Plataan

Printing any page in the RTC

Today an interesting feature of the Role Tailored Client came to my attention. Did you know that you can print a page in the RTC, without using report? Just open a page, for example the Chart of Accounts, then go to the Action menu, and look in the bottom for the Print command:

Then, in the window that opens you can select a printer. It can be for example an XPS writer or PDF writer, to generate a XPS or PDF file. Then open the XPS or PDF document:

We get a document with a table layout, with a title and page number / total pages header and this out of the box, for free, without having to develop a report. Nice, isn't it? There are even colors in the report, that's more than is possible in the Classical Client J

Here's an example of an Item card page:

We get a table for every tab in the page. Ok, the layout is not that super as it is with a RDLC report, but still, I think it's not bad…

Let's try it for a Document, for example a Posted Sales Invoice:

Result:

Wow, I can see the header tabs and lines and the rest, and this as a PDF, and I did not had to program anything. How cool is that?

The smallest new feature in the New Sure Step Content release

 
It has been a while since I posted a new blog entry, nearly a year to be honest. But I have a valid excuse; at least I think I have.  I wrote a book on Sure Step, which is an equivalent of a few thousand blog entries. So, this must be a valid excuse. Unfortunately, you can’t read those entries on this blog but they are bundled and available as a book in the PacktPub store: https://www.packtpub.com/microsoft-dynamics-sure-step-2010/book

Anyway, my last blog dated from 17 December 2009 and introduced Sure Step 2010. This blog introduces the new content update on Sure Step 2010: content version 3.2.5.0. For a general overview of what this version has to offer you, I refer you to the blog of Vjekoslav Babic : http://navigateintosuccess.com/blog/microsoft-dynamics-sure-step-2010-content-update

I want to concentrate now on only one of the new interesting content topics, probably the smallest new feature in this Sure Step version.

Did you know that there is something like a “Customer Readiness Assessment”? This is an online “Project Readiness Assessment” for the customer stakeholders about to start a ERP or CRM implementation or as Microsoft states it: “Project readiness – both from the customer and partner perspective - is one of the key ingredients to help ensure success of any ERP or CRM implementation.  To ensure this overall readiness, we have created the Microsoft Dynamics Project Readiness Assessment. This assessment has been designed to help identify and address the most critical factors that are likely to impact the success of your ERP or CRM implementation - before they become critical issues.”

This assessment represents a means for Partners to help their Customers assess their readiness to launch a successful ERP or CRM project. To make customers aware that a project is something unique requiring good readiness and a solid approach in order to be successful.

Partners can invite their customers to take this assessment before starting the implementation, that means in the Diagnostics phase when you want to discuss and agree upon your approach. They will receive an invitation code by which they can take the assessment.

 

After taking the questions, they will have access to a dashboard explaining their readiness scores and telling them what they can do to improve their due diligence.

Now why do I tell you this? Well because the smallest new feature in this content release of Sure Step has a link to this customer readiness assessment

 

Right on top of the Diagnostics phase, in the Tools-Templates and Links section, you can find an email template that you can use to introduce your customer or prospect to the assessment. This email will explain what the assessment is, why it is important and where to find information on it. The email content looks like this:

 
It includes good links to create “project readiness awareness” like this one:

http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/support/implementation/success.aspx

So that was the smallest new, but really valuable, new feature in this new sure step release. Next time, I will blog you on the new NAV specific content that has been made available in Sure Step. Stay tuned!.