NAV 2009, Part 1: Totally New Approaches to Role Tailored User Experience and Architecture

I was asked by MSDynamicsWorld.com to write an article about Microsoft Dynamics NAV2009. Not easy to do, because as an MVP and a Partner (iFacto Business Solutions in Belgium), I'm quite bound to the NDA agreement with Microsoft. Therefore, I decided to base my article on the things I've seen at conventions (like Convergence) and things I could find online.

Such information turned out to be so voluminous that I wrote the article in two parts. Part 1 follows here and Part 2 will be published shortly.

By way of introduction, when we're talking about Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009, we're talking mainly about a completely new User Experience. But it's not only that. There is also a new architecture, and other new technical features, like web services. In this article, I discuss the user experience and the architecture. The other new technical features follow in Part 2.

The Role Tailored User Experience

We have seen a number of things written about the role tailored user experience, including a previous MSDynamicsWorld.com article. Here is how Kim Ibfelt describes it: "The Role Tailored User Experience in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 is not just a fancy new menu structure or a cool new UI with some bells and whistles. With Role Tailored User Experience, the user gets the data and functionality they require, exactly where they need it and when they need it. Role Tailored User Experience is saturated throughout the solution and it implements all the findings on the individual and unique needs and requirements of the different user roles of Microsoft's Customer Model that is based on comprehensive user studies."

In ...