the Server and open its property window.

Select 'Permission' page in left hand pane and select 'Public' role in the right hand pane. Scroll down and find the 'Alter Any Login' permission. Grant this permission to 'Public' Role.

Do remember, you need to be System Administrator to do the above setup.

Now try and see whether your users are able to change their own password or not. They will be able to do that.

This may not be the best possible solution and you are welcome to send your suggestion or any other solution to it.

Do send me your comments and suggestions.

Do you want to keep a flow field editable on a form or in a table?

Let's try it.

Say we will make 'Balance (LCY)' field in Customer card editable and test it. In Customer card, the textbox control is already editable and it is inheriting the 'Editable = No' property of the field from the customer tables.

Let's make the 'Balance (LCY)' field editable in Customer table.



Select the field > Properties > Editable > Yes









Once this is done, the textbox displaying 'Balance (LCY)' in Customer card will become editable and you can put new amount in this field.











Right now, the calculated amount (coming from Detailed Cust. Ledger Entry) is shown as 73,810.00.

Let's modify it to 80000.00 (an increase of 6,190.00)










So what will happen now. Your customer card is showing a value of 80000.00 whereas your detailed customer ledger entry table have entries of amount 73,810.00 only. is your data customer entries become inconsistent?

Not really. Navision never allows inconsistent data in flow fields. The system will simply will lookout some way to make the data consistent. It simply insert a new entry in 'Detailed cust. ledger entry' to adjust the inconsistent data.

Here, look at the detailed cust. ledger entry and you can see a new entry having an amount of 6,190.00. This new entry makes the total 80000.00 (now consistent)











Pretty dangerous! What do you think? To avoid this, you need to keep your flow field always ineditable.

But having seen the above incidence, can you think about any scenario, where this particular feature / rather drawback can be very useful?

Let me know if you find something interesting.

Have you ever put a number in the G/L Journal Batch Name?

This time Mr. Parasuram Reddy is right :).

If you include a number in the journal batch name, the name will change by one number with every posting. Say your batch name is Snehanshu01. This will change by one number after every posting, to Snehanshu02, Snehanshu03, and so on.

In Navision it is possible to set up several journal batches under each journal template. That is, the same window can be used to display several different journals, each with its own name. This particular functionality is provided to facilitate / manage the batch names / registering each posting with unique Journal batch naming. This is particularly useful if every user of Navision is having his or her own journal.

Before Posting:

After Posting:

Do you know what Happens if you assign same no. series to both unposted as well as posted document?

Let us simulate the same scenario.

I have created a new no. series named ‘Test’ with a starting document no. ‘TEXT0001’ and assigned it to both ‘Unposted Sales Invoice’ as well as the ‘Posted Sales Invoice’ in sales & Receivables Setup window.

Afterwards, we have created 2 unposted sales invoices with the document no ‘TEST0001’ and ‘TEST0002’ (generated by the no. series Test).

The first sales invoice has the external document no ‘ABC’ and the second one has ‘ABC1’ as external document no.

Now what will happen if I post these documents? One of the comments in this discussion says that it will create a document no after the last no created by the no. series. So the first posted document will be ‘TEST0003’? What do you think? Let me post the invoices.

To make it more interesting, I have posted the second document (‘TEST0002’) first and the first document (‘TEST001’) second. Here is the screen shots of the posted documents. You can identify the documents with their respective external document no.

This is the first document posted second identified by the external document no ‘ABC’.

This is the second document posted first identified by the external document no ‘ABC1’.

You got the answers?

In this scenario, the posted documents are taking the same document no assigned in their unposted state. And as no new no is generated by the no. series, the posting process does not update the ‘Last no used’ field of the no. series line.

Have you tried this ever? Try it and I believe you will also find application of this functionality in real life implementation scenario also.

Best of luck

Do things differently

To start our discussion, let’s take a simple topic -

Few months back, in one of Orkut forum somebody had posted a problem as follows:

'I have to pick out a digit frm a code field. E.g. Code is '50123AD786' n I have to select 7th character from this field How can this be done...'

You all know it's simple and the common way to achieve this is:

Copystr([ur code variable],[position, say 7 for 7th position],[length, here for u its 1])

We have designed a new form here. Taken a new global variable called ‘Name’ of data type Text and inserted a textbox to display the variable.

We also have written a single line code as per the above syntax to display the 7th character of the ‘Name’ in a message box.

Now, can we do it in not so common way?

Yes, we can if we know that a text string in Navision is nothing but an array of characters (literally). So here ‘Name’ variable is nothing but an array of its length and we can fetch out the 7th character of it by simply referring it as Name[7]. To validate it, let us change the code in the ‘OnPush’ trigger of the Button as below:

Message (FORMAT (Name [7]));

Why we needed a FORMAT command? Just because the message box can only display text not character.

Here I entered ‘Snehanshu Mandal’ in the textbox and clicked on the button ‘Click me’. It’s displaying the 7th character of my name ‘s’.

Don’t you think it’s interesting?

How can we make working on Navision a FUN?

Hi friends! How are you doing?

Last month, I completed 6 ½ years working in Navision and was stumped by one of my junior’s question – Don’t you get bored while working with Navision after so many years? Big question.

People are getting bored very fast nowadays. But why? You get bored when –

1. Work is monotonous
2. Work can be monotonous when you know everything and there is nothing new left to learn
3. ‘Hey, I am doing the same form designing, report designing and data port designing’

Besides the above points, you will find plenty of reasons of why people are getting bored in Navision.

I think the answer lies in the approach you have towards Navision. Whether we are trying to solve a problem too technically or we are having a holistic approach to solve a problem? Again to have a holistic approach towards a problem, you need to be little experienced on Navision or you have a fair idea about Navision functional things. So the whole issue is little paradoxical.

Whatever may be the reason, here we are not to discuss the problem. Rather we are here to try & make working on Navision a little more enjoyable. And to make it enjoyable, the best thing is to do something new in Navision every day. Mind it, you can do something new only when you do not know everything but you know something of Navision to start with.

I am not here to teach you something new in Navision rather together we will search new things in Navision. Every day, we will discuss about one topic and if you feel interested, you are welcome to suggest me the future topic or contribute a new discussion. You are welcome to send the problem you are having in your implementation and together we will try to evolve most reasonable solution of it. When so many brains will work on the problem, definitely we will be able to achieve most suitable solution for the problem

So let’s wish ourselves happy learning of Navision.