Internship

GLOBAL UNIVERSITY
Internship Report
Microsoft Dynamics NAV
Nizar Mneimneh
8/22/2014
All in all, thepractical field was agreat extensionofthe theoryandskills acquiredthroughoutmy
studies

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Outline
1. Introduction
The following report presents a summary of my experience in dealing with an ERP system...
2. Enterprise Resource Planning System (ERP)
i. What is an ERP system
ii. Example ERP systems
3. Microsoft Dynamics NAV
i. Definition of the system
ii. Layers
1. Client
2. Server
3. Database SQL Server
4. Main Components
i. Tables
ii. Forms
iii. Reports
iv. Codeunits
v. Dataports
5. Object Development
6. Preparation
i. System Trainer
ii. Business trainers
iii. Courses
7. Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 Installation and configuration Exam
8. Tasks
i. Site based Tasks (on site activities...)
ii. System Based Tasks
iii. Object Development
iv. Error Handling
v. User setup and configuration
vi. System monitoring (replication checkup)
9. Conclusion
All in all, the practical field was a great extension of the theory and skills acquired
throughout my studies.

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Introduction
I would like to start by expressing my gratitude to the Head of Research Unit at Global
University for his assistance along the way, Dr. Ahmad Hammoud, second, as it is defined an
internship program exposes the students to real life scenario problems by finding them
placements in reputable firms in the field of study where they are supervised by the firm’s
staff, treated as regular employees and taught the work principles of the firm. The firm
assigns tasks to the students and evaluates their overall performance after at least 5 weeks of
work. Students are required to reflect on their training period by submitting a report on the
training program.
Based on the latter, the following report is a reflection on the training period that I spent
working as a Microsoft ERP system administrator and developer at Scope for IT Services
which includes my job description which was concerned with object development, system
administration and maintenance, providing user support, things I have learned, problems that
I faced or that the users ran into, in addition to reporting to my superior all the work
performed along the way. During that period I was able to learn the different aspects of an
ERP system, how it functions, and the different approaches that may affect its cycle; it is a
crucial element that the financial department of a firm fully depends on.

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Enterprise Resource Planning software:
1. Definition
An Enterprise Resource Planning software, or ERP, is one that integrates all
departments and functions across a company into a single system by using a common
database, the value of which is to be able to have only one correct set of data. One of the
challenges that companies face is access to timely and correct information, which is critical in
making appropriate business decisions. In many cases, corporate information is located in
several databases. For example, records about inventory levels may be found in one database,
while customer information may be found in its own separate database. Furthermore, these
databases may be "island systems" (operating independently from each other and having no
integration with other databases).
2. Example
When it comes to an ERP system there are several examples, it’s a huge family that
Microsoft dynamics is a part of, another system serving the same purpose may be a program
called NET SUITE, Sage, or IQMS, in addition to several others each of which may excel in
something, and each comes at a price, a firm may choose one of these programs with respect
to its financial status, or keeping in mind security, or integrity, or availability of its data, and
will choose its financial software accordingly.

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Microsoft Dynamics NAV
i. Definition
Microsoft dynamics is an enterprise resource planning software that is used to collect,
store, manage, and interpret data from business activities including: product planning, cost
and development, manufacturing or service delivery, marketing and sales, inventory
management, shipping and payment.
This software provides an integrated overview of core business processes, it tracks the
business resources: cash, raw materials, and the production capacity. The applications that
make up the system share data across the various departments (manufacturing, purchasing,
sales, accounting, etc...) that provide data. In general an ERP software system is multi-billion
dollar industry that produces components that support a variety of business functions. This
Microsoft product is a part of the Microsoft dynamics family (CRM, AX, GP, and SL) which
is intended to assist with the financial documentation and analysis of a firm, customer
relationship management, supply chains, analytics and electronic e-commerce for small and
medium-sized enterprises and local subsidiaries of large international Groups. Value-added
resellers (VAR)s can have full access to the business logic source code. The system is known
for being highly customizable and partners have developed a long list of industry specific
configurations to server various vertical markets.
Microsoft dynamics NAV deploys on the windows operating system and Microsoft
SQL server and is developed in the .NET framework, all of which are core Microsoft
platform technologies. This offers customers a tightly integrated stack from infrastructure to
application. The system is deployed on-site or hosted for an additional fee.

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ii. Layers
Microsoft dynamics NAV 2009 is built on a three tiered architecture model that
improves security scalability, and flexibility of Microsoft dynamics NAV. Microsoft
dynamics NAV 2009 supports different client types and multiple configurations. The
Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 architecture is a three-tiered architecture that uses three core
components, for every deployment of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 these three
components1 have to be installed once a firm decides to install Microsoft dynamics NAV
2009:
 The client tier: a client user interface that provides the front end
(presentation logic layer).
 The middle tier or server tier: a multithreaded middle-tier which is
based on the Web Services
 The data tier: the SQL Server database Server that provides the data
layer. It is augmented by Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 database
components.
Microsoft dynamics NAV 2009 introduces a new layer in the architecture. This additional
layer, or tier, is designed to host and execute all the business logic, whereas in the 5.0 version
the business logic resides at the client layer.
a. The Client Tier
The C/Side client is located on the client tier. It consists of an administration component
for administrators and Microsoft Dynamics NAV 4.0/5.0 super users and client access for the
C/Side client user.
Additionally, the client tier has specific connections for data transfer to the server tier
and the database management component. These connections consist of the client, security
approved access to the database components on the server tier, and administration access to
the database management.
The Client Tier Consists of the following components:
 The Microsoft Business Framework (which is located at the client’s
end)
1 All role tailored components in an organization have to be of the same version and build of Microsoft
dynamics NAV for the software to run properly, also it is noted that the existence of multiple instances of any of
the core components in a production environment is allowed.

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 Microsoft Windows Forms (the set of classes in the .NET framework
that enables the rapid development of powerful client applications)
 The User Interface (UI) (in order to allow the customers to customize
their user experience)
 The Data Binder (the layer that transports data, data state, and
notifications about data from the underlying business logic to forms
and controls in the display target client)
 The Form builder: requests reading metadata for a form and building a
logical form with data-binding, controls and behavior
 UX Controls
b. The Service Tier
The Service Tier consists of five main components:
o The Microsoft Dynamics NAV Service.
o The Application Code.
o The metadata provider
o Business Web services
o Navision Class Library (NCL)
The Microsoft Dynamics NAV Service functions as a hub that handles requests coming
from the new clients through the Web services. The Web service is hosted by Internet
Information Services (IIS). This is responsible for authentication (security) and thread
management (performance).
As soon as a request is received and validated, it is passed on to the relevant
component, metadata provider, application, or reporting service for execution. When
execution is complete, the executing component sends a response to the calling client.
 Microsoft Dynamics NAV Service:
The Microsoft Dynamics NAV Service represents the started state of the system and
provides an interface between the application and the clients. The service exposes its
functionality as methods on a web service hosted by IIS. Within the Web Service framework,
IIS handles, authentication and thread management. Tracing and logging of starts is also
performed by the NAV Service.
 The Business Web Services Components

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The Business Web Services Components provide a platform by which developers can
use the existing NAV development environment to build and customize Web services based
on standard definitions such as SOAP and Windows Services Enhancements (WSE).
Business Web Services functionality includes making use of all related business logic that
accompanies such operations on such objects. This includes (but is not limited to) field
validation, and assignment of identification (ID’s) from number series and other code
associated with the entry and manipulation of data in Navision, such as data modify triggers
like OnModify, OnDelete, etc..
c. The Data Tier
The Data Tier is composed of an SQL server hosting the database that the Microsoft
Dynamics NAV uses to store and manipulate its data. This server runs Microsoft Windows
Server 2003 or 2008 which the middle tier interacts with.

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Main Components:
The data in Microsoft Dynamics can be retrieved from the system and manipulated
using objects with the extension .fob, these objects are what the program depends on to reveal
its data whether to the customer, to the CEO of the company, or to the accountant applying
business operations related to his/her work, on the other hand a programmer may be asked to
add a certain functionality to the system that doesn’t exist in the default version, to perform
his task he will need a hosting environment providing the ability to go beyond the currently
available objects of the program, another situation requiring the availability of a certain
feature in the program is when the company decides to export data from the system or the
exact opposite, when it decides to import new data to the system, all of the above situations
require the presence of the previously mentioned (.fob) objects, these objects are: tables,
forms, reports, codeunits, dataports, even though there is more objects these are the most
important ones.
i. Tables: The tables are the actual carriers of the data (g/l accounts, entries, customers,
suppliers, companies, etc ..) these objects should be protected and only authorized personal
should have access to them, the less people that have access there is the better.
ii. Forms: are the mediators that provide information present in the tables and allows
addition and manipulation of data to certain people, these forms are available in three
formats: cards, lists, and card lists which include both types in one form
iii. Reports: can be of two types: process only or data retrieval documents, the first type
acts like a codeunit, it only complies the code written in the report without retrieving any
result to the person running the report (unlike a codeunit a report already has a request form
which a developer could make use of to ask for information, and he doesn’t need to develop it
personally). The other type of reports which is data retrieval has only one objective, to return
information satisfying certain conditions, these conditions may be a filter on one of the fields
the table which the report is retrieving data from or data fields that the developer added to the
request form asking for information he needs for generating the valid output.
iv. Codeunits: are crucial elements that perform certain operations to the system, for
example if the firm opens a new Branch in a certain location and wants to add this branch to

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the system it would probably backup an existing company and restore it to the system with
the new branch name, having that in mind we have to remember that the data will remain
after restoring, thus a certain codeunit would be called to clear the tables of the new company
restored to the system, that is only a tiny example of its functionality. A codeunit doesn’t
have an interface it is strictly composed of the run and preview button for the programmers to
modify its content, however a programmer may develop a certain interface asking for some
information before running the code (an example might be asking for a password to make
sure that the person running the codeunit is authorized to run it).
v. Dataports: are objects that allow importing data to certain tables or exporting them
from tables, this data port may import (or export) information for more than one table, and it
can import only certain fields to the table, an example that I faced was when we had to
change the name of certain G/L accounts (they were plenty), we wouldn’t perform this
change manually off course, because it would take days! Thus what we did was develop a
dataport that only imports the G/L account’s name if the number matches that of the ones
present in the file imported.
Figure 1.0 shows these previously mentioned objects are all present in the object
designer which you can reach if you press Shift + F12 or press on Tools then Object designer.

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Object Development:
When it comes to objects (table, form, reports, codeunits, dataports) anything can be
programmed to perform favorable operations, but only if you’re allowed to. To modify the
code of a certain object open the design view of the object then press F9 or the button that
looks like a sun in the toolbar.
if the case is a report there would exist several sections such as : onPreDataItem, On
AfterGet Record, and OnPostDataItem. A dataitem is the table the object depends on,
onpredataitem means before the table is retrieved, on after get record means after one record
from the dataitem is retrieved perform a certain operation, and finally the OnPostDataItem
means after all the records of the dataitem are processed. The language that the developer
uses is called C/AL (client application language) these are called triggers since they are only
run when an event occurs, as explained before, when it comes to dataports each dataitem has
separate triggers, and the same goes for reports. Through C/AL, you can apply business rules
to insure that the data stored in the tables are meaningful and consistent with the way your
customer does business. You can add new data or transfer data from one table to another (for
example, a journal to a ledger). If data from multiple tables need to be combined onto one
report or displayed on one form, the developer will probably need to program this. Another
purpose of C/AL is to control the execution of the various C/SIDE objects. With C/AL you
are able to coordinate them in a way that meets the business needs of your customer. A
developer can declare variables and functions to use within the triggers. Here’s a glance at the
triggers mentioned before:

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Preparation
a. System Trainer:
The System trainer was the Head of ERP System Development Department at Scope for
IT Services an Information Technology graduate who has 3 years of experience with the
entire system. The system environment training included the following:
 Architecture of the system.
 System’s daily cycle.
 New user setup on the system.
 Security matters concerned with providing users access to different
objects.
 Assigning users menus in the navigation pane.
 Replication process.
 The Consolidation concept including the consolidation company and
the consolidation process of combining data from two separate
companies.
 Z reports and statements of daily sales.
 Object development.
 Guidelines for solving certain user problems.
 POS and Store setup including printer and drawer recognition using a
mediator software called OPOS
 The Role of a ZUP file
 Palm application (used for item transfer, item check price, warehouse
stocktaking)
 POS self-ignition process.
b. Accounting Information system:
The business trainer was an accountant graduate, with ten years of experience at
different firms, and not long ago she was hired by AICP. The training program was made up
of daily sessions concerning several matters:
 The definition of an accounting information system.
 The G/L accounts and role of each.
 Debiting and crediting an account.

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 What are fiscal and calendar years.
 Accrual basis accounting vs cash basis accounting.
 What are revenues and what are expenses.
 Correcting entries and adjusting entries.
 Posting entries from journals to the general ledger.
 Perpetual system and a periodic one.
 Trial balance.
c. Courses:
During my work period I attended Info sharing sessions which are related to time
management and understanding core business principles that lead to a profitable product in
the market (for example finding the value as a marketing plan).
d. Microsoft Installation and configuration Exam
As part of the training program I was asked to study for the MB 700 which is Microsoft
Dynamics NAV 2013 Installation and configuration, the exam included many topics
including the steps and operations applied when installing the three tiers and the best way to
optimize usage of the program after 2 weeks of preparation I applied for the exam, as a result
I passed with a score of 724.

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Tasks
a. Site Based Tasks
There were many situations when Remote desktop just wasn’t enough, we had to go on
site to solve the problem, or configure a POS being prepared for usage, or meet with certain
personal in order to gather requirements for developing software for certain departments.
These on-site visits were documented, some of which were:
i. One Site visit to Diwan Company because a POS’s drawer and printer
malfunctioned after changing the drawer and the printer of the computer to
a newer one without installing the driver and configuring it to the system.
The Solution was represented by adding the device to the program’s
hardware profiles and testing it to make sure that it worked properly,
during the maintenance time the POS was put in ‘Out Of Service’ state.
ii. Another visit was because the printer and the drawer were both not
working however this time on another POS, the problem turned out to be
that the program was referencing the wrong device (the one not currently
online). The Solution was to reconfigure the device on the system to
reference the valid and active printer.
iii. A request arrived in an email demanding a pricing setup that assists the
accountants in establishing new prices after receiving a new list of item
prices due to a purchase order, as a result a meeting was set up, me and my
system trainer went down and discussed the current problem they have
with their purchase orders, after 2 hours we reached a settlement and
established common ground regarding the needs to be fulfilled regardless
of the way they will be solved..
iv. A new company was opened in Bikaa region and a POS that is connected
to the financial network was requested, as a result we were asked to set up
the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 on the new computer, after
configuring the system to host a new POS at the server level we went and
configured all the necessary requirements on the POS.

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b. System BasedTasks
The System Based tasks were several and they required most of my efforts, since some
were of high priority and at the same time of short timeline, these system based tasks were
made up of the following:
i. Object Development:
(Including reports, dataports, Forms and manipulating table fields)
Object development regarding those objects was divided into two categories, either the
modification of an existing object to meet new requirements or establishing a new object to
meet requirements not already satisfied by existing objects. One report was called Cash flow
report, I was asked to modify this report to implement a new feature for exporting its data to
an excel document, the report setup required a week from me to completely finish since it
was my first time in dealing with C/SIDE development environment. Another time was when
a new report was requested that shows the trial balance in addition to that of every vendor
and customer who caused a net movement on the account’s balance. After receiving some
assistance with the main principles to apply when considering data retrieval from a table
called G/L entry table, I started working on the report and was able to finish the setup in 8
days, after that I reported to my superior the update and waited for approval to proceed with
adding the report to the live databases.
ii. Error Handling:
As a system administrator one of my main tasks was to provide user support and
assistance in case they face a technical problem related to the program, in some cases the
problem was serious where for example the prices at the level of the head office wasn’t the
same as that at the point of sale, which means that if the prices weren’t modified there could
be loss of money, however, some problems were as simple as ‘Please turn the CAPS-LOCK
button off when write your PASSWORD!’. Here are some situations that I faced:
 One Scenario was when I received a phone call telling me that there are
several invoices not present at the Head Office level, this problem was
due to a failure to Regenerate transactions to the Head Office table
(which is applied by a codeunit), after running the code unit manually,
the problem appeared to be that there was an Item present at the POS
level that was no longer available at the Head Office level thus the two

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layers were not fully synchronized since a transaction was referencing a
null object.
 Another scenario was when the transactions of a whole day were not
uploaded to the head office server, after locating the problem (manually
applying the replication process) it turned out that the middle server
replicating transactions had shut down and needed to restart the
replication service.
 A problem with one employee was that when the employee clicked on a
form another was opened, this error was due to replacing the default
ZUP file which save the default environment of all forms and report
content in such a way that when the client runs the report more than
once he’ll find the required input already there when re-running the
report because of the ZUP file, this ZUP file should never be replaced on
exit, which was the case with this employee as he replaced the ZUP file
by mistake, the solution was to remove this ZUP file and reopen the
program (since the program will make a new ZUP file if there is none
present).
iii. User Setup and Configuration:
Every user on the system has a different set of permissions beyond which he/she can
work normally, this permission set may vary from one user to another depending on his or
her work position, when a new user needs to be added to the system there is a special
procedure to be followed:
 After receiving the exact information about the user’s access requirements, we are
able to determine the server hosting the database, which in turn is carrying the
company that this user will need to access, we would add a new user using the
SQL Server Management Studio on the target server.
 The user now has access to the server but not the Microsoft Dynamics system, to
permit the latter we have to access the database logins and add a new user with the
adequate “Role”.
 After adding the user to both Navision and SQL Server we have to assign this user
a menu in the Navigation Pane, to do that we have to first access the Navigation
Pane Designer using Tools then Navigation Pane Designer, when we’re done we

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have to save the changes applied and synchronize the mentioned database user
login.
iv. System Monitoring
As a part of my job, I am responsible for detecting any miscellaneous activity on the
system which includes for example: replication server going offline, a POS unavailable on
the system, also we always check and make sure that the replication process is working well
and no jobs running returned any error, which is why every day I connect remotely to the
servers to make sure that they are connected and then I check on the jobs running on each
server to find any errors that might have occurred.
Conclusion
Finally, the period that I spent working gave me loads of experience and knowledge,
one of the most important one that I wasn’t very good at was dealing with people and having
enough patience to deliver the message that I want and at the same time finding the proper
way to communicate with them to understand the issue they’re dealing with, another one is
the experience that I’ve gained in the business field regarding the rules and regulations of
both the law and the program itself, in addition to the Client/Application language that is used
to develop objects for the program. All in all, the practical field was a great extension to the
theory and skills acquired throughout my studies; I would like to thank the administration at
the financial department at AICP and a special thank you to my system trainer for their
tolerance and assistance throughout my working hours; I hope that this experience and
knowledge will prosper in the near future to provide me with newer and greater opportunities.

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Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................2
Enterprise Resource Planning software:........................................................................................ 3
1. Definition.......................................................................................................................... 3
2. Example............................................................................................................................ 3
Microsoft Dynamics NAV.............................................................................................................. 4
i. Definition.......................................................................................................................... 4
ii. Layers............................................................................................................................... 5
a. The Client Tier............................................................................................................... 5
b. The Service Tier............................................................................................................. 6
c. The Data Tier................................................................................................................. 7
Object Development:............................................................................................................. 10
Preparation................................................................................................................................ 11
a. System Trainer:............................................................................................................... 11
b. Accounting Information system:....................................................................................... 11
c. Courses:.......................................................................................................................... 12
d. Microsoft Installation and configuration Exam................................................................... 12
Tasks ......................................................................................................................................... 14
a. Site Based Tasks .............................................................................................................. 14
b. System Based Tasks ........................................................................................................ 15
i. Object Development:................................................................................................... 15
ii. Error Handling:............................................................................................................ 15
iii. User Setup and Configuration:...................................................................................... 16
iv. System Monitoring....................................................................................................... 17
Conclusion................................................................................................................................. 17

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