Do things differently

To start our discussion, let’s take a simple topic –

Few months back, in one of Orkut forum somebody had posted a problem as follows:

‘I have to pick out a digit from a code field. E.g. Code is ‘50123AD786′ n I have to select 7th character from this field How can this be done…’

You all know it’s simple and the common way to achieve this is:

Copystr([ur code variable],[position, say 7 for 7th position],[length, here for u its 1])

We have designed a new form here. Taken a new global variable called ‘Name’ of data type Text and inserted a text box to display the variable.

We also have written a single line code as per the above syntax to display the 7th character of the ‘Name’ in a message box.

Now, can we do it in not so common way?

Yes, we can if we know that a text string in Navision is nothing but an array of characters (literally). So here ‘Name’ variable is nothing but an array of its length and we can fetch out the 7th character of it by simply referring it as Name[7]. To validate it, let us change the code in the ‘OnPush’ trigger of the Button as below:

Message (FORMAT (Name [7]));

Why we needed a FORMAT command? Just because the message box can only display text not character.

Here I entered ‘Snehanshu Mandal’ in the text box and clicked on the button ‘Click me’. It’s displaying the 7th character of my name ‘s’.

Don’t you think it’s interesting?

How can we make working on Navision a FUN?

Hi friends! How are you doing?

Last month, I completed 6 ½ years working in Navision and was stumped by one of my junior’s question – Don’t you get bored while working with Navision after so many years? Big question.

People are getting bored very fast nowadays. But why? You get bored when –

1. Work is monotonous
2. Work can be monotonous when you know everything and there is nothing new left to learn
3. ‘Hey, I am doing the same form designing, report designing and data port designing’

Besides the above points, you will find plenty of reasons of why people are getting bored in Navision.

I think the answer lies in the approach you have towards Navision. Whether we are trying to solve a problem too technically or we are having a holistic approach to solve a problem? Again to have a holistic approach towards a problem, you need to be little experienced on Navision or you have a fair idea about Navision functional things. So the whole issue is little paradoxical.
Whatever may be the reason, here we are not to discuss the problem. Rather we are here to try & make working on Navision a little more enjoyable. And to make it enjoyable, the best thing is to do something new in Navision every day. Mind it, you can do something new only when you do not know everything but you know something of Navision to start with.

I am not here to teach you something new in Navision rather together we will search new things in Navision. Every day, we will discuss about one topic and if you feel interested, you are welcome to suggest me the future topic or contribute a new discussion. You are welcome to send the problem you are having in your implementation and together we will try to evolve most reasonable solution of it. When so many brains will work on the problem, definitely we will be able to achieve most suitable solution for the problem
So let’s wish ourselves happy learning of Navision.