Chapter 1. Exploring Dynamics NAV and MSDYN365BC – Overview

Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (which, as mentioned in the preface, is an evolution of Microsoft Dynamics NAV that maintains the same functionalities and will be available both in the on-premise and SaaS releases), are Enterprise Resource Planning(ERP) systems that are specifically made for growing small to mid-sized companies.

Note

This is, at least, what Microsoft's marketing department says. In reality, Microsoft Dynamics NAV is also being used by large and publicly-traded companies around the world.

An ERP is a piece of software that integrates internal and external management information across an entire organization. The purpose of an ERP is to facilitate the flow of information between all business functions within the confines of organizations. An ERP system is meant to handle all the functional areas within an organization on a single software system. This way, the output of an area can be used as the input of another area, without the need to duplicate data.

In this chapter, we will talk about Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2018, the last existing version with the name "NAV" and on-premise connected to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, which will disappear before the end of the year. We do this for reasons of continuity toward the past because this book was born to illustrate the implementation of Microsoft Dynamics NAV.

This chapter will give you an idea of what Microsoft Dynamics NAV is, and what you can expect from it. The topics covered in this chapter are the following:

• What is Microsoft Dynamics NAV?
• The functional areas found in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2018
• A history of Microsoft Dynamics NAV, with a timeline of its features
• How to use Microsoft Dynamics NAV in different environments (Windows client, Web client, Universal App, SharePoint framework, Outlook integration, Web services, and so on)
• Development considerations: How Microsoft Dynamics NAV is developed

From the Business Central overview perspective, the following topics will be covered:

• From Microsoft Dynamics NAV to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (move from on-premise to cloud-based SaaS)
• The cloud model (ERP auto-updated system)
• Events and extensions
• The New Modern Development Environment
• Microsoft Azure services