Web Services Competition for NAV 2009

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If you haven’t already, now is the time to download the Dynamics NAV 2009 CTP3 Virtual PC. As you will know, one of the key features of this release is the ability to publish a web service from any Code Unit or Table in the application at the click of just a few buttons. We are asking developers in the NAV community in the UK to familiarise themselves with these new features and then to start thinking imaginatively about how we can show this functionality off to its most striking effect.

At our own internal bootcamp we, for example, published the customer table as a web service and then consumed it into an InfoPath form. This form had some basic formatting and search facilities. This would allow everyone in an organisation to always have an up to date record of their customers, whether or not they were NAV users. Pretty cool...but we started wondering what else was possible given the vast array of functionality within NAV. So here are some questions that might get your creative juices flowing:

1) What could we do with exposing transactions in a Web Service? How would this help supply chains or customer service?

2) What could be done with Jobs – aiding collaboration in a project?

3) Credit checking, exchange rates, postcodes, mapping?

4) Are there applications around SMS or RSS?

5) Vista Gadgets?

6) Amazon marketplace?

7) eBay?

Need more inspiration? Here are a few links that might help:

So what’s in it for you? Firstly, for every partner entering a Web Service submitted as a Differencing Disk to our base VPC Image, we will send out all the Dif Disks we receive. That means great demo’s. And if that isn’t enough to get you going, then there is the prize. For the most compelling, business worthy and cool Web Service application we receive the entrant will win a voucher for one day’s Classic Car Hire at a location near to them. If you are not a driver, or just don’t fancy the  experience then Microsoft will offer an alternative a prize of equal value.