DenSter's Blog

Get Development Started in the NAV2009 CTP4

This is just a short blog entry, because I am on vacation, but I wanted to get out some tips on getting started with the newly released NAV2009 VPC. Two documents in particular that you should read through before doing any 'real' development in NAV2009 are the new Application Designer Guide and the UX guide. Both of these documents should be available in the CTP4 VPC.

The new Page object has tons of new UI elements in it, every one with their own name (fast-tabs, factboxes, etcetera). To get familiar with the new UI design and what everything is called, look around for the UX Guide. This document will give you an overview of the design principles, what the basis is of navigating around the new Role Taylored Client, and how to design your own.

Then, to get started on how to get all these elements into the new page objects, find the new Application Designers Guide (or ADG), which is no longer a PDF but a help file. This help file now has a large number of how-to articles and turorials. Do yourself a favor, and browse around in the ADG BEFORE you start trying to develop page objects. When I first started working with pages I got very frustrated with where to define certain elements, and wasted a lot of time that way. When I finally found the ADG and studied some of the walkthroughs, developing the new page objects became a piece of cake (well at least a lot less difficult).

When I get back home I will start writing much more detailed blog entries about developing in NAV2009. I just wanted to get this out there, because I know people are downloading the CTP VPC, and this is something that would have saved me tons of time. Have fun with it, and let's discuss it in the forums. I am very excited about the new client, I have been wanting to talk about it for years. I got my first look at it back in 2005, and have not been able to talk about it because of the NDA that I signed.

Have fun

Home of The Brave

For a while I wasn't sure if I should write about this, because it is a very personal topic. You see, today I was sworn in as a citizen of the United States. Originally I am from Holland, and I moved to the states because that is where my wife is from. After a long time of being a permanent resident I finally decided last year to apply for citizenship.

The first time that I thought about naturalizing was when I was on Ellis Island in August of 2001. For those that don't know, Ellis Island used to be America's most famous port of entry, and it is a museum now. If you are ever in New York City, you have to visit this place, it will keep you busy for 5-6 hours.

There was an exposition about the harbor of Rotterdam, which is where I grew up, so I was feeling very emotional about Holland and about being in my new assumed home. I had moved to the US just a few years before, and was still adjusting, but it was the first time that I felt Rotterdam was not my home anymore. Especially when 9/11 happened just a few weeks after we visited Ellis Island, with our memories of that trip still fresh in our minds, I felt very strongly that this is my home now, and I would not be going back.

The picture below is of young Vito Andolini looking at the Statue of Liberty from the confines of his quarantine on Ellis Island, from one of the Godfather movies (number 2 if you want to know J). I've always pictured myself standing there looking at this thing, not knowing what the future would bring. My own swearing in ceremony was not quite as romantic as a Francis Ford Coppola framed photograph with swelling string music though. I was in a group of 1125 new citizens in a very big gathering hall at a convention center in Detroit. Not a Vito moment, but it was very special to consciously make the decision to assume a new nationality, to actually say the Oath of Allegiance out loud.

Commercial Community

When I first started out reading and posting online, it was easy. Whenever I had a question I just posted it and waited for someone to post suggestions. While searching for answers I saw many questions that I could answer, so I did. I was employed, I did not have any commercial interest in participating in the community. The only reason that I did was because I enjoy reading people's questions, making suggestions, and participating in the discussions. It is my hobby, I like being part of the community.

We own our business now, and we have occasionally found work in the community, so I am aware of the fact that there is definately a commercial aspect to participating. I still post as much though (if not more) just because I like helping people and being part of this worldwide community. But also to keep the balance, to put something back into the community for what I got out of it. Sometimes I catch myself thinking about posting something about my services, and usually I don't. It can be a fine line to walk, and I may have possibly crossed it from time to time. Over all though, I make a conscious effort to keep my commercial interests separate from the community.

What has been a very troubling development, is that there are companies who create an online presence, and they call it "community", "forum", "message Boards", "user groups", "blogs". When you try to read these blog articles, though, it turns out that you have to register first. When you do, the next day your email inbox is filled with spam. They provide so called "white papers", which turn out to be nothing more than promotional material for their add-on portfolio. One of these so-called "communities" even charge a registration fee of hundreds of dollars.

Just to be clear on this: I have no problem whatsoever with organisations charging money for membership. I have no issues with companies advertising their products, or even sending out material to their contact list every day. All that I want is for things to be called what they are. Don't call members-only content "blog" when people have to register for it. Don't claim that a members-only article was published exclusively today, when it is in fact nothing more than an RSS feed into a free blog entry that was published months ago. Don't post links to purely commercial websites filled with advertisements, under the guise of "community participation". If you want to advertise, then there are plenty of options available.

The MOST important aspect of this community, to me, is that it is free of charge, independent, without any blatant commercial interests. The information contained within the community should not cost a single penny, and should be available without having to provide any personal information and without having to endure truckloads of unwanted advertisements. Once people want to start participating, of course, some personal information is necessary, but only for the purpose of being able to identify yourself on the community. This participation should always be free of charge, it should be volunteer work, with no strings attached, without any commercial interests. You help people simply because you want to help people, not because you're out there fishing for business.

There it is, my ramblings on commercial interests in our community. It feels good to get it off my chest

SQL Server 2008 Wave

A few weeks ago, I went to the Microsoft Windows Server 2008 launch event in Detroit, at which time they also launched Visual Studio 2008, and were also supposed to launch SQL Server 2008. The first two yes, the latter, which was the main reason for me to go there, only in CTP form, to be launched later this year. Click here to check out the product website.

Here's a few features that I think are relevant for NAV users:

• Secure data. SQL Server 2008 comes with new encryption logic (something they call TDE or Transparent Data Encryption). With this mechanism, the actual data can be encrypted, not just the access layer. Not only will active data files be encrypted, this will also apply to detached data files and backups. For ERP users this is a very important feature, as it will enable us to keep people away from our data.
• Data Audit Capabilities. There will be a feature that is capable of logging all data events in the database. The presenter was very clear that they had done extensive load testing, and assured us that there will be very little performance cost. This could be a good substitute for the notoriously slow change log.
• Management by Intent. Users will have the ability to set up policies, such as user access policies, but also to put in place data protection and compliance with federal regulations. I didn't get this part, since I've never been involved with any compliance project, but by the big deal that they made of it, and the reactions from the crowd I think this might also be important for the ERP market.
• Compression. SQL Server 2008 will have the ability to compress data files, log files, backup files, etcetera. This means that for instances backing up the database and log shipping will take less system resources. Compressing the files will take additional system resources, but apparently the gain (actually loss J) in file size makes up for it
• Performance. Compression will make it so the system takes up less disk space, which makes querying faster and takes up less disk space. Enhanced partitioning will make it so system resources can be allocated to particular data needs. For NAV this is not really relevant, but they were talking about a set of automatic tools that will make our lives easier. They also did a lot of work to enhance the speed of Data Warehouse queries
• The coolest feature I thought was the Resource Governor, which I think will be the most important new tool for NAV performance issues. This is a tool that you can use to give certain (types of) users higher priority over other ones. You can give the guy that signs your paycheck 100% priority for his daily heavy inventory reporting, but you can also give the CSR user group first dibs on resources. They had a few very cool demos in this area. It was a hectic demo, and it went a bit too fast to write down. Look around for webcasts on this topic, you'll make lots of friends.

SQL Server is not released yet, and I couldn't find a release date. You can download a test version on the product website though, so have a look. The NAV team has blogged that they will have a SQL Server 2008 NAV update for 4.0 through 5.0 within 3 months of the official release.

Coming soon

Alright so I finally asked David to create a blog for me, hopefully I'll come up with interesting things to write about. As much as I'd like to charge the customer that I am visiting today for writing blog entries, I don't think they would be too thrilled, so I'll have to save it for a little later  Watch this space.