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Microsoft Dynamics NAV Classic client has some features which are simply unbeatable when it comes to productivity and speed, one of them being primary-key filtering. When you set a single-value filter on primary key fields in a table, and then insert a new record in the same table, primary key fields are automatically populated with values from the filter.

Yeah, and?

Well, there are so many ways to (ab)use this feature, that sometimes it has a potential to save ridiculous amounts of time. As it just did for me, so I felt an irresistible urge to share it with you. Even though it is so ridiculously simple.

If you ever did general posting setup, you know that it’s one of the most boring fill-in-the-blanks kinds of games there is. Depending on the number of posting group combinations, this can take quite a lot of time. However, values are often the same for many fields in most of the rows.

To save time, you can either wear out your F8 key, or you can use the Copy – General Posting Setup batch-job which copies selected values from another row. But even faster than this batch job is the copy-paste combined with primary key filtering.

So, to copy all the values of Gen. Bus. and Gen. Prod Posting Group combination into into another row, simply select that row and click CTRL+C (copy to clipboard). Then set filters in both Gen. Bus. Posting Group and Gen. Prod. Posting Group for the combination which you need to set up, and just click CTRL+V (paste from clipboard). And there it is, just like that.

Then you repeat the same. Set the filters of a row for which you need the setup, and just paste.

What does actually happen here?

There are couple of mechanisms at work. First, in Classic client you can copy and paste the whole record, in both list and card forms. Second, at insert (or paste) the Classic client always assigns filter values to primary key fields, if these fields are empty and there are filters on primary key fields. Combine these two, and you can complete your General Posting Setup in no time.

Of course, this only works if the row you are setting up is not already present with some values already configured—in that case Copy – General Posting Setup batch job is your only friend. But when you are starting afresh, filtering + copy/paste will save you lots of time.

And yeah, just for kicks, I checked this trick in the RoleTailored client, and no way you can do it there. One more feature that’s missing there.