Stratus Aims to Bring Pure Web Front-End to Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009

Vjekoslav Babic of Microsoft Dynamics NAV consultancy Fortempo today announced his latest project, Stratus, a web client for Dynamics NAV 2009 SP1 and higher.  The new tool, which is entering the pilot phase, uses web services to render a "100% native" web client for Dynamics NAV, meaning no plug-ins needed and no pre-installation of software on the client. 

Stratus is intended for two types of users - occasional NAV users with an interest in a sub-set of functionality like maintaining customer records, or entering purchase orders, and users who are frequently out in the field and would most often want to access NAV from an alternative device like a mobile phone, a tablet PC, or another device that supports a web browser but not another client application.

The software is not yet ready for a full public release, Babic says.  It has already been tested in current versions of most major browsers - Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Safari.

While it appears Stratus will be marketed as both an add-on for Dynamics NAV customers and as a value-added feature for cloud-based NAV solutions in the future, add-on licensing will correspond with Dynamics NAV Light User licenses.

Some of Stratus's current capabilities include creating, modifying, and deleting entries; validation of all data and business rules; basic process calling; multi-language support; role-tailored display; and interaction with various page types including List, Card, ListPlus, Document, Worksheet, CardPart, ListPart and RoleCenter.  At this stage, Stratus still has some limitations like running RTC client add-ons, accessing some reports and charts, and interacting with some specific pages.  

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