“There has to be a better way to do this,” you say, frustrated with the tediousness of manually entering the same data again and again. It would be much more convenient to make a large number of changes to multiple records in a more automatic way. Fortunately, Microsoft Dynamics NAV has such a mass update and mass add tool in one place called RapidStart Services.
This is the first in a series of blog posts to help you get started with RapidStart in NAV. With RapidStart, you can add several new records at once or update existing records quickly. However, because of data dependencies, you cannot mass archive/delete records.
Before we go further, remember that the first rule with mass updating of data is “do no harm.” RapidStart is a very powerful tool so make sure the following two things are done before making any changes in NAV:
- Make sure to back up the data in its original state.
- Before applying the change in production, test the changes in a non-production environment. Testing is important because finding a problem before it goes into production allows the problem to be fixed before it becomes a bigger problem. If you do not find a problem until after the change goes into production, then this is when the backup of the original data becomes important so you can possibly revert back to the pre RapidStart state and minimize the damage done.
Ready to use NAV RapidStart?
Here is a brief summary of the 10-step process, which we will cover in detail in subsequent blogs:
- Identify what you want to change or add to NAV, including which fields and tables are involved. a.) For changes to existing records, create a mapping table to identify under what circumstances certain records will get updated. b.) For new records, identify all the fields that need to be set up to add in the new data.
- Go into RapidStart and create your configuration package and download the tables and fields identified. Export this to Excel.
- Save a copy of the Excel file somewhere that can be easily reached by another user, such as a network drive or SharePoint site, to make the back-up file.
- Name the file which will carry the new or changed records stating that it is the “new” or “updated” file.
- Implement the changes in the new/updated file and save it.
- Import the Excel file into NAV.
- Validate the file.
- Apply the changes.
- Test the new/changed records.
- If testing is successful, then repeat steps 1-9 in production.
Stay tuned for next week’s blog, which will cover steps 1 and 2 in detail.
