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It all started with Waldo and his Dynamics NAV 2009 R2 is not a “normal” release … beware! post two weeks ago. Waldo did not complain (much ), he explained what R2 is and what it isn’t, and it turns out that it isn’t many of the things people hoped it was.

Then Luc followed with his Dynamics NAV 2009 R2 is … post, in which he again says NAV 2009 R2 is not normal.

I’m sorry to say, but I am definitely joining this “not normal” party, ‘cause there is something strange going on with NAV, and I believe there will soon be either a SP(how does NAV 2009 R2 SP1 sounds?), or a series of hotfixes.

Let’s be fair – it brings so many goodies that I simply love: support for remote users in RTC is a killer, .Net interop is amazing, I even love the small improvements they did to Web services layer, and tons of others.

So, what’s the problem with R2?

Well, for starters, it’s buggy. And the things I saw (which aren’t minor at all) are (or should be) all big enough so I really wonder how this thing was tested.

First thing that always bothers me is database creation options. Even though my Computer is installed with Croatian regional settings, and SQL Server has default collation set to Croatian, New Database dialog in NAV 2009 offers this:

(that’s collation, and it defaults to Albanian)

Why collation defaults to Albanian beats me dead, other than because it is first (alphabetically) in the list of “compatible” languages. Even though Albanian and Croatian (and other seven languages in this collation group) obviously share the same Windows code page, their collations aren’t nearly the same.

Collation doesn’t only regulate how your åøæ or šđčćž will be displayed, but also your sort order. Every language has specific sorting rules, and in Croatian there are 8 letters with specific sorting rules. For example, lj and nj are a single letters and aren’t sorted between li and lk or ni and nk (as it will most likely be with Albanian collation). If you don’t pay close attention to your collation options, you get your database created with incorrect sorting functionality. So, this is major issue.

Then, NAV 2009 seems to talk well only with English regional settings, and when Croatian regional settings are configured on client computer you can’t run reports which have no layout, if they receive date filters. When you run such a report in RTC, this is what you get:

(please note the English language error in Croatian localized version)

But the problem is not that it’s in English. For all I care, it can be in Quechua. The problem is that it happens in the first place. Even though I at first thought this was an error in RTC, this is actually a problem in communication between RTC and Classic client – when running Classic client, RTC obviously passes the date as string, instead of date, and Classic doesn’t seem to care about regional settings (it never did, to be honest). But this small detail makes you unable to run dozens of reports. It’s a shame that nobody tested this.

Two weeks ago, at the What’s New training, the very first report a lady in the audience clicked returned this. Then every five following ones. This was so obvious that I can’t understand how somebody missed this – except, of course, if nobody actually tested Croatian localization under Croatian regional settings.

Which brings me to the topic of localization in general.

Whoever did translation, just a hint: Google Translate is okay for translating e-mails; for business software captions, a live person, preferably a native speaker, does a far better job.

I don’t know why some things which have always worked in one translation had to be retranslated, in a worse way. So, these are just some most prominent:

• Prodajni nalog (Sales Order) is now translated mostly as Nalog za prodaju (Order for Sales, literally), even though it is still sometimes, but rarely Prodajni nalog. I don’t know what was wrong with Prodajni nalog, especially because there is Nabavni nalog (Purchase Order) and Servisni nalog (Service Order), instead of Nalog za nabavu (Order for purchase) and Nalog za servis (Order for service).
• Even though there is Servisni nalog, there is no more Servisni artikl (Service Item). It was translated as Artikl za servis (Item for Service). This way, terminology is confusing, and inconsistent.
• Prodajni nalog (Sales Order) is sometimes translated even as Nalog za kupca (literally Order for Customer). Ouch.
• Odobrenje (Credit Memo) is sometimes translated as Odobravanje (literally, Approving). This is beyond confusing, this is plain wrong.
• Ulazna pošta and Izlazna pošta (literally Incoming Mail and Outgoing Mail) are ridiculous. They stand for Inbox and Outbox for Intercompany transactions. This is crazy.
• Sometimes, even grammar is wrong (e.g. Datum zadnje ažuriranja, cannot be illustrated in English, because there is no declension in English language).

The list can go on forever. There are so many inconsistencies, which have mostly been introduced by new translations for old terms. So now in the system there are sometimes old term, sometimes new term.

However, the true gem in translation is the ingenuity with which RTC terminology was translated:

• FactBox is ČinjeničniOkvir. You can’t do this in Croatian language, because it looks grotesque. It is extra grotesque when you start putting it into cases, such as ČinjeničnogOkvira or ČinjeničneOkvire.
• FastTab is BrzaKartica. Again, it declenses happily into BrzuKarticu or BrzeKartice and it makes my brain hurt.

But the one and only, the one translation to rule them all, is the unbeatable translation of the RoleTailored Client itself: Klijent IskrojeneUloge.

This sounds so nonsense even when not spelled the way it is.

So, yes, I agree – this release is not normal. It’s a flagship release, fantastic from functional perspective, but with such obvious bugs, and such a lousy (re)translation, it leaves me craving for hotfixes.