My dear Loyal Visitor,
Navigate Into Success blog has moved to the new domain:
http://www.NavigateIntoSuccess.com/
I believe it deserved it.
This blog has started as a hobby a year and a half ago. It took it six months before a first visitor arrived to it, and about nine months before it really kicked-off.
Today, there are about 160 daily web visitors, 70 subscribers to my Feedburner feed, and 60 subscribers to WordPress feed – all in all there are almost 300 hundred people reading this stuff every day.
For a narrow-niche blog, such as this, I believe I do fairly well.
What does the move to the new domain mean for you? Here’s my commitment to you:
- Starting from New Year, there will be a regular posting schedule. A new post will be here every Monday and every Thursday. There might be posts on other days as well, but two weekly posts is what you’ll get. Every week.
- I’ll intentionally blur the focus even more away from Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Other than continuing to evangelize the Sure Step implementation methodology, I’ll cover more generic ERP and SCM topics, as well as project management topics and implementation best practices.
- Over time, I’ll build a Microsoft Dynamics NAV Functionality Catalog, which will explain the wealth of things you can achieve with this ERP system. I believe this catalog will help you reach a decision about implementing it in your company.
- I’ll keep delivering an occasional NAV tips and tricks posts, functionality explanation, and a how-to article. I believe all this stuff will add a lot of value to all of you who want to learn about NAV, and if you are here because of NAV, there will be even more content from you (read bullet #1—more posts in general means more posts about NAV).
- I’ll try building a community out of this blog, get in touch with you, get you to share your opinion, experience, ideas on how to get the most value out of NAV and ERP implementations.
Thank you for reading this blog, I hope it was worth your time so far, and I promise to make it even more so in the future!
Yours truly,
Vjeko
Well, well… it seems that I am the first one to comment on your first post over here. Well Vjeko, new domain, clean, nice design, everything seems to be set up for NAVigating into success! So, I guess I should now update my links to this site, right?
Vibor, it seems that you are the first one to comment on my first post over here, yes, indeed it does! Thanks for the first comment, and I’m glad that you find the new design “clean, nice”… If anyone knows, than a guy from User Experience team should! 😉
Hi,
First of all, Congratulations!.. ….
Honestly, you are doing a great Job. Why??? Because, in a country like India (where I live and where Microsoft has its big development centre), people know little about NAV….. moreover, Internet is full of information about other ERP packages but (SAP), but, Microsoft’ NAV has few resources….
Irony..: ) But, True….
Now, coming back to this post, let me begin with my professional background. I am working as a Technical writer. The obvious Question.. Why do I want to learn NAV??? The answer…..
It is high time, I should release that Technical writer (without in-depth knowledge of any specific domain and detailed knowledge of that domain-related software application), will find it hard to manage their bread and butter. : )….. in future…….
So, I made up my mind… downloaded NAV 2009, and start learning, BUT. the HELP provided by Microsoft is not for a beginner…. They do not give the business logic behind every user interface operation, which is not a good option for a new user to begin.
Here is explanation—
“HOW” to do an operation is not more important than “WHY” because once the conceptual information is available, the user himself can use permutation and combinations to developed a customized solution!. [Based on the provide explanation in the documentation, the CRM/ERP consultant will choose the best strategy to implement the software.]
Let’s exemplify this. While creating a style in Microsoft Word, the end-user knows *why* he/she needs to create this specific style [The answer is simple – to attain higher accuracy and consistency in formatting with less manual efforts!].
But, for large software applications, which are developed to perform certain sets of BUSINESS OPERATIONS, the user must know what is the need for a business operation?
How can he/she use the software to implement that Business Process?
What are the various available options? What are the prerequisite? Which option is better and why?
Once you have provided the foundation, thereafter, you can explain HOW to perform the operation [the User Interface, procedural details etc].
For Microsoft Dynamics NAV, at the first glance, the user finds various modules of the application; Financial Management, Sales, Purchase, Warehouse, Jobs, Human Resources etc. But…
1. How do you fit all these discrete components to achieve the desired business process?
2. Why process A needs to be executed before process B? What if I don’t follow this [that is what if I start process B first]?
3. Which are independent processes and which are dependent on other processes?
4. Prerequisites to perform each operation?
5. And lastly, how to add all bits and pieces to make your business solution.
All these questions must be answered.
Out of all 6 Ws of Information Architecture [What, Where, Who, How, When and Why], answering WHY is the more difficult, as it requires a deep understanding of the business logic hidden behind each UI operation.
For instance, For Sales and Marketing module, what should I create first – a Contact OR a customer OR either will do?
What are the prerequisite to create a customer records?
Does it fetch any data from Finance/HR/ module?
Is finance module dependent on any other module? Things like that…
Now, please suggest me how should I proceed????
please reply
utpalbhatt@gmail.com
Hi Utpal,
Thanks for your comment. I really appreaciate that you like my blog, and that you find it useful.
The topics you are touching here are really important parts of every implementation, and a good implementation project should really define all processes, and their prerequisites and map them in an easy to understand way. Out of these maps you can construct workflows which are truly how you organize processes and their interdependencies.
I am not sure if your last three questions were rhetorical, I believe so, because answer to them really depends on circumstances, requirements, modules to be used etc. Please let me know if you need a detailed answer to any of these.
All the best,
Vjeko