Dynamics NAV / Business Central Developer Digest - Vol 356
In this edition of Developer Digest, dedicated to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central development and Dynamics NAV development, we discuss issues around personalizing the Sales Order subform, unhindered data entry, improved dimensions in Business Central, and more.
The Dynamics NAV and Business Central community, including the ArcherPoint technical staff, is made up of developers, project managers, and consultants who are constantly communicating, with the common goal of sharing helpful information with one another to help customers be more successful.
As they run into issues and questions, find the answers, and make new discoveries, they post them on blogs, forums, social media…so everyone can benefit. We in Marketing watch these interactions and never cease to be amazed by the creativity, dedication, and brainpower we’re so fortunate to have in this community—so we thought, wouldn’t it be great to share this great information with everyone who might not have the time to check out the multitude of resources out there? So, the ArcherPoint Microsoft Dynamics NAV Developer Digest was born. Each week, we present a collection of thoughts and findings from NAV/BC experts and devotees around the world. We hope these insights will benefit you, too.
Problem with Personalizing the Sales Order Subform in Business Central
Michael shares a problem and the solution: “Hi developers. In BC14, I made change to the PAG46 Sales Order Subform to hide an existing column and add a new column, created the release, and imported to PROD. Now, users are reporting they are no longer able to personalize Page 42 Sales Order or Page 46 in the web client, whereas they could before. When any user elects to Personalize using the gear icon, all the red lines and arrows appear. When they attempt to drag a field in a subform to change the field order, it doesn’t move. When they attempt to add a new field not previously shown, it doesn’t add.
The user with whom I’ve been testing has deleted all page personalizations relevant to 42 and 46; this hasn’t changed the behavior. We do have access to the Object Designer, so I ran all the tables in the 2,xxx,xxx,xxx range that seemed to be relevant to personalization, and no records existed for this user and either Page 42 or Page 46. The user *is* able to personalize other pages like Customer List. I’m not finding much in the way of search results online; they refer to conflicts with page data personalization executed by way of profile modification, or to the navsettings.json file, or… any ideas about what might be causing the problem, or possible next steps?
Follow up: Client reports personalization of sales lines is now working in Production! Many thanks to Joe Shields and Jon Long. Here’s what I sent to the client based on their advice:
Two recommendations have come back from the ArcherPoint Upgrade team so far…
1. Restart the production BC service tiers. If you need help finding these Windows services, please schedule some time to review. It’s best to do this when the warehouse is offline. Performance will be affected until the service tiers have time to rebuild the cache. It wouldn’t hurt to restart IIS, typically seen in Services as “World Wide Web Publishing Service” … on the web server (which might be the same as the server hosting the BC production service tiers). Afterward, try to personalize Page 46 again.
2. Rebuild the symbols. This involves the executable FINSQL.EXE, typically loaded as part of the RoleTailored Client. The command in an elevated command prompt will be similar to this:
finsql.exe Command=generatesymbolreference, Database=”production_db_name”, ServerName=PROD_DB_SERVER_NAME
Make sure the user running the command has (at minimum) dbowner privilege on the production database. The EXE will load this as a process running in the background and return the user to the prompt right away. You won’t know when the process finishes until Task Manager no longer shows the process. Afterward, retry the personalization on Page 46.
If I were tasked for this, I might execute # 2 first, and allow plenty of time (making sure the process finishes and the database has had some time to write all the changes) before executing # 1.“
Tom adds: “Restarting the service tier and rebuilding the symbols reminds me of something I have heard Magic: The Gathering players say about Burn decks: Half the time, it works all the time. (Yes, I play Magic and I’m a nerd.)”
Looking Forward to Unhindered Data Entry in Business Central
Scott says: “I believe this will be a welcome change in BC: Unhindered data entry across rows.“
Get Ready for MSD365 Business Central 19
Saurav shares: “We are still learning what’s new in BC 18, and Microsoft has released what’s planned for BC19. :) Download the PDF from Microsoft Dynamics 365 2021 release wave 2 plan overview | Microsoft Docs for What’s new in 2021 Release Wave1. “
Improved Dimensions in Business Central 18.2
Kyle informs: “Microsoft has improved dimensions as of BC 18.2. Here are my notes from this morning’s presentation:
- Dimension Correction Tool for G/L Entries (but not other kinds of ledger entries)
- Shortcuts for reporting
- Added shortcut dimension columns added to 20 ledger entry tables
- Better defaults
- Set Allowed Dimension Values per record type
- Allocate balance by dimension for recurring journal
- Two new recurrence methods