Dynamics NAV Solutions

Unique Technology

Unique technology makes Dynamics NAV different and better than any other business software. Here are 10 very powerful, and beneficial features of Dynamics NAV that, to our knowledge, are not available in any other business software.

Click on a feature to learn more about it and the benefits it provides.

1. Flowfields and SIFT
2. FlowFilters
3. Dynamics NAV Drilldowns
4. The Navigate feature
5. Field and Table Filters and the Find Feature
6. C/SIDE (Client/Server Integrated Development Environment)
7. Date Driven Accounting Architecture
8. Account Schedules
9. Database Versioning and Optimistic Concurrency
10. User Customizable Tabular Forms

FlowFields and SIFT
"SIFT" stands for Sum Index Flow Technology. Sum Index Flow Technology permits Dynamics NAV to calculate numeric totals instantly, even on many thousands of records. SIFT uses an ingenious proprietary method to rapidly accumulate totals when transactions are entered and store them in the Dynamics NAV database index structure.

In other systems, the system is forced to access each record in a set of records to calculate an account balance or a total on that set. This is a very time consuming process in a database with thousands of records.

How does Dynamics NAV use SIFT to your advantage? SIFT is the basis for Dynamics NAV "FlowFields". FlowFields are used wherever account balances and totals are displayed in Dynamics NAV. They are called FlowFields because detail transaction amounts flow dynamically into the account balance or total for a given set of records. This happens instantly, no matter how many records are in the set.

General ledger account balances, customer and vendor account balances, and inventory quantities on hand, are just a few examples of account balances and totals that are calculated and displayed using FlowFields in Dynamics NAV. Wherever totals like these appear, whether in online screens or in reports, Dynamics NAV uses SIFT and FlowFields to instantly calculate and display the amounts.
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FlowFilters can be used with any FlowField, and FlowFields are used wherever account balances or totals of any kind are displayed in Dynamics NAV. FlowFilters, therefore, provide you with a powerful tool for slicing, dicing, and analyzing account balances and totals wherever they are displayed in the Dynamics NAV system.
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Dynamics NAV Drill Downs
Dynamics NAV drill downs allow you to click on any FlowField displaying an account balance or total to see the underlying detail that flows into that total or balance. Two things make Dynamics NAV drill downs different from drill downs in other systems.

First, drill down is available for EVERY account balance or total displayed anywhere in the Dynamics NAV system. Second, you can apply FlowFilters to account balances and totals before drilling down, to selectively filter the detail records displayed by the drill down.

Dynamics NAV drill downs provide you with an ability to "SIFT" through your data in a way that is unparalleled by any other system.
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The Navigate Feature
The Navigate feature provides a quick navigation point from any drill down record to all of its associated ledger entries and source document records.

Let's say we are working through the FlowFilter example above, and we are now looking at the drill down detail records that make up the travel expense account balance for a specific department, project, and timeframe. For each travel expense drill down record, you can see the transaction date, the amount, and other fields related to the record.

Selecting a drill down record and clicking the Navigate button displays the Navigate window, which shows a summary of the associated ledger entries and source document records for that travel expense item. The Navigate window is a sort of window into the whole audit trail for the transaction. It shows the impact of the transaction on the General Ledger and other subsidiary ledgers in the Dynamics NAV system in summary form. It also indicates what the posted source document for the transaction was.

You can select the General Ledger or subsidiary ledger items in the Navigate window and click the Show button to follow the transaction trail into the ledger detail. Or, you can select the source document record in the Navigate window and click the Show button to call up the original posted source document details.

You will be amazed at how the Navigate feature allows you to navigate from drill down detail to all of the associated information in your Dynamics NAV system. And your auditors will be amazed by how quickly and easily a transaction can be traced back to supporting detail in the audit trail.
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Field and Table Filters and the Find Feature
Filtering large amounts of data down to manageable subsets, and finding the specific records you are looking for is easy in Dynamics NAV. We've already talked about FlowFilters. Dynamics NAV Field and Table Filters, and the Find feature, give you rapid, flexible filtering and find capability on all fields in the Dynamics NAV system.

A Dynamics NAV Field Filter can be applied to ANY field anywhere in the Dynamics NAV system to filter out records that don't match the filter criteria. Simply click on the field you want to filter, then click the Field Filter button or press the F7 key. The Field Filter window is displayed where you can enter the field value that you would like to match. The Field Filter window allows you to specify that you want an exact match with single or multiple values, a partial match using a wildcard character, a match on greater or less than a value, or a match with a range of values. If the field you are filtering is a code field like an account or customer code, the Field Filter window provides a convenient lookup list of the valid codes for that field. After you enter your filter criteria in the Field Filter window and click the OK button, the Dynamics NAV screen, window, or form you are working with will filter out records that do not match your filter criteria.

Table Filters work the same way as Field Filters, but they allow you to specify filter criteria for more than one field at a time. Additionally, when you run any Dynamics NAV report, a report request form is displayed which, along with options for running the report, provides the table filtering function to specify filters for the report.

When Field or Table filters are active an indicator appears, alerting you that a filter is set. One click on the "Show All" icon removes any filters set on the data you are working with.

The Find feature provides a quick way to locate one or more records that match a search value. The Find feature can be used with ANY field anywhere in the Dynamics NAV system. Simply click on the field you want to search on. Then click the find icon, press Ctrl-F, or, if you are working in a display-only window, simply begin typing your search value. A Find window is displayed where you can finish entering the search value. If the "Find as You Type" option is turned on, then the system instantly locates letter by letter the first record matching your search value as you type. The Find window also lets you specify whether you want to match on the whole field, the beginning of the field, or any part of the field, as well as whether you want to match exactly on upper and lower case letters.
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C/SIDE
The core of Microsoft Dynamics NAV is its Client/Server Integrated Development Environment (C/SIDE). C/SIDE is a 100% graphical development environment and, like the Dynamics NAV program, it has a graphical user interface. C/SIDE, together with SIFT, gives Dynamics NAV its power and flexibility. With C/SIDE, any of Dynamics NAV's source code objects including database tables, screen forms, reports, codeunits, and dataports, can be customized to meet any unique requirement.

C/SIDE consists of three systems: the 4GL development system, the database management system, and the client/server communication system. These three systems are fully integrated with one another and the Dynamics NAV program. These systems are designed to create a complete solution for accounting and business management that is simple to use and maintain at all levels, from the user interface to the operating system. They are designed to function together as a single unit, giving Dynamics NAV qualities and capabilities that are not available in solutions assembled from separate software development tools.
Learn more about C/SIDE
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Date Driven Accounting Architecture
Unlike other systems, Dynamics NAV does not use fields or "buckets" in the database to store static account balances and totals. Nor does it need to use fixed accounting periods. Instead, Dynamics NAV uses FlowFields to dynamically calculate account balances. Dynamics NAV's SIFT technology instantly calculates and displays account balances and ensures that they are always accurate and up to date. The system uses FlowFilters to filter account balances by dates and "Dimensions" or accounting structure segments (Learn more about Dynamics NAV Dimensions).

In Dynamics NAV, a fiscal year can be comprised of up to 365 accounting periods defined by the period start and end dates. But you can run financial reports for any date range, not just the pre-defined accounting periods. This means that you can easily report on projects, programs, or other dimensions, that cross fiscal years or have arbitrary mid-period start and end dates.

Users can be restricted to specific posting date ranges. To close a fiscal year, Dynamics NAV "date locks" fiscal periods for the closed year. A "closed" fiscal year cannot be opened again, and accounting period dates in a closed year cannot be changed. But you can post closing and adjusting entries in the closed year before clearing revenue and expense accounts to the balance sheet.

More than one fiscal year may be open, allowing you to make entries in a new year before the prior year is closed. Authorized users can perform the year-end process to clear revenue and expense accounts to the balance sheet more than once if additional closing entries or prior year adjusting entries are required. So with Dynamics NAV, you can take as much time as needed to perform your year-end close, without holding up the posting of transactions for a new year.

This date-driven accounting architecture provides unparalleled flexibility and control for financial reporting and fiscal period processing.
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Account Schedules
The Account Schedule facility is Dynamics NAV's integrated tool for producing financial reports and analyzing financial information. The Account Schedule facility allows you to create an unlimited number of financial report definitions. You can create Account Schedules with completely customizable row and column calculations and presentation quality formats.

After an Account Schedule is created, Dynamics NAV's built-in report generator can be used to print or preview the financial report in presentation format. Or, the Account Schedule can be run online, displaying the financial information in the same row and column layout, and providing powerful filtering, drill down, and analysis capabilities.

Dynamics NAV uses FlowFields and SIFT to instantly calculate and display Account Schedule information online. FlowFilters, Dimensions, and the date-driven architecture described above allow you to instantly filter, recalculate, and display the report amounts based on any criteria you choose. "TrendScape" buttons allow you to view report data by year, by quarter, by accounting period, or by day, with a single mouse click. Drill down data reflects any filters that are set on the Account Schedule. And report data displayed in an online Account Schedule view can be copied and pasted into an Excel spreadsheet with a few mouse clicks.

With the reporting and online analytical power provided by Dynamics NAV's integrated Account Schedule facility, you don't need to resort to external reporting and analysis tools.
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Database Versioning and Optimistic Concurrency
Other business software products use locking techniques to protect the integrity of the database by locking other users out of a record while one user is viewing or changing the record. This can be a real problem when locks are held during a long running report or posting process, or when a user takes a coffee break in the middle of making a change to a record. Furthermore, with other systems, if a glitch like a power failure or hardware problems occurs during a change or posting process, the database integrity is often damaged, results in lost data, and can only be repaired through a complicated recovery process.

With Dynamics NAV, you never have to worry about the integrity of your data, and users never get locked out or slowed down by other users. That's because of two technologies that we have not seen in other business software. These technologies are called Optimistic Concurrency and Database Versioning.

With Optimistic Concurrency, two or more users can access or modify a record at the same time without locking each other out or holding each other up. This is possible because Dynamics NAV uses something called Database Versioning. Every time a user saves a new or changed record, which is something that happens automatically in Dynamics NAV, a new version of the database view is created. When you enter new data, your changes are private. It is not until your entry is saved that the new data becomes public, and the newest version of the database view is established. Dynamics NAV enables several users to access and modify the database concurrently by letting them work on individual versions of database views, which are merely snapshots of the database at the time they first accessed it.

If two or more users access the same record at the very same time (something that rarely happens), the user who first tries to make changes to the record is allowed to do so. The other user(s) receive a message notifying them that their view of the record is not current, that their changes will not be saved, and that they must refresh their view of the record before making the change. This situation happens very rarely. Therefore, Dynamics NAV's Optimistic Concurrency and Database Versioning prevent user lockouts and hold-ups, while at the same time protecting the integrity of the database.
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User Customizable Tabular Forms
Many of Dynamics NAV's data screens are designed in a simple, user-friendly, tabular, row and column format. Wherever Dynamics NAV displays records in a tabular format, each user has the ability to show, hide, or reorder the columns based on their own preferences.

The Dynamics NAV database contains hundreds of database fields in each module which may or may not be used depending on a company's or a user's unique data requirements and processes.

Dynamics NAV allows users to show or hide fields on tabular screens as required or according to their own preference. To hide a column, a user simply clicks the right mouse button on a column heading, and selects the "Hide" function to temporarily hide that column. To show columns that are not visible, the user right clicks any column heading, and selects the "Show" function, which displays a pick list of columns available for display on that screen.

To put screen columns in a different order, a user simply needs to click on a column heading, hold down the mouse button, and drag the column to its new position.

This capability allows users to adjust their screen layouts as needed to help speed data entry and remove unnecessary clutter. Each user can set and change screen layout preferences without affecting the same screen layouts for other users. Any such change that a user makes is automatically saved and will be retained for that user until they make another change.

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What Makes A
Dynamics NAV Solution Different?