Nav 2009 SP1 RTC Images

A handy link to the available RTC Images.

NAV 2009 Role Tailored Client Development Quick Start

I am muddling my way through adding some classic client items to role tailored client in NAV 2009 and thought I would keep track of things that I found to be difficult. The most helpful resource online I have found so far is on MSDN:

Pages - These are simple to create and add fields to, but you can't format them beyond changing captions.

Menus - These are very confusing, there are 2-3 types that all have to be updated if you create new pages and want your users to have access to them:

--Menu Suite - You have to create NEW menu suites, separate from the Classic suites - go to New and select "Design For.. Role Tailored Client"

--Roles - Users are assigned to different roles (See Departments -> Administration -> Application Setup -> Role Tailored Client), so you have to update all the pages tied to the roles that are related to the page you have created. The pages are found in the 9000-9999 range.

Page Links/Actions - To create links between pages you have to add actions. Open the Page, select a blank line at the bottom of the list of elements, select View Actions.

You can create several types. Here is some more information on Actions.

Some key info: For basic stuff, the actions go into an Action Container, either RelatedInformation or ActionItems. You can have then show with their own icon if you indicate they are Promoted in their properties. You have to indicate which group they show up in. There are 3 default named groups, New, Process, and Report. You can assign names to several additional groups in the Page Properties.

Creating a Matrix form in Dynamics NAV

I have always just copied matrix forms and hacked them up to create a new one.  Today, after developing in NAV since it was called Avista in 1996, I created one from scratch.  Here are the steps (sorry there are no images, maybe later):

Create a New, blank form, set the SourceTable of the form to the record to be used as the rows in the matrix.  Add any columns you want on each row to the left of the matrix using the Field Menu.

Create 2 text values: MatrixValue, and MatrixHeader.

Put a Matrix control on the form, assign the MatrixSourceTable to be the record defining the columns of the matrix.

If the form is to be focused on another record (like a matrix of sizes and colors for a single item), you can create a function used to open the form, create the record as a global variable and get the source record in that function.

Add a text box to the right section of the matrix, set the sourceexpression to MatrixValue.

Add a text box to the header portion of the new column, set the sourceexpression to MatrixHeader

If the matrix rec (the record defining the number of columns in the matrix) is bound to the source rec, call 

On form open, set filter on the SourceTable variable, using the source record, changing to filter group 2 before, and then 0 afterward, then filter the MatrixSourceTable if needed as follows:

CurrForm.Matrix.MatrixRec.SETRANGE("Field",SourceTable."Field");

Select the entire Matrix control, and in the Matrix-OnAfterGetRecord() trigger:

MatrixHeader := CurrForm.Matrix.MatrixRec."Field";

Or any other value.  In my case, I appended the code with the description since the users needed both.

Select the right portion of the Matrix control and go to the C/AL code.

In the OnFormat section assign the text to whatever you want displayed in each grid box, using the Currform.Matrix.MatrixRec to determine the Column, and the SourceTable for the row, and the SourceRecord if needed.

That's it!

Setting up SQL server 2008 (to host Dynamics NAV)

I installed SQL 2008 Developer edition because the SQL 2005 Express edition I had been using isn't able to be accessed from web applications running outside the VS IIS instance and I needed to test an IIS hosted web service application.

The install took nearly 2 hours!  Becuase I was installing SSIS, SSRS, and the other tools.  It required an upgrade to .Net 3.5 SP1, VS 2008 SP1, in addition to 2.5 gb of HD space.

After the install, SQL 2005 Express could no longer access the databases so I had a momentary freak-out until I could mount them into SQL 2008, at which point I uninstalled SQL 2005 Express.

Upon attempting to connect from Dynamics NAV, I was reminded of the SQL setup you have to do for Dynamics NAV.  I always seem to forget that, and I am not the only one as I have been onsite to implement behind another analyst a few times and found that the setup hadn't been completed.  Here are the SQL modifications required for Dynamics NAV:

You have to set a trace flag by adding "-T 4616" to the startup parameter string:

http://tricksnavision.blogspot.com/2007/10/error-traceflag-4616-at-start-nav-in.html 

You have to add two extended stored procedures (xp_ndo_enumusersids and xp_ndo_enumusergrous) to the master database and grant execute permissions to the public role  as explained here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/nav_developer/archive/2008/11/05/basic-sql-creating-extended-stored-procedure-xp-ndo-dll.aspx

As a side note, all clients from 4.0 SP3 and later are compatible with SQL 2008, so there is no reason to use SQL 2005 with new installs.