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Little bit confused. could anyone help please?

Have seen a lot about NAV 2009 with the role tailored client and heard about the capabilities of enabling codeunits etc through webservice - GREAT!

But... what about web parts in sharepoint / Employee portal?

In the demo video that was released a while ago, the one that gives the future vision of production planning , it suggests that every page in NAV/RTC can be exposed through sharepoint.

So is this correct?
Is it going to be part of the initial release?
Do you need MOSS not WSS?
Does this replace employee portal - is it the employee portal?
Does the new DCO licence structure cover this?

The reason I am asking is because IF every page was available as a web part for sharepoint (with all the links and functionality) and the pricing was based upon employee portal (DCO - WSS / DCO - MOSS) then why would people pay the full price for classic client or RTC?

Last question - if you can expose the pages as web parts what technical work is required?

Cheers

The Sharepoint display target was taken out of the next release. I don't know if this was because of technical issues or because they couldn't figure out the right licensing.

Oh...

So if you had employee portal in V5 and were moving up to NAV 2009 - what options would you have?
Why would MS make you create own web parts through data content, when the capability is/was there to render pages through sharepoint that would do the same thing (only better)

thanks for the reply.

I think that you may have answered your own question.



I am very curious as to how other products handle this?

I've wondered the same thing, and my guess (because I don't really know) is Employee Portal for NAV 2009, with the same capabilities (and limitations) as the current version.

I don't think it's a matter of "Microsoft making you" do anything, it's just not ready for release, for whatever reason. If it were ready for release, trust me, they would have included it. If it's not ready for release, they won't release it. If they would release it without it being ready, you would not be happy either.

What does work is exposing pages as webservices, and from what I understand is that you can consume webservices with Sharepoint.

I suppose I could flip the question round a little to get my desired answer (or at least an answer I fully understand)

We have a client that has an Intranet and they have the ability to create expenses and time-sheets. This data lives in a separate database and csv files are created to import into NAV.

They wish to move forward an have a more integrated real time solution.
What are my current options when upgrading to NAV 2009 - keep existing intranet UI - but call webservices to update data?
or even better - expose the pages of RTC to sharepoint and have the users key data in directly based upon some specific pages created for time-sheets etc.

they do not have any additional licences to do what they do currently, moving forward they will have to purchase DCO - WSS ??? or external connector.

Employee portal as is in NAV5.1 is too limited to give this functionality IMHO.

Does that make things any clearer? - Not for me !!!! lol

From licensing point of view: they have Web Users if they are using employee portal, now they need DCO-WSS. WebUsers can be changed to DCO in som short transition period. It means, from license point of view it is same. WebServices have much broader usage, but you need to create own "Webparts" to use them. External connector is out of scope, if it is intranet. You need external connector only if there as users which you are not able to count (are not employees or some limited count of partners).

But still, if you are accessing the SQL data directly from Sharepoint, you still needs to have enough correct licenses for that...

I thought that would be the case - moving web users over to DCO - WSS users.

The question of web services is answered so thanks - the only thing that is still in the open is the User Interface element of things.

With Web Services we have plenty of options, but we have to create our own UI ?
But based upon the demo video - exposing RTC pages through Sharepoint would eliminate the need for that (to a certain extent at least).

So is the technology there but MS are not shipping it with first release of NAV 2009
When will we get the Web parts that are show in the video - ever??

Thank you all

I still don't feel like I have a full understanding of what gets shipped with NAV 2009.
having webservices is a great thing I agree - having a pre-configured UI through sharepoint based upon the pages I create in NAV 2009 is fantastic!!! (But still a dream) ????

Cheers

It is not dream, it is real, but release of the Sharepoint client was postponed. But I hope that it will be released in one year. We will see what will be official statements from MS around that.

Ok thanks, that is what Denster suggested right at the start of this thread... but it now seems to be sinking in.
Phew.

So what is not clear is if it is a technical or commercial decision really.
At least I know where to focus my attention now.

The other 'tiny' question now is. Why is there now an additional charge/granule for Employee portal? - Is this because you used to have to Buy 10 as a starting point now you can buy individuals?

Thanks Guys!

Great Questions Littleoaks, this was helpful, I had the same questions. Still have some.

I have a client who needs EP and I needed to know whether to hold back because of Sharepoint Client.
The web services that's included with 2009, does anyone know what is involved in developing a web interface to expose.... say, Purchase orders etc.

Is the traditional EP available with 2009 ?

thanks

Greg

This process is very simple: just add one line into one table, set the name and check one checkbox. And all what is on Purchase Order page, is available as webservice... but than you need to have correct licensing and be sure, that nobody will not use the webservice for different purpose than you want...

Hey All,

I've read this post and am not 100% my questions has been answered by the post (semantics maybe), so :

Does the Employee Portal work on the VPC for Nav2009 Marketing Beta?



T

thats a "Negative Ghost rider"

so basically, no, I am not sure if that is an issue with the use of IIS for other purpose, but the documentation says a No no.

T

The Sharepoint functionality is supposedly going to be released in NAV 2009 SP1 now.