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This is not true, you can change color of the text by changing the style/StyleExpr properties (ok, you cannot choose colors like this or this, but i guess it's ok for your user)

the others have been pointed out by Matt, I'm done

PS: I think we're going off topic. And propably your concerns ar not limited to your last questions...you have probably many other features you want to have in your client that maybe already exist, maybe not.

Thank you! I knew there was a shortcut for this, but I could not remember it. Even used google to find it! (And it's probably on my blog )

So this replaces CTRL+PgUp and CTRL+PgDown

Mark, this is unrealistically optimistic. It should, but it doesn't always. Stuff happens. Someone forgot to write a batch-update batch job or for example you have a stingy client who does not like to pay for such stuff. Or it does not even worth it because there are only a few record. Or for example when you get these questions that how comes X did not automatically go into Y and you have no idea of course because when you try to reproduce it does, so you just reply revalidate it and then forget about it. Yeah, such problems would not happen in an ideal world. We don't live in an ideal world. People need workarounds. "The software should just work." is something I really don't expect you saying, I would expect it is something a bad customer would say. We all know it doesn't and we can't always manage to 100% stretch ourselves to fix all aspects of it all the time exactly when it is needed - there are always constraints. So sometimes people need workarounds.

This is actually an excellent idea! How about a purely textmode client, Norton Commander style? The advantage would be, other than speed of data entry, that such GUIs are very well scriptable with something like AutohotKey, so it opens up customizatons/automations outside Navision. For example back then when my friend needed to import Excel Item into textmode SAP R/2 he wrote an Excel Macro that generated a series of keystrokes and he imported it that way, not needing to hack SAP itself. That was quite cool.

OK let's discuss this as well. Who is the typical user? You sound like you swallowed Microsoft's ideology that the typical user is someone who is just casually entering some records or looking up data and well used to other MS products. But I think the typical user is like an accountant or warehouse dude entering data all day who is used to either a textmode Unix based or if more modern company for example a Delphi-based accounting software. I mean it is fairly obvious to me that the ERP oroduct should be for a totally different audience than for example Outlook so it does not need to be standardized. It's like standardizing a huge truck with a motorbike. Consider a shop floor with blue-collar workers entering output and scrap. They never seen Outlook.

In the long run I don't see it as a big problem because on this service-based architecture we will see more productivity-based and more computer-illiterate-user-based clients popping up. The idea of building a textmode client just sounds better and better the more I think about it

I think Microsoft's view is that we should not be using humans as data entry machines anyway but use bar codes or EDI etc. but in reality, we often have to. I hope there will be one day a world where nobody is going to beat the keyboard all day like a human machine but this world is far away. Even we lucky people living in first world countries eliminate "human input devices" in a decade or two, it will still linger on in other places where labor is cheap from Ukraine to India.

Funny how almost every power user I ever knew would really prefer doing everything in Excel and uploading it afterwards. I always resisted it but I am not so sure anymore... is it possible to call a web service from VBA for field validation?

do someone read my posts?



or isn't this what you mean, Miklos?
PS: YES, IT DOES VALIDATE

Ok, let's agree to disagree.

Endusers at my customers don't know F2.

Davmac1,

you are perfectly right from the viewpoint of the comfortable, rich first-worlder. But maybe you don't see the world from your own privilege. In fact now that I am living in Austria I sort of see less importance of "human input devices" because labor is so expensive that we rather automate it and it is obviously the good way forward. But I remember my time in Hungary and projects in other poorer places like Ukraine and this just doesn't work this way, there is no money for automation, human data entry is cheap, and yes they order on the phone. Because the customer refuses using a computer at all or at most e-mail. Or just because fsck you, I am the customer, I do as I please because every company is on the brink of collapse and need money badly so they accept anything. This is the reality what the non-rich part of the world needs to deal with. Oh and in poorer countries managers don't even trust employees so the most important part of an implementation project is to make sure nobody can see any kind of information they don't need. I don't see much of this here in Austria, but the subsidiaries in poorer countries... I see a lot of it. Not even just Eastern Europe or Asia, even in Spain I saw a company demanded a German consultant to make it impossible to copy-paste data out of Navision... and even in Switzerland, not particularly a poor place, I saw plenty of requests of removing one extra keystroke from the data entry process, because it was 1 lady entering the papers written by 50 computer-illiterate construction workers, so efficiency did matter. I don't know how such things in America work... are construction workers computer-savvy and enter timesheets and material usage in handheld computers? This just sounds too expensive and too difficult over here.

As for the fact boxes and navigation, dunno, I am starting to think that even in the more comfortable places of Central Europe we might be a bit backwards compared to America but the whole philosophy of Microsoft ads and the typical user Microsoft or you talk about - who spends more time looking up information than entering it, sharing information alongside the organization, having users well-versed in Office products etc., likes to see a sales graph while enters an order etc., highly educated and somewhere halfway between worker and manager, a truly professional person - just doesn't "click". We have a big divide in employees. Basically we have an inner circle of administrators who focus more on entering data and they are not interested in sales graphs or the kind of information factboxed provide, even Navigate is something they only very rarely use, and then we have an outer circle of managers, salespeople and engineers who don't use Navision at all - partially because licences are expensive but also because they do not see it as their job much like they do not see it their job to drive a truck or operate a lathe or do anything like this.

I mean I look at the Microsoft advertisement videos when even warehouse folks look like having an MBA and excellent Office skills and they are more concerned about working smart (looking at graphs etc.) than working hard and I don't see this kind of world around me. Maybe we are backwards. But this is the reality we deal it. I absolutely agree that your reality is a better world. But we must deal with the kind of reality we have.

Thanks I missed this post, thanks again. This is actually very clever. Actually you just gave me a good reason how to convince users to upgrade. Well done! This will single-handedly convince the accountants and the purchase assistants with their parts lists.

Too bad being at an end-user I don't participate in the beta program, I would so like to try this out

While I am definitely a pro-Microsoft person, I didn't have to swallow anything. It just made sense. I'll say it again, #1 complaint you hear about every piece of software: It's too complicated or it's too hard to use. That will probably always be the case, but I think it's great to see a company make an effort to do something about it. Maybe it's my background of educational technology / interface design that gets me excited about it, but to me it's one of the smartest moves they could make. They are doing their best to try to find a way to reduce the learning curve and I applaud them whether it works out or not.



I suppose it's different there, but the majority of the users I work with are not heads down data entry, or anywhere close to it. Not even the finance users I deal with are like that all of the time. The clients I have moved to the RTC haven't lost productivity vs. classic. Most of the companies I work with those groups (accountant / warehouse) make up less than 10% of the user base. The users I support are people that do use Word / Excel / Outlook / SharePoint / etc. The warehouse employees are using handheld scanners and don't even see NAV most of the time. The people in NAV are mostly in sales and purchasing, or finance and accounting. I don't work with manufacturing companies often, so it could very well be different in that type of environment.

I suppose my point is you can't generalize the product based on any one person, company, or region. The users that you work with, that I work with, and that every other partner works with all have different needs. Your typical user is not others' typical user. That's probably why they bought NAV in the first place, to customize it because they are not typical. We all make generalizations about what and where we think the software should go based on what we know, but none of us knows the whole picture. Some users will be negatively affected, some positively, just like any other change.

Once upon a time, there was a software called Navision 3.53. Completely text-based, pretty fast, very usable. Data entry was usually very fast. And there was a macro recorder, very handy for automating the daily backup (among other things). And it ran on DOS, OS/2, Windows and Unix, AFAICR. And it could print really fast. WYSIWYG, but only text mode.
The complete user interface was very well thought out. Almost everything was reachable by hotkey, which interestingly (mostly) didn't change on the transition to Financials, Attain, MS Dynamics NAV CC.

Yeah, it's the past.

Miklos,

I don't see the difference between countries that you describe. And I also don't see these two kind of users you mentioned. You know I'm working for an end user, too. And we've got subsidiaries all over the world. Even in asian or eastern europe countries there's no user who wants to enter data heads down. I mean sometimes they do, of course, if there's no other quick solution, independent from the country. So, I think this has nothing to do with the employee costs. If you ask the user himself if he would like to have an automatic solution, I would suppose he would say yes. And if you ask his manager he would also say yes because the user could focus on other work or could be fired (manager thinking ).

I totally agree with you that there are some users that need the possibility to enter data in a very fast way by shortcut. Clicking and entering and clicking and entering and clicking and entering is just to slow. But in my opinion that's because the users get used to their work and the application (NAV) and don't want to waste time on processes they absolutely understand. Not because of costs of "human entering machines" or because of less education or something like that.

I mean in former times everyone needs to use coffee grinders to make coffee. Today most people (even in those poorer countries) use coffee dispensers and don't care any longer if the beans are powdered enough. That means people understand the process to make coffee and now just search for faster ways to get one. (I know that there are still some persons that use the old way because of tasty reasons, but that's another topic.)

I love that quote

Oh, if only there was a really good web services interface so people could custom design screens to be suited just for them!
Oh, wait there is.

My spoiled rich American users can run the way they want to and the poorer workers in other countries can run the way they need to.

(Until they become as rich as us or we become as poor as them.)