In 1984 launched the PC & C the ERP system PC Plus. The solution was at the time a revelation in the ERP market, but the program could unfortunately only be used by a single user at a time.

The foundation stone for Dynamics NAV as we know it today, was completed in the mid 80s here in Denmark.

It all started in 1984 when PC Plus was launched in Denmark and Norway by the company PC & C ApS. PC-plus was a character-based (MS-DOS) accounting solution designed for the SOHO (small office / home office) market. Three years after its launch in 1984 the first version of Navision was released.

Before Microsoft bought Navision, the rights for PC-Plus was acquired by a small Danish VAR (value-added reseller). Therefore, one could, in spite that the ERP system was not working on the new versions of Windows, continue to offer support for PC-Plus and sell the solution. Until just a few years ago it was still possible to buy the system which still has users in Denmark.

In 1989 the third version came on the market. This upgrade stood out from previous versions by having a built-in development environment and private development languages which PC & C chose to call AL (application language).

With the third version of Navigator the solution slowly began to break through internationally. It started mainly in the countries Germany, Spain and Iceland, but soon spread to many other countries as well. When it broke through on the international market, in most countries the name was changed from the Navigator to Navision, with the exception of the USA where the ERP solution was named Avista. As a result of the increased internationalization the company changed it's name from PC & C to Navision Sofware A/S.

The difference between this version of Navigator, now known as Navision, and the previous versions was that there in this version was a built in development environment and that it had it's own development languages which PC & C decided to call AL (application language).

This significant change made it possible for dealers to correct in almost all parts of the system and thereby customize the system to each customer's specific requirements. As a result, you could from now one see very sophisticated additional solutions released for Navision/Navigator, for example, wages and production management systems.

With these changes grew Navision/Navigator significantly on the market and was no longer reserved the very small solutions with 1 to 10 users, but had already at that time customers with over 100 user in their system.

At the beginning of the new millennium Navision Software a/s merges with their Danish rival Damgaard Data A/S and is named NavisionDamgaard A/S.

In 2001, the name is again changed from NavisionDamgaard A/S to the shorter easier pronounced name Navision A/S.

It was probably only for a very few for whom it came as a surprise when Microsoft in 2002 bought Navision A/S. Microsoft had a few years already acquired Navision's biggest competitor in the U.S. market, Great Plains. The two companies were merged under the Microsoft Business Solutions.

Microsoft Business Solutions Navision differed to a large extent from previous versions.

With a variety of improvements in this version a number of issues from previous versions was solved. With the optimizations in the new software the ERP solution became both more robust and reliable.

The new version was not only easy to use but also gave users more control over the financial management and had a number of operational optimizations. It also became much easier to upgrade and to customize the solution to each individual user.

With Dynamics NAV 2009 came the technological innovation RTC, the RoleTailored client.

The largest difference from Dynamics NAV 2009 and earlier versions of Navision is that in this version the RTC (the Role Tailored Client) was introduced.

RTC creates an intuitive working environment and increase the employees efficiency.

The new and innovative role based client delivers an all new user experience which simplifies the access to relevant data and optimize the flexibility in your company.

On Oct. 1, 2014 Microsoft launched NAV 2015. This version is designed with a modern user interface and is also developed for mobile devices.

The latest version of Dynamics NAV (Navision) confirms Microsoft Dynamics continued commitment to their annual release cycle for their ERP solution Dynamics NAV. Dynamics NAV 2015 becomes mobile and supports as something new mobile devices.

The new version, NAV 2015, offers a number of new standard features. However, the most remarkable in connection with the launch of Dynamics NAV 2015 is, that Microsoft Dynamics now offers a mobile app that supports the functions in the ERP solution.

As usual, a Dynamics NAV release requires a catchy tagline. When Microsoft launched NAV 2013 it was "In and On" (meaning "In" Office 365 and "On" Windows Azure), which summarized NAV 2013's integration with Microsoft's cloud-based solutions. Also at the introduction of NAV 2015 Microsoft Dynamics has formulated a catchphrase.

This time it's "More mobile, more cloud".

'More mobile' means, that NAV 2015 in a larger degree is designed for mobile devices and has an improved web client.

'More cloud' refers to an even closer integration with the cloud solution Microsoft Office 365.

Users of NAV 2015 no longer need to use a PC or laptop to access the company's ERP system. Therefore, you will be able to access Dynamics NAV / Navision, while on the move.

The new Dynamics NAV 2015 app is designed with a modern user interface and developed for touching, so you can operate it with one finger. Therefor you no longer have to use the browser version of Dynamics NAV on your mobile. It allows you to access the data you need from the mobile device you prefer. The user-friendly touch-optimized interface allows the same view and user experience as the role-based client. Therefore you can work in NAV 2015 no matter where you are.

With the NAV 2015 app Microsoft offers an improved experience for their tablet and mobile users. The app has an improved view of stacks and diagrams and allows you to dig deeper into the data in Navision.

You can download and install the Microsoft Dynamics NAV app from the Windows Store, App Store or Google Play.

With NAV 2015 the integration between Microsoft Office and Dynamics NAV / Navision is now closer. For example, the integration means that Microsoft Word can now be used as a reporting tool.

There is also the possibility to integrate NAV 2015 with Office 365 on Azure. This may provide lower costs, greater flexibility and increase employee productivity.

Furthermore, the development resources is also optimized which allows a simpler adaptation of existing Role Centers for viewing through the app interface.

Power BI that integrates Office 365 with Business Intelligence (BI) technology is included in Dynamics NAV 2015.

Power BI is a cloud-based Business Intelligence (BI) solution. Through tight integration with Office 365 the solution provides users access to data from Excel. This helps users to share knowledge, find answers and stay connected to their data from their favorite mobile devices.

Enables data connections to government and corporate data sources.

Extends data in Excel by adding relations, adjusted measures, hierarchies and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). It also uses an in-memory technology with the generated models for, which enables end users to analyze millions of rows of data rapidly.

By setting up reports and through insight into interactive charts and graphs, end-users are able to visually explore the data in Excel Power Pivot model.

Allows end users to integrate with geospatial data to create a 3D map experience in Excel.

With the successor to NAV 2016, Dynamics NAV 2017 we're going to see a number of improvements and not least further integration with Office 365.

Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2017 is the latest version of Microsoft's ERP solution previously called Navision. In the latest version, there are a number of improvements, and not least additional integration with Office 365.

So what can we expect in the forthcoming release? The latest version of Navision, Dynamics NAV 2017 will without a doubt offer a number of new initiatives and improvements. At present time Microsoft only reveals very little about the forthcoming version. It is not much Microsoft unveils but nevertheless it looks very promising:

The strength of Microsoft's ERP platform is largely the extended functionalities you get by combining the solutions with other Microsoft products. With Cortana Intelligence concepts such as Big Data, machine learning and business intelligence becomes increasingly a reality that gives the companies greater insight into their business operations.

The increasingly improved integration with Microsoft Flow and PowerApps is an indication of how we will work in the future. Microsoft Flow is designed to automate repetitive tasks.

With PowerApps users can create customized business applications which can be downloaded from AppSource.

The many improvements in NAV 2017 revolves primarily around finance, jobs and items. Microsoft has also improved the OCR functionalities that was introduced in NAV 2016. the OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition, which essentially means optical character recognition. In Dynamics NAV 2017, the software is even better to recognize and import lines from scanned invoices and documents. NAV 2017 has also improved item attribute functionality and upgraded product categories. In NAV 2017 users will be able to cancel credit notes and purchase and sales invoices. In addition, the improvements of jobs, fixed assets and account reconciliation.

Ambition behind NAV 2017 is that users must be able to work smarter with improved and intelligent workflows. This means that there in the solution will be notifications that offers advice and recommendations based on user activity.

With embedded Power BI it is easy to create insightful charts and reports and to make them available in your Dynamics NAV 2017 Role Center.

All reports created in Power BI can be made visible in Dynamics NAV 2017's Role Center. Therefore, NAV 2017 allows users to get exactly the information they need to perform tasks directly from their Role Center.

If your company use Office 365, there is in Dynamics NAV 2017 included an add-in that allows you to invoice your clients based solely on informations from your Outlook calendar.

The add-in also works for attachments in mails. This means that you can send attachments in your mail directly to the list of incoming documents and send the attached documents such as PDF files to an optical character recognition service (OCR). Here the documents is transformed into a digital and readable format after which the informations in the invoice is automatically added to Dynamics NAV.

This reduces the chance of errors considerably and thus increase productivity.

With Dynamics NAV 2017, Microsoft introduces a new way to send non-intrusive notifications to the UI (user interface) in the Web client. These notifications informs the user with relevant information in a given situation, but does not require immediate action by the user or blocks the user from continuing with the current job.

In Dynamics NAV 2016 Microsoft introduced integration to Dynamics CRM which enables optimized and seamless experience when converting leads into actual sales.

The improved integration in NAV 2017 is therefore using Dynamics CRM for customer engagement and Dynamics NAV for order processing and financial account which means you get the most out of the two solutions.

For the first time Microsoft now also talks about micro-vertical solutions a concept that otherwise only previously has been used by SAP. What they say is that the functionality will enable their partners to develop vertical and micro-vertical solutions.

Our knowledge of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2017 is obviously limited, but of course we promise to refresh this page regularly as Microsoft releases more information.

Microsoft has greatly prioritized the financial part of Dynamics NAV and there is no doubt that the ERP system in this area is one of the leading solutions in the world. However, there are areas of the Dynamics NAV which has not been prioritized in the same way. Although these areas works just as they should, it has been a long time since they have been expanded with new functionalities.

Manufacturing in Dynamics NAV could be one of those areas. Although of course it's pure speculation, this part of the ERP system could very easily be an area where we in future versions of Dynamics NAV will see new features.

It is not certain that we recommend you to upgrade your current solution to the latest version of Dynamics NAV, NAV 2015. Regardless of which version your company uses we always start a project with a needs analysis where we determine what type of software you need.

Find more information about upgrading and maintenance.