Visual Scheduling Blog

We decided to change our product lifecycle policy concerning our add-ins for Dynamics NAV and concerning our extensions for Dynamics 365 Business Central. We (finally) align our release policy with Microsoft's release policy.

Thus, we no longer guarantee the backward compatibility of every new feature we build. We also (eventually) stop supporting NAV (and Business Central) versions that Microsoft doesn't support anymore. However, we offer extended support for business-critical uses of our products. Overall, the streamlined lifecycle helps us gain flexibility, agility, and additional development power. This will further improve our product delivery and the value for our customers.

This blog not only outlines the changes we made. It also reflects the reasons why we are doing so.

I met with Ken Sebahar, who is the President of Solution Systems, Inc., a Microsoft Gold-Certified Partner near Chicago, Illinois. Ken and his colleague Michael host the great podcast “A Shot of Business Central and a Beer” in which they provide listeners with news and updates related to Business Central in an entertaining manner. 

Of course, with a podcast like this, beer was the ideal hook for our conversation. At the beginning of our conversation, you can learn which of us enjoys an advent calendar with German beer. If you listen until the episode's end, you also hear who loves drinking a hot wine punch at a Christmas market. Well, after and before chatting about drinks, we flew full circle on Business Central production orders, jobs, and assembly orders.

With the Visual Scheduling Add-in Developer Toolbox (VSADT) you can develop individual visual schedulers for Microsoft Dynamics 365 BC or NAV, by only using AL respectively CAL code. 

We have released a new version of the VSADT with more visual design options. For example, you can now freely design the dateline grids, create patterns for your bars, and do many other small things to make your visual scheduler more user-friendly and meaningful. Read here what new features version 5.3 provides and how you can use them.

Over the weekend, IT security experts around the world sounded the alarm about the critical vulnerability in Apache Log4j library , pointing out the highest IT security risks.

This blog post is to inform you and confirm that none of our currently active marketed products is impacted by this issue.

Bernd Münstermann GmbH from Telgte, Germany, is a family-run company specializing in special plant engineering with a product focus on drying plants. As a leading full-range supplier of drying and heat treatment plants, including the associated conveying and filter technology, the company has its own MSR as well as assembly department. From planning to commissioning Münstermann offers worldwide service from one source.

The Serbian manufacturing company Unipromet used Microsoft Dynamics NAV as ERP and kept track of capacity load and production performance by manual Excel-based reports and realized that they needed an extra planning tool. 

Read in this blog post how by using the Visual Production Scheduler the company achieved more planning efficiency and transparency and increased throughput by better usage of resource capacities.

If you are looking for an easy way to visualize your data from your Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central industry solution, the Visual Scheduling Add-in Developer Toolbox (VSADT) with AL/CAL API is the right tool for you. Now we have released a new version with further functions that let you design a powerful, interactive graphical planning board reflecting the business logic of your solution.

We conducted a global market survey within our Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central customers and partners, to get a better understanding of the state of Business Central and manufacturing. The full 69-pages State of Business Central and Manufacturing Report is free for download. Alternatively, you can quickly digest four key findings from the below infographic.