What Dynamics NAV 2016 means for the Oilfield Service Industry

Microsoft’s release of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016 in October offers exciting new capability for oilfield service organizations.

Microsoft continues to invest heavily in the Microsoft Dynamics NAV product and have been rewarded to the point where Dynamics NAV is the most popular mid-market system in the world with over 110,000 customers worldwide as of June 2015. This new release continues down the path of the product’s original mantra of building a superior technology platform capable of being adapted to fit varying customer needs. That design makes Dynamics NAV an ideal choice for oilfield service organizations for whom the only constant seems to be the need to adapt to continuous change.

Versions 2009 through 2015 added significant changes including three-tier architecture, web services, SQL Server reporting services, improved scalability, and a choice of clients to better fit a variety of users including mobile staff. Dynamics NAV 2016 has continued the enhancement of this platform while adding a few key features, some of which take advantage of the changes.

These are just some of the new features in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016:

• One of the most exciting features for organizations is the addition of a configurable workflow engine. While there was rudimentary document workflow capability before in purchasing and sales, the workflow engine now goes much further into virtually of the application suite and adds user configurability.
• Integration to the web has been enhanced by taking the NAV 2015 tablet client, enhancing it, and making it the standard platform for web browser and phone clients, giving mobile and distributed users a consistent experience, regardless of platform. The new web client offers significant enhancements to the configuration capability.
• Utilizing the web services capability of the three-tier architecture, Dynamics NAV can now automatically retrieve foreign exchange rates for anyone involved in international business.
• A new Dynamics NAV content pack enables Power BI to provide end users with a more powerful business intelligence and dashboard capabilities for little or no additional cost.
• Staff can now submit printed expense receipts by taking a photo with a smartphone and then scanning it directly into Dynamics NAV using OCR.
• New code extensions allow partner add-on products or customer enhancements to be added to customer databases in a multi-tenant environment, which usually limits modifications. The code extensions can survive upgrades, which is a real benefit for many organizations.
• Users will now have access to posting previews, which allows them to see the effects of posting the document or transactions in question.
• A very exciting development for Dynamics CRM users is the native integration between Dynamics NAV and Dynamics CRM where customers can configure the integration from the Dynamics NAV toolkit instead of a separate and limited connector. System integrators will no longer have to rely on third party integration tools, such as Scribe, if they need to deal with advanced business rules.

Whether you are an existing or new Dynamics NAV customer, Dynamics NAV 2016 brings much to the table, with promises of more to come in “Madeira”, their next generation of the NAV product due in 2017.

See why Microsoft Dynamics NAV for the Oilfield Industry is a great fit.