Dynamics 365 “Tenerife” is the next version of NAV

Hello Friends,

We doesn't see NAV 2018 any more in future. Because Microsoft has started focus on cloud base ERP solutions.

Full focus for the Cloud!

That was a clear message! Microsoft is still all-in. Quotes like “we’ll fully focus on the cloud” .. “we’ll first make sure the experience in the cloud is like it should be, and then …”. Let’s not be surprised about this. Do know though, there was absolutely no indication during the entire keynote, that support for on premise business would disappear – even there was a confirmation that there is no intention to kill off On Premise business. Just – there is a clear focus on what the market wants … cloud!

Dynamics 365 “Tenerife”

That’s how the next version of NAV is called. I have a feeling I shouldn’t be saying “NAV” anymore – then again – you know what I mean. “Tenerife” is a codename though – when there actually is a release (no release date was shared during direction session), there will be a final product name. So, in short, knowing what we know now:

The future Dynamics NAV release will be Dynamics 365 ‘Tenerife’ on-premise

Application Improvements ( That is most interesting part of customer)

Full NAV Functionality in Dynamics 365

Finally a formal confirmation from Microsoft that our beloved NAV platform in the cloud, called Dynamics 365 today, is going to have FULL NAV functionality! Not only “Financials”, but the full app! Confirmed! I hold you to it, Microsoft ;-).

And not only that, you will be able to take your customized solution – as is – to Dynamics 365! Dynamics 365 “Tenerife” enables that. Microsoft still recommends Extensions – obviously – but it is not a full requirement anymore. We’re talking embed apps, and I can imagine limitations will come if you draw that card – so, if possible, let’s do Extensions! Let’s do a true app!

But – Microsoft listened – embed apps are going to be possible.

Common Data Services

CDS is a very key part in whole Microsoft as a company. It’s connecting all these Microsoft products with each other .. through CDS .. For all of this software to work together. .

We have seen a demo during the Keynote, that – I think – kind of like illustrated that. The invoicing app that comes with O365, which you can use on for example an iPhone, where you can create an invoice, which you see in the Business Center in O365, where you have prices that come from D365 Business logic … you know .. Cool stuff. More to come when somebody can wrap their head around it ;-).

First Look at Dynamics 365 “Tenerife”

Full Functionality

I understood that the full functionality is basically already there in the preview sandbox – you can simply enable it with the Sandbox Wizard (just search for the page).
Switch Rolecenter

You can now very simple change role center from the web client, without sign out/sign in. Very simple. Same is for changing companies, by the way.

Import data has been improved. Not only master data from quickbooks are imported, but also documents, like sales and purchase invoices, balances, … . It’s very easy to take for example quickbooks customers to D365 Tenerife.

One place to find all setup, like:

• Assisted setup
• Service connections
• Posting groups – which have been made easier by a method that is called “suggest accounts”

New notifications to run more smoothly – we saw an example on Purchase Order, where Yannick punched in a “vendor invoice number” that was already used.

New interactions with excel – to “edit” the journal in excel. Even additional lines could be added from within excel. Basically, that’s how accountants like to work!

Invite Accountant

You can give your accountant access to your system by use of a wizard. Very useful for giving your specific accountant access, but it doesn’t stop there – it will also enable you to select from companies in a list, that would be able to provide accounting services for you ..

Yannick also showed that it recognized contact pictures, filling in a profile to recognise gender and age.. . All with Azure Services, which Microsoft is more-and-more consuming.

Personalize

You will be able to personalize your user experience in the client. Not exactly the same as the In-App designer, but not that different. You can add, remove and move parts of fields and quite some more – all for you individually.

Platform

Also, terms of “behind the scenes”, quite some things were shared, like these impressive stats:

• In 7 seconds, they are able to set up a new tenant, and make a new environment operation for the user. That is “hyper scale“, people!
• The data-upgrade is about 30 seconds per tenant – this is the time that the system will be offline – but it’s fast! But it obviously depends on the amount of data – don’t know anything about that.. .
• D365 has a 99.9% up-time. How they do that, is with something that is called “auto-healing“. How I understood it, the system has many telemetrics it can depend on, so it will know when something is not going well. And if it notices that, and it knows how to fix it (like restore NST or something), it will do that – without waiting for the customer to complain it doesn’t work. Basically, when something is wrong, Microsoft follows these steps:
  • Get customer running
  • Fix the bug (if any) in the system
  • Build telemetry so that it doesn’t happen again
  Impressive!

Bookings

Every single O365 is already running the product .. will have a Dynamics 365 “Tenerife” backend. So they are ready to extend with our apps, our extensions, … . One Demo we have seen, is an integration with the “Booking”-ability in O365, where companies like Hairdressers, who wants the ability to have online appointment registration.

The scenario we have seen was:

• On Facebook of a racing-company to maintain race-cars, there is a “Book Now” button to book an appointment
• You needed to select what you need to do (maintenance)
• who could do that (certain technician)
• Date and time (obviously)

And it was going to add this in the O365 calendar – and not only that – it was also visible in a part of some customized part of Dynamics 365 “Tenerife”. Also the data for the Staff-list, and the kind of services, was data that came from the App in Dynamics 365.
Integration with outlook

Also on the Outlook-integration, Microsoft has expanded. We saw a demo where from quote-thru-payment, all was done from Outlook.

• Customer sends some text in mail, very unstructured
• Company pushed button that scans the unstructured message, and puts it in a quote with 3 lines
• Sense quote (remember: still all-in Outlook)
• Customer in outlook replies “Ok for me”
• Company gets email and functionality figures out which document from contact and document number in the mail, and posts invoice and send it.
• Customer receives a mail with invoice – and “Pay” link. Customer can pay with one of his cards that are linked to his Microsoft account.