[Brian Stenglein]

?Is anyone else dismayed with what Microsoft is doing to NAV?  I mean beyond the name change…

We have over 500 employees.  Most of which us NAV in some capacity.  Over 400 of them are low educated factory workers.  We have used the Role Centers and heavily customized Ribbons and Navigation Panes to make their jobs easier.  We are an ISO certified manufacturer and have documented procedures with screen shots written for training.  All of that will be made useless with their UI changes to word based menus.  Why get rid of the icons?  Ever heard the saying a picture says a 1,000 words?  Sure the buttons aren’t the most descriptive, especially since they went to the simpler color pallet, but once you know the picture it’s much easier to click that than try and find the right words in a list of words.  If we ever upgrade to BC in it’s current form we’d have hundreds of hours of retraining and rewriting of documentation. 

Also, we are very much against going to the Cloud.  I’m glad VAR’s fought Microsoft to get an on Prem version, that better not go away.

Does anyone want to join me in complaining about these changes?  If enough of us complain, it we might get them to do something different in future versions.

——————————
Brian Stenglein
Clow Stamping Company
Merrifield MN
——————————

[Kris Ruyeras]

One thing I can say regarding on-prem is it will always be there due to compliances. =)

——————————
Kristoffer Ruyeras
Tigunia
Seattle, WA
——————————
——————————————-

[Michael Carr]

I must agree with you , Brian.

I hadn’t thought of the ISO documentation issues but once software joins the cloud/app universe of leased browser software the changes come flying out almost daily/weekly/monthly forcing users to constantly figure out “where did it go” ——- essentially becoming a game of “Where’s Waldo?”

I just had to spend $1,000 of support to fix a bug in 2018 which for some reason was continually printing the same recurring entry for every Post and Print. A Microsoft coding error…….my cost.  

SIgh……….

——————————
Michael Carr
VP , Finance
Philadelphia Scientific LLC
Montgomeryville PA
——————————
——————————————-

[Jeffrey Mantz]

I agree. We are still fairly new to NAV and writing many instructional documents. One of my co workers who went to NAVUG came back with info on a document authoring solution that screen records your actions and converts is to paper instructions. It is expensive, but it may save hundreds of hours of work.  I am looking at it in more detail to see if it will work for us and have not made a decision. My main concern is how you integrate decision points in the process, like how to choose the correct option for a drop-down, or how you handle situational messages that come up, like a credit message during order entry. Anyway the tool is called ClickLearn and they have a version designed for NAV specifically.

——————————
Jeffrey Mantz
Vice President
Zefon International
Ocala FL
——————————
——————————————-

[Victor Diercksen]

I agree with everything you all say, AND want to express my dismay that the licensing on NAV 2019 (a.k.a. now Business Central) is CHANGING from concurrent users to Named Users!!  

We have a large number of ‘occasional’ users on the shop floor.  I haven’t done the math on BC yet, but I’m certain this is going to cause a big increase in licensing costs for us.

I have been a huge proponent of NAV for the past 16 years, but Microsoft has finally given me really good reasons to start looking at other ERP solutions for our next upgrade. 

VERY VERY SAD!!!

Victor

——————————
Victor Diercksen
Director of Inspirational Technology
Mity Inc.
Sandy UT
——————————
——————————————-

Updated on 11/8: For those of you that have mentioned the transitional ‘offer’ by MS to translate one concurrent user to two named users, YES, I was aware of that.  But the initial transition is not what I’m concerned about.  My concern is the long term cost of ownership.  Every other system that we use that have transitioned from Concurrent to Named Users ended up increasing the licensing costs to us as the end user and in many cases driven us to look at other options.

My question to all of you MS defenders is this.  Is Microsoft making this change to benefit me the customer, or benefit the Microsoft bottom line?  I suspect this is driven by accounting needs to increase revenue, and if so my previous concern remains the same, that this may be the final straw that causes me to look at other ERP solutions when it comes time to upgrade.

[Jason Wilder]

Victor I would talk to your partner/Microsoft in regards to licensing.  They should work with you to make it affordable.

Lot’s of changes coming our way.  Microsoft seems to be in a listening mode so do your best to speak with them to change things for the better.

Possibly we could start listing some websites where you can make suggestions on how to better the product better.

Here is the first one in regards to places in the code that need events published:
https://github.com/Microsoft/ALAppExtensions/issues

Microsoft is working the issues on this site and making real changes if it makes sense.

I have heard of a site where you can vote for functional changes but not sure if this is real or not so please list if you know it along with any others.?

——————————
Jason Wilder
Senior Application Developer
Stonewall Kitchen
York ME
——————————
——————————————-

[Tim Muldoon]

?Hi Victor,

Regarding 365BC licensing, when you ask your partner to order the 365BC license, you will receive users at a 2 for 1 count.  

D365BC On Premise is a named user model. NAV2018 and prior are a concurrent user model.  To offset this change, Microsoft will add users at 2 to 1. If you have 10 Full users today on NAV 2018, you will receive 20 named when you order the D365BC On Premise license, (as long as you are current with the 16% annual maintenance fee).   Also, that fee won’t change with the additional users, as your software value is protected since you are still current with the annual fee.

Wasn’t sure if you knew this, and I don’t know if it will cover all your shop floor users, but hope it helps.

?

——————————
Tim Muldoon
Strategic Account Manager
ArcherPoint Inc.
Dallas PA
——————————
——————————————-

[Alex Chow]

<edit>

[Cesar Zavala-Mesta]

I agree, but must add a perspective. For all involved, it’s healthy to have a good channel for Customers & Partners to provide feedback to Microsoft. But being a Customer (not a Partner), I also recognize that the Tech Industry lives on change, so for me the approach “hey, Microsoft, change this way!” sounds better than asking for no changes. I’ve seen good tech ecosystems die because communities resisted change too much (rendering the product obsolete after some time) or because companies pushed changes away from what communities needed.

I think Microsoft pulled a good one with Office 365, and it’s only natural they are trying to do something similar everywhere they can. 

——————————
Cesar Zavala-Mesta, DCP
Master’s: ALM, Harvard University Extension School, Information Management Systems
IT Manager
Burgess Pigment Company
Sandersville GA
——————————
——————————————-

[Mark Rhodes]

Hey community – 

First, thank you for the great discussion and detail here. I’ve highlighted this discussion to Microsoft and believe me, they appreciate the input. Jason commented that they are in listening mode, and I will confirm that. We’ve had a great relationship with the R&D team over the past few years and it continues to grow stronger. Jannik Bausager, Group Program Manager in Copenhagen, sits on our Board of Advisors. We’ve formed two focus groups this past year, with which the R&D team has held calls and shared out concepts for feedback. At every conference there at least a couple feedback sessions with that same team. Most importantly to this conversation, our CIO Council met with Marko Perisic and Chad Sogge at Summit to discuss licensing, and a substantial portion of the discussion was around the impact of the new named user model.  The group worked together to create an adjustment that would be a great solution, and Microsoft is discussing internally.   

Let’s continue having helpful, productive dialogue – it makes a difference!

——————————
Mark Rhodes
General Manager, BCUG/NAVUG
Dynamic Communities
Windsor CO
——————————
——————————————-