Download Navision Attain C/ODBC Crystal Report

Navision Attain C/ODBC Crystal Report – customization
example
By Boris Makushkin
Microsoft Business Solutions Navision is main ERP application for European,
Brazilian markets plus it serves vertical segments of the USA market, such as
light manufacturing, POS, CRM. As our experience indicates – Navision
implementation requires more customization and tuning in comparison to
another mid-market ERP solution from MBS: Microsoft Great Plains. Our goal is
to popularize Microsoft Business Solutions products and enlighten IT people to
do customize Navision in-house.
Today, the main topic of this article is working with native C/SIDE Navision
Attain database via C/ODBC interface, in particular – Linked Server creation in
Microsoft SQL Server 2000 environment and then Sales report design in Crystal
Reports ver. 10. Let’s begin:
1. We will use Navision Attain 3.6 with Navision Database Server,
Navision ApplicationServer and Navision Client. These component
are installed on Windows XP Professional. To enable C/ODBC
interface you need to install this component from Navision Attain
CD.
2. Let’s create ODBC DSN for connection to Navision database: Start > Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Data Sources (ODBC),
then switch to System DSN and click Add. We will use C/ODBC 32bit driver. Give Data Source Name Navision, Connection – leave it
Local. As the database (Database button) select \Program
Files\Navision Attain\Client\database.fdb (this is demo DB). Then
press Company button – in our case we use CRONUS demo
database. Important conditions to provide proper connection with
C/SIDE database are correct options for C/ODBC. Click Options
button and look at the options available – we will pay attention to
Identifiers screen – this is where you setup identifiers to be
transferred to client application. We will use these types: “a-z,AZ,0-9,_” to make MS SQL Server 2000 work correct with C/ODBC
source. We are now done with ODBC DSN. Lets setup Linked
Server
3. Open SQL Server Enterprise Manager. Open object browser on the
left side, select Security and Linked Servers. With right click select
New Linked Server in the context menu. In the emerging dialog
window, in the menu Provider Name select Microsoft OLE DB
Provider for ODBC Drivers. Let’s name our Linked Server as
NAVISION. In the Data Source string type in ODBC DSN name –
NAVISION in our case. Linked Server is ready. Select tables list and
we now see Navision Attain tables.
4. Now we need to create small procedure for Sales data extraction.
Here is the text of the procedure:
CREATE PROCEDURE NavisionSalesReport AS
DBCC TRACEON(8765)
SELECT * FROM OPENQUERY(NAVISION, 'SELECT * FROM
Sales_Line sls, Customer cust WHERE sls.Sell_to_Customer_No_
= cust.No_')
RETURN
GO
To clarify its text: TRACEON(8765) directive allows working with
the data results of variable length returned by C/ODBC driver. If we
don’t use this directive – we can’t pull the results from Navision
tables – we will get errors, like this:
OLE DB error trace [Non-interface error: Unexpected data length
returned for the column: ProviderName='MSDASQL',
TableName='[MSDASQL]', ColumnName='Ship_to_Filter',
ExpectedLength='250', ReturnedLength='1'].
Server: Msg 7347, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
OLE DB provider 'MSDASQL' returned an unexpected data length
for the fixed-length column '[MSDASQL].Ship_to_Filter'. The
expected data length is 250, while the returned data length is 1.
OPENQUERY statement opens linked server and transfers its SQL
command, and in its turn returns the result set. To test the
procedure type in this command in SQL Server Query Analyzer:
EXEC NavisionSalesReport
5. Now – launch Crystal Reports, use standard Wizard, create new
OLE DB (ADO) connection with our MS SQL 2000 Server and
select NavisionSalesReport procedure in the list. As the report fields
we can use Description, Quantity, Line_Amount and
Discount_Amount fields. You can group by name Name – this is
customer name. Our report is now ready!
Happy customizing, implementing and modifying! If you want us to do the job give us a call 1-866-528-0577 or 1-630-961-5918! [email protected]
Boris Makushkin is Lead Software Developer in Alba Spectrum Technologies –
USA nationwide Microsoft CRM, Microsoft Great Plains customization company,
serving Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas,
Atlanta, Miami, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Moscow, Europe and
internationally (www.albaspectrum.com), he is Microsoft CRM SDK, Navision,
C#, VB.Net, SQL, Oracle, Unix developer.