Connector for Microsoft Dynamics - Integrating CRM with NAV5!

The Dynamics Connector, despite its usability issues, is starting to gather a little momentum, due mainly to its flexibility and price tag. As the Connectors popularity grows, it is inevitable that you will sooner or later come up against something that it really was not designed to do, in my case this was to integrate with a version of Microsoft Dynamics® NAV prior to NAV 2009 or more specifically in this instance - NAV 5 but the same principles would apply to older NAV versions although with a little more work to get the Pages to fit.

You still need to be running the Dynamics NAV 2009 R2 client and middle tier as it is this that provides the architecture for the Connector to communicate with the Dynamics NAV data but providing you are up to date with your enhancement (BREP), or at least were at the time that NAV 2009 was released, then this is an FOC update and just requires installation of the new client and setup of the middle tiers. You then have a handful of Pages, a couple of Codeunits, an XMLPort, Form and Table or 2 to copy across as well as a few carefully chosen bits of code and you’re then pretty much ready to go.

Of course, you could just upgrade to NAV 2009 R2 or NAV 2013, click the enable connector checkbox and save the trouble and this is definitely the recommended (and supported) route, but if you don’t have the time or money for an upgrade or don’t see any other benefits for your business, then this is at least an option and should cost you no more than a couple of days of consultancy to get the Connector running maps against your old version of NAV.

Tom Jenkins

Tom is one of the founding directors of Dynamics Consultants. He has worked on ERP / CRM systems since 1995, initially as an end user and later as a developer/consultant. Before founding Dynamics Consultants, Tom worked in a management role for a machinery importer / reseller, where his work included inventory management and purchase control, systems development, and IT project management.