Vintegrate 2016 Is Available Now
Recently Added Features in Vintegrate 2016
Wine Program Management
Vintegrate Bulk Program Management module helps you track bulk wine “intended use” for current inventory, planned harvest, and planned bulk purchases. Based on these allocations and on your sales or bottling forecasts, Vintegrate can help you forecast bulk wine shortages for bottling, estimate program vintage run-out dates, and evaluate program inventory outlook based on ideal vintage release dates.
Your “intended use” allocations follow bulk materials from purchasing bulk or receiving fruit, all the way to bottling, without concern for changing blend numbers, splitting lots into different vessels, and blending lots. You can allocate a lot or purchase across multiple wine programs, and you can partially allocate a lot.
Wine Program Management also helps you manage your bulk and bottling component supply chain. For example, the Bulk Program Availability Forecast report can calculate the quantity of individual blend components required to cover forecasted program shortages, based on the program blend specs that you provide.
Vintegrate Wine Program Management also gives you powerful new ways to analyze your bulk wine positions based on intended use, including analyzing bulk cost by program vintage.
Expected Vessel Contents
This is a powerful new feature that lets you see what your cellar would look like if all planned activity scheduled up to the as-of-date were actually posted. The report as-of-date doesn’t need to be a future date – it can be the current date. Given that winemakers may be several days behind in posting orders on some vessels but not others, on a given date, some vessels may have posted activity while others have pending activity. This information can be sent to Excel to build (for example) a graphical tank chart showing “cellar as-of tomorrow.”
Linked Work Orders
Winemaking Order lines can now be linked to other un-posted orders to create a multi-step process. The new Winemaking Order Line “Follows Winemaking Order No.” field links the status of Vessel contents on the current order to the expected output of the earlier order.
Composition Caching
Vintegrate Composition Caching greatly speeds the calculation of complex wine composition (e.g. product discharge tanks or lees collection tanks) by storing intermediate composition calculations.
Detailed Cost Analysis for Case Goods
The Wine Item Cost Detail report (under Winemaking/Reports) is now able to report detailed cost for both lot-tracked and non-lot-tracked case goods bottled using the BOM Journal or Production Orders. The detailed report will include packaging materials and overhead along with a breakdown of the bulk wine cost components. This is different from the Costed Bill of Materials report in that it uses the exact cost of the specific components consumed in the bottling operations, rather than the cost that appears on the component’s Item Card.
Production Component Availability Projection
The Availability Projection report is useful for analyzing how planned purchases, sales, and production operations will affect inventory of selected items in future periods. The report now includes quantities on BOM Journals if either “Include Manufacturing” option is selected.
Item Unit of Measure Conversion Assistant
The Item Unit of Measure Conversion Assistant is driven by the new “Unit of Measure Conversion” table and form. It provides an automated way to populate the Item Unit of Measure table “Qty. Per Unit of Measure” field when natural units (i.e. any units with unambiguous conversion factors between them) are used. This reduces common errors with item unit of measure setup, which can be very difficult to correct if transactions are posted with the bad units.
Distributor Depletions Tracking
The Distributor Depletions feature has been extensively redesigned to better support tracking of distributor inventory and depletions.
Service Billing “Free Storage Days”
The Service Billing Inventory Charge feature now supports “Free Storage Days” in bulk storage fee calculations. This supports the common practice of including some number of days of free bulk storage ahead of a scheduled bottling run or other activity. The calculation is sophisticated enough to correctly handle tanks that contain some wine that is subject to storage fee along with other more recently received wine.
What’s New in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016
Workflow
You can set up and use workflows that connect business-process tasks performed by different users. System tasks, such as automatic posting, can be included as steps in workflows, preceded or followed by user tasks. Requesting and granting approval to create new records are typical workflow steps.
Electronic Documents
As an alternative to e-mailing as file attachments, you can send and receive business documents electronically. By electronic document is meant a standard-compliant file representing a business document, such as an invoice from a vendor that can be received and converted to a purchase invoice in Microsoft Dynamics NAV. The exchange of electronic documents between two trading partners is performed by an external provider of document exchange services. The generic version of Microsoft Dynamics NAV supports sending and receiving electronic invoices and credit memos in the PEPPOL format, which is supported by the largest providers of document exchange services. A major provider of document exchange services is preconfigured and ready to be set up for your company. To provide support for another electronic document format, you must create a new data exchange definition using the Data Exchange Framework and then develop a service setup page.
Incoming Documents
Some business transactions are not recorded in Microsoft Dynamics NAV from the outset. Instead, an external business document comes into your company as an e-mail attachment or a paper copy that you scan to file. This is typical of purchases, where such incoming document files represent payment receipts for expenses or small purchases.
Other examples of incoming document files are electronic documents from trading partners with whom you have agreed to exchange documents electronically or from an OCR service. For more information, see the “Electronic Documents” section.
In the Incoming Documents window, you use different functions to review information, manage OCR tasks, and convert incoming documents to the relevant purchase and sales documents or journal lines in Microsoft Dynamics NAV. The external files can be attached to their related document in Microsoft Dynamics NAV at any process stage, including to posted documents and to the resulting vendor, customer, or general ledger entries.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Integration
Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016 introduces a new and improved integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The new Microsoft Dynamics CRM integration provides an optimal and seamless experience in the lead-to-cash process for customers who are utilizing Microsoft Dynamics CRM for customer engagement and Microsoft Dynamics NAV for order processing and financials.
Posting Preview
On every document and journal that can be posted, you can choose the Preview Posting button to review the different types of entries that will be created when you post the document or journal.
Deferrals
Revenues for services or goods delivered over multiple accounting periods are not necessarily recognized in the accounting period in which the sales document is posted and payment is received. To distribute revenues on the involved accounting periods, you can set up a deferral template for the resource, item, or G/L account that the revenues will be posted for. When you post the related sales document, the revenues are deferred to the involved accounting periods, according to a deferral schedule that is governed by settings in the deferral template and the posting date.
Expenses incurred over multiple accounting periods are not necessarily recognized in the accounting period in which the purchase document is posted and payment is made. To distribute expenses on the involved accounting periods, you can set up a deferral template for the item, resource, or G/L account that the expense will be posted for. When you post the related purchase document, the expense is deferred to the involved accounting periods, according to a deferral schedule that is governed by settings in the deferral template and the posting date.
Microsoft Social Engagement
Microsoft Dynamics NAV integrates with Microsoft Social Engagement and can be made available on customers, vendors, and items. You set up Microsoft Social Engagement for a specific record to monitor and collect data based on specific search criteria on different types of social media.
What’s New in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2015
Send Documents as Email
With Microsoft Dynamics NAV it is now possible to send sales invoices, credit memos, sales quotes, and reminders as email. From each of these pages, you have an option that lets you send the document attached with a short message.
Schedule Reports
You can schedule reports to run at a specific data and time. Scheduled reports are entered in the job queue, and then processed at the specified time. You can choose to output the report as a PDF, Excel (.xlsx), Word (.docx) file, print it, or process it only. Processed reports appear in the Report Inbox window on the Role Center.
Simplified Payment Reconciliation
You must routinely reconcile your bank, receivables, and payables accounts by applying payments recorded in your bank account to their related unpaid invoices and credit memos or other open entries in Microsoft Dynamics NAV, which you then post as payment applications.
You can import a bank statement file from your bank to quickly register the payments in Microsoft Dynamics NAV. During import, or when you activate it, an automatic application function will apply the payments to their related open entries based on a matching of data on payments with data on open entries. You can use various functionality to review and change automatic applications and to make manual applications before you post the payment reconciliation journal.
Bank Data Conversion Service
A global provider of services to convert bank data to any file format that your bank requires is set up and connected in Microsoft Dynamics NAV by default. All you have to do is to activate the service in your installation by entering the service logon information in the Bank Data Conv. Service Setup window.
You can use the Bank Data Conversion Service feature to have a bank statement file that you receive from your bank converted to data that you can import into Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Reversely, you can use the conversion service to have payment information that you export converted to a bank payment file in the format that your bank requires.
Manage and Create Report Layouts
In earlier versions of Microsoft Dynamics NAV, report layouts were based on RDLC. In Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2015, report layouts can also be created with Word 2013. From the Microsoft Dynamics NAV client, you can change which layout a report uses when viewing, printing, and saving the report. In addition, you can create and modify your own custom RDLC and Word report layouts.
Simplified User Experience (UX)
With this release, Microsoft Dynamics NAV provides a set of simplified pages and related objects under the name Simplified UX. Simplified UX provides simplifications to the standard user interface, with a focus on basic sales and purchase business processes for smaller businesses.
Simplified Print Dialog Box with Remote Desktop Connections
Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2015 introduces a new and simplified print dialog box for printing reports when you connect to the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Windows client over a remote desktop connection. The existing default print dialog box in Windows, which uses Easy Print Redirection on remote desktop connections, has some performance issues on long distance and high latency network connections. The simplified print dialog box significantly decreases the time it takes from when you choose the Print button on the report request page to when the print dialog box appears. The simplified print dialog box does not include all the options that the existing default print dialog box does. However, you can access the full-featured default print dialog box from the simplified print dialog box.
Benefits of Upgrading from the Classic Client to the Role Tailored Client
If you’ve been working in the “Classic Client”, there are a number of benefits of moving to Vintegrate 2016.
Role Tailored Client was first introduced with NAV 2009 as a faster and more user-friendly client built on an improved system architecture. Microsoft has worked hard since then to perfect and extend this architecture, so the time to upgrade is now.
The biggest end-user benefit of the new architecture is the Role Tailored Client. Instead of everybody having the same user interface, the Role Tailored Client UI focuses on the roles that each user has in the business. This hides up to 90% of the NAV features that they don‘t need. This helps users stay focused on the tasks and information needed to get the job done, which results in higher work efficiency and lower expenses. Also, Microsoft designed the interface to be similar to Microsoft Office, which your team is already familiar with.
Key reasons why the Role Tailored Client is better than the Classic Client:
- User’s key tasks are gathered together in the Role Center
- Reduced user interface complexity
- Stronger focus on user’s critical tasks
- Better system performance
- Excellent integration with MS Office tools
The NAV “Classic Client” is based on a two-tier “client-server” architecture, and the new “Role Tailored Client” is based on a more web-centric three-tier architecture. The two tier architecture has two elements: the client and the database server. The three tier architecture has an application server between the database and the client.
The “Role Tailored Client” is actually a family of clients with similar look and feel that meet the needs of different users:
- Windows-based “thin client” for power users
- Browser-based web client for remote access and lighter desktop users
- Touch-oriented tablet client for mobile users doing moderate data entry
- Mobility-oriented phone client (Android and iOS) for mobile users with light data entry needs
The Role Tailored Client makes finding information faster and easier. For example, to search for open sales orders in the Classic Client, you must go through approximately eight steps, while in the Role Tailored Client there is just one step — you are one click away from the information that you need. In order to obtain information about a customer in the Classic Client requires six steps while the Role Tailored Client takes only one step. Bottom line: the Role Tailored Client gives you the information that you need with fewer clicks, saving time and money.
The Role Tailored client can be run from a remote location over a VPN, or securely over the web. The Classic Client needs to have Citrix or Terminal Services to be run from a remote location. Moving to the Role Tailored Client eliminates the costs of purchasing and maintaining license fees of Citrix or Terminals Services Software.
The improved integration with MS Office applications creates new opportunities to streamline daily work flows involving communication with vendors and customers.
Beyond usability, securely publishing real-time or near-real-time data for analysis in Excel, Power BI, and other tools is easy now. You can quickly create OData feeds that can be pulled directly into Excel and Power BI (and refreshed at the click of a button) to gain new business insights from all the information you have in Vintegrate.