Dynamics NAV Financials

account schedules, financial reporting, dimensions, budgets and all the rest of the fun, fun world of Microsoft Dynamics NAV from a (former) Controller who still uses the software every day

  • Account Schedule Examples
  • Account Schedule Formulas
  • Popular Series
  • Services
  • About

Communicating to IT about NAV dimensions and NAV2013 dimension sets (part 13 of 15)

Posted: March 27, 2013 | Author: kpeters | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Account Schedules, default dimensions, dimension sets, dimensions, financial reporting, financial statement, NAV, NAV 2013 | Leave a comment

Today I’ve got some old news and some new news for you regarding dimensions, but first I need to re-emphasize that finance and IT must be of one mind when it comes to dimensions. As a finance professional, you’ll definitely have your perspective on how dimensions will help you to efficiently produce financial reports with control and consistency. But remember that finance and IT need to work in partnership on a NAV dimension strategy in order to be really successful. One way these two roles must work together is regarding how to get your hands on posted dimension data in NAV. If you’re using NAV only tools to get your data, you won’t need this information, but once you progress to using outside reporting tool packages, you need to know a little bit more to get your collective hands on that data.

table352Here’s the old news: if you are using any version of NAV prior to NAV2013, dimensions are kept in a separate table behind your main data. You can see this, though it may not be obvious to you, when you populate dimensions using Ctrl-Alt-D or when you view dimensions through the dimensions button from master data. This table is actually called the default dimensions table (table #352). If you’re using something like SQL for reporting, you’ll need to perform a join between this table and the table(s) to which the data are related. As of today, the large majority of NAV users are using versions prior to NAV2013, so this is important information to have if you’re to get all the data you want into your reports now.

Here’s the new news: With NAV2013, dimension sets are turning dimensions upside down, treating them in an entirely different way, in order to make the way dimensions are stored in NAV more efficient. We’ve all heard the horror stories of ginormous databases with performance problems due to overuse of dimensions. Those stories have always been frustrating to me because it seems we should be able to use dimensions in as robust a manner as we can handle. Well, Microsoft has made a great improvement with the creation of dimension sets. I’ll admit that explaining the mechanics of exactly how dimension sets work is beyond my technical capability, so I’ll hand that off to experts more talented than I. I did get to see a presentation by Jesper Lachance where he showed an example (which he allowed me to share in my recent Dimensions presentation at Microsoft Dynamics Convergence 2013) that shows a twenty fold decrease in number of data items stored by using dimension sets instead of the pre-NAV2013 method.

Faithie Robertson of Archerpoint has a fantastic article A Better Mousetrap! Dimension Sets in Dynamics NAV 2013 (Navision) which does a really great job of explaining exactly what a dimension set does differently.

If you’re looking for a textbook explanation, visit MSDN on their page Dimension Set Entries Overview.

Encore Business Solutions has an illustrated guide NAV 2013 – Dimension Sets.

You can see why, with dimensions being stored in a separate table, and with dimension sets showing up as a new improvement, everybody on the team needs to understand how dimensions work, where they’re kept, what your particular company conventions are, and how you’ll report against them accurately and effectively. I haven’t heard a lot of feedback yet from end users about how working with dimension sets is working for them and whether it is making reporting better or challenging in different ways. But, the feedback from programmers, developers, and database administrators has been a resounding: THANK YOU MICROSOFT!!!

Keep reading this month as we continue our series, 15 Days of NAV Dimensions.


TwitterYouTubeFacebookGoogleLinkedInEmailRSS
MVP_Logo_Preferred_Cyan300_RGB_72ppi
All Stars_NAVUG(1)
400dpiLogo

Blog Stats

  • 607,395 visits

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts.

Join 475 other followers

Top Posts & Pages

  • Tips and tricks for a flawless budget load in NAV
  • Base for Percent
  • Base for Percent
  • Copy and paste into a journal entry [NAV 50 Tips Series]
  • This blog has moved to kerrypeters.com
  • Account Schedule Formulas
  • NAV AS 101 Lesson 10: Comparison Period v. Comparison Date
  • NAV AS 101 Lesson 23: Copy and Paste
  • Popular Series
My Tweets

Account Schedules accounts payable accounts receivable aging analysis by dimensions Analysis Reports analysis views balance at date BREP budgets chart of accounts Classic Client code mandatory column layout community comparison date formula comparison period formula consolidation Convergence CustomerSource dimensions document date dual monitors due date Dynamics ERP Excel export to excel financial reporting financial statement fiscal year general ledger global glued column increase header item ledger entries JET journal entry keyboard shortcut learning Management Reporter manuals Microsoft NAV NAV 2013 NAVUG NAVUG Academy net change networking Office2013 paperless payment terms pivot table posting accounts PowerPivot productivity query tool reconciliation account reporting tool ROI row setup RTC set base for percent setup options shortcut show opposite sign SSRS tips and tricks totaling type training trial balance user group user level configuration user poll video

Blogroll

  • Microsoft Dynamics NAV Team Blog
  • Microsoft Connect
  • Microsoft Dynamics CustomerSource
  • I Love NAV
  • Microsoft Dynamics Community
  • NAVUG

Archives

  • December 2020
  • September 2020
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • August 2019
  • May 2019
  • March 2019
  • April 2018
  • December 2017
  • October 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2016
  • December 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • March 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • September 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
Blog at WordPress.com. Mid Mo Design.
  • Follow Following
    • Dynamics NAV Financials
    • Join 475 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Dynamics NAV Financials
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...