NAV development projects – general guidance

Now that we understand the basic workings of the NAV C/SIDE development environment and C/AL, we'll review the process of software design for NAV enhancements and modifications.

When we start a new project, the goals and constraints for the project must be defined. The degree to which we meet these will determine our successes. Following are some examples:

• What are the functional requirements and what flexibility exists within these?

• What are the user interface standards?

• What are the coding standards?

• What are the calendar and financial budgets?

• What existing capabilities within NAV will be used?

Knowledge is the key

Designing for NAV requires more forethought and knowledge of the operating details of the application than was needed with traditional models of ERP systems. As we have seen, NAV has unique data structure tools (SIFT and FlowFields), quite a number of NAV‑specific functions that make it easier to program business applications, and a software...