Use Microsoft Flow to build automated workflows based on Dynamics NAV data

Microsoft Flow is a service that helps you create automated workflows between your favorite apps and services to synchronize files, get notifications, collect data, and more.  These workflows demo well because they provide business value in scenarios most people will recognize.

We know many of you’ve been using Flow to build automated workflows based on Dynamics 365 Business Central data, but some of you have been doing the same for Dynamics NAV 2018 and suddenly found that some of the triggers are not available any longer when trying to create a Flow. Others were confused that you couldn’t read about Flow in the docs for Dynamics NAV 2018.

For Dynamics NAV 2018, some of you were able to use the Flow on-premises gateway to connect to Dynamics NAV data. But all of a sudden, your demonstration environments broke because the triggers apparently went missing.

The When a record is created, When a record is deleted, and When a record is modified triggers for the Dynamics 365 Business Central and Dynamics NAV connectors have been hidden (not removed) because partners and customers have been running into issues either creating a new Flow or existing Flows stopped working.

The current connector hinges on technology that doesn’t work well with the amounts of data that an average customer has. As a result, in some cases the character length of the URL coming back from your data source exceeded what is currently supported in Flow. Since the triggers were hidden, and not removed, any existing Flows will continue to work, as long as they don’t exceed the URL character limit.

When using Dynamics 365 Business Central, you can still use the templates and triggers related to the templates. Both Dynamics 365 Business Central and Dynamics NAV continue to support Flow actions, so Dynamics 365 Business Central and Dynamics NAV can be updated from other applications using Flow.

We are targeting the fall release to have a new connector available.


Update on October 26, 2018:

The reference docs for the Dynamics NAV connector has been updated to clearly state that the triggers are deprecated: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/connectors/dynamicsnavision/