Integrating Dynamics NAV and the Microsoft Office system (part 1) - MS SharePoint interface

Dynamics NAV with Microsoft Office offers a strong unified business platform with various usage options for users such as the Excel interface and the SharePoint client using Dynamics Client for Microsoft Office (DCO).

MS SharePoint interface

MS SharePoint is a collection of various software elements and services which offer web-based collaboration, workflow management, search capabilities, and a strong document management platform. The SharePoint platform, also known as Windows SharePoint Services (WSS), is a part of Windows Server 2008 and is included with the server license. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) offers additional functions and features such as advance enterprise search using a business data catalog, workflow management using InfoPath, advanced content management, and so on.

Dynamics NAV offers strong integration with both WSS and MOSS versions of SharePoint.

Installing and setting up Microsoft Dynamics NAV Employee Portal

Employee Portal acts as a bridge between Microsoft Dynamics NAV and SharePoint, making it easy for our employees to work with critical business information. With Employee Portal, our employees use a web-based interface for the following:

• Getting quick updates of real-time business information, such as invoices, customer data, and reports

• Modifying information, which is immediately updated directly in our business system

Employee Portal is intuitive and requires a minimum of programming. It comes with four out of the box Microsoft .NET-based Web Parts, and it is easy to configure on the Microsoft Dynamics NAV backend. The four standard Web Parts available with Employee Portal are as follows:

• Card Type

• List type

• Header Type

• Lines Type

The following diagram shows the architecture of Employee Portal with NAV:

Installing Employee Portal

Employee Portal can be configured to display NAV data through any browser with SharePoint. The following steps show installation and configuration of Employee Portal with NAV:

Installing other required software

The other software that need to be installed are as follows:

• Microsoft .NET Framework

• Microsoft Message Queue Services

• Microsoft Visual J# .NET Framework Redistributable Package

While Microsoft .Net Framework and Microsoft Message Queue Services are available as a part of Windows Server 2003 and Server 2008, Microsoft Visual J# .NET Framework Redistributable Package can be downloaded from the following link at the Microsoft download center. We need to check the download center for the latest links to available downloads:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=f72c74b3-ed0e-4af8-ae63-2f0e42501be1&displaylang=en.

Installing Employee Portal frontend components

Locate the employee portal installation program in the product CD for NAV 2009. The installation wizard guides us through the installation and requires us to enter the basic information such as company name, user name, and so on. In the Server Name window, as shown in the following screenshot, we can enter the name of the computer that hosts the backend message queue, which Employee Portal communicates with:

We must make sure that the following components in the screenshot, including Demo Site, are installed. If we choose Complete in the installation type, all these components will be automatically installed.

As a result of the installation, a new virtual directory has been created and a Web Part pack containing the Web Parts developed for Employee Portal have been copied together with other required resources.

Next is how to set up Employee Portal and create a Demo Site. The first step in setting up Employee Portal is to configure NAS for Employee Portal. NAS for Employee Portal using message queue is the engine for communicating between NAV and SharePoint. An application server record in Dynamics NAV should be created for the Employee Portal instance of NAS. Other application server records must be created for each application server instance setup.

The General tab

The next screenshot shows the General tab information of the application server setup. In the General tab we have the following settings:

• Code: This field accepts alphanumerics up to 10 characters, and must start with NEP- 1 for Employee Portal

• Description: Enter the description using up to 30 characters

• Use Encryption: Used to activate encryption of the data sent from Dynamics NAV to the frontend

• Use Compression: Used to activate compression of the data sent from Dynamics NAV to the frontend

The Front End tab

The Front End tab has the following settings:

• Front End Processing: A check mark in this field will enable this application server to handle the communication between Dynamics NAV and the frontend.

• Request Queue: Enter the path of the message queue handling the messages coming into Dynamics NAV, for example, .\private$\nep_request_queue.

• Reply Queue: Enter the path of the message queue handling the messages going out of Dynamics NAV, for example, .\private$\nep_reply_queue.

The Key Exchange tab

The following screenshot shows an example of all fields filled in the Key Exchange tab:

• Handle Key Exchange: A check mark in this field will enable the application server handle the trust requests from the frontend.

• Key Exchange Request Queue: Path of the message queue handling the messages coming into Dynamics NAV from trusted sites, for example .\private$\request_encryption.

• Key Exchange Reply Queue: Path of the message queue handling the messages going out of Dynamics NAV to trusted sites, for example, .\private$\reply_encryption.

Setting up captions

Captions must be defined in the Employee Portal setup for the test to appear on the Web Parts. At least one caption must be defined for each of the following elements: Group Captions, Web Part Request Captions, Web Part Table Tab Captions, Web Part Table Action Captions, and Web Setup Captions. Let's take an example of creating Web Part Table Tab Captions. The procedure for creating other captions is exactly the same.

The language code can be the same for all lines or different, depending on how many languages are being used. A translation for each language with a different language code must be defined for each language used for the same caption.

Creating Web Part Request templates

A template in Employee Portal is an instance of a Web Part Request containing the basic definitions of a Web Part Request. It can be used as a model for creating many Web Part Requests. It contains formatting of tables and tabs and, sometimes, lookups and sort keys. However, actions for interaction and navigation must still be filled in on the individual Web Part Request.

Web Part templates are also used to define actions. If this is the case, the Web Part type is System.

We must select the type of the Web Part Request to define how the data is presented in the Web Part.

The types are as follows:

• List: To show a list of records

• Card: To show a record in a card

• Header + Line: To show a header with attached lines

• System (for actions): These Web Part Requests are predefined by the program and can only be used for actions

Setting up users and groups

A collection of Web Part Requests is called a group and users must be assigned to a group. Once assigned, all settings of the group are inherited over except the language ID. The language ID should be defined if multiple languages are used and each user language preference is different.

In the group window, press F3 to create a new group. Fill the following fields in the group card header and lines:

• Code and Description: Enter the code and description for the group, for example, PRODUCTDESIGN and Product Design Group respectively.

• No. of WP Requests: Contains the number of Web Part Requests connected to the group. The field is updated automatically from the number of lines entered in the previous section.

• Caption: The caption that will show in the tool pane when we configure the Web Part on our portal page.