From: TechWriter on
Couldn' t agree more. The online help Navision Documentation is VERY dry and
not very user-friendly. It was not written by a technical writer or trainer
who has to actually explain the system to someone who needs to work with it
everyday to get their accounting job done. The end-user documentation is
practically non-existent; couldn't find any 'off the shelf' books. Hopefully
now that Navision is a part of the Microsoft family we will see more
"Navision Bibles" and "Navision Step-by-Step" or something. We are
frustrated trying to teach our users and have resorted to creating our own
internal manuals. What the VAR left us with deplorable!

"Ray Adams" <Ray Adams(a)discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:11718BB6-DF1C-4E06-BB37-16E83FF6E02C(a)microsoft.com...
> My experience with NBS has been with Great Plains which has some of the
> best
> installation and user manuals I've ever seen. Navision doesn't even have
> a
> set of manuals delivered with the system, even in electronic form, which,
> given the price of the software, I think is inexcuseable. There is no
> glossary of terms, no installation or "Start Here", no description of
> fields,
> and no matrix which lets you know what is required and what is not. While
> the online Help System is useful, it was written by programmers and is
> hardly
> targeted at users. The setup checklists are useful but give no overview
> of
> how the system is designed and how setup should be approached. Without
> resources that can educate users, the customer is forced to rely 100% on
> the
> NBS Partner, driving up the cost of installation.


From: M. Borsky on
I know both Great Plains user manuals and Navision certification manuals (not
all of them, but some). Both are helpful, but Great Plains manuals are better
organized and more end-user friendly. Some time ago Great Plains 7.0 manuals
were my favourite reading! Working with Navision, I experience a gap between
what is described in documentation (e.g. certification manuals) and how your
system really works (after MBS partner customisation/localisation). I think
this gap is bigger for Navision, than for Great Plains and is the main
reason, why there are not similar user guides for Navision 3.x and later. If
I do not have a good user manual, my end users will not understand how the
system works (there is nothing to learn from). This will result in extensive
modifications (we do not understand how it works, but we can tell you how we
want it to work). I think, if users have a chance to learn from user manuals,
similar to what is provided for Great Plains, they would require less
customisations/modifications.
--
Miri


"TechWriter" wrote:

> Couldn' t agree more. The online help Navision Documentation is VERY dry and
> not very user-friendly. It was not written by a technical writer or trainer
> who has to actually explain the system to someone who needs to work with it
> everyday to get their accounting job done. The end-user documentation is
> practically non-existent; couldn't find any 'off the shelf' books. Hopefully
> now that Navision is a part of the Microsoft family we will see more
> "Navision Bibles" and "Navision Step-by-Step" or something. We are
> frustrated trying to teach our users and have resorted to creating our own
> internal manuals. What the VAR left us with deplorable!
>
> "Ray Adams" <Ray Adams(a)discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:11718BB6-DF1C-4E06-BB37-16E83FF6E02C(a)microsoft.com...
> > My experience with NBS has been with Great Plains which has some of the
> > best
> > installation and user manuals I've ever seen. Navision doesn't even have
> > a
> > set of manuals delivered with the system, even in electronic form, which,
> > given the price of the software, I think is inexcuseable. There is no
> > glossary of terms, no installation or "Start Here", no description of
> > fields,
> > and no matrix which lets you know what is required and what is not. While
> > the online Help System is useful, it was written by programmers and is
> > hardly
> > targeted at users. The setup checklists are useful but give no overview
> > of
> > how the system is designed and how setup should be approached. Without
> > resources that can educate users, the customer is forced to rely 100% on
> > the
> > NBS Partner, driving up the cost of installation.
>
>
>