I often go into client sites to perform Dynamics GP training and find that many users are not taking advantage of Navigation Lists and all of their capabilities. I myself, love Smartlist and will use that in many cases as opposed to generating reports. However, Navigation Lists have benefits over using Smartlists and I try to educate users on how they can be useful for their daily and even infrequent accounting processes.

These are my top 3 favoured uses where Navigation Lists can benefit you;

1. Fixed Assets:

I like using Navigation Lists for the Fixed Asset module, especially to perform actions on groups of assets.

Reason being, you actually do not have to create an ‘Asset Group’ like you would when performing certain FA routines or reports. Simply list your assets in the Financial > Asset navigation list and mark which assets you want to do the Action for. The assets do not have to be in a range, nor in any particular asset group. You could add filters to streamline your asset list first, then mark the assets you need to do the Action for.

You can save the custom navigation list if you think you will want to use it again at a future date to perform the same or another action on the same list. Once saved, personal (like Smartlist favourites) navigation list columns can be customized, action buttons can be added\removed from the action pane banner and navigation list favourites can be shared with other users if desired. Also, similar to Smartlist you can send the list to Excel, but before you send the list you can mark which items you want to include without having to add additional filter search criteria.

Financial > Assets:

2. Emailing Posted and Unposted SOP Documents:

Emailing of Sales Order Processing documents from Navigation Lists can be much easier and quicker than using the Print Sales Documents window. And at least you can see which documents that you are actually going to email. To accomplish this, generate a list of transactions (Sales > Sales Order Transactions navigation list), adding filters as necessary such as perhaps for the date range, or document type. Once you have the filters in place select the records you want to email and perform the Send in E-mail action. You will see a progress bar and a report log will be available.

Sales > Sales Order Transactions:

Tip: For any transactional Navigation Lists use the Restrictions button to filter date ranges, and whether you want to include historical transactions. The default date is ‘Last 90 Days’ so if you want to extend the date range in the filter just change the restriction from a selection in the drop-down or add a Custom Date range.

In this example ‘Include Historical Transactions’ in Sales Order Processing means posted documents. This is how you can easily get posted invoices emailed to multiple customers, or another good use is if a customer asks you to send a bunch of their past invoices from various batches or multiple dates to them.

3. Mass Email Settings

We have a lot of GP clients now wanting to utilize emailing of documents for their customers and vendors. This can be a large task to initially set up, depending on the number of customer or vendors involved. I always like to use the navigation list capabilities to assist with the task of email settings in mass. Once your customers and vendors have the email address in the correct fields on the Internet Address window for the corresponding Address ID, then emailing needs to be enabled for each customer or vendor. Instead of manually going into each customer or vendor record, this is where the Navigation Lists come into play. Generate your Sales > Customer or Purchasing > Vendor list. Ensure that the Emailing Setting action is available in your Navigation List action pane. Select your records (or mark all) and perform the action.

Purchasing > Vendors

Note: if you do not see the E-Mail Settings action button, it may be available from the overflow icon as in the example above. If not, the action can be added. Then clicking on E-Mail Settings will open the Mass Vendor Email Setting window. Add your setting and click Ok to complete.

You will get a progress banner telling you how many records succeeded or failed. Done!

Hopefully this article will encourage you to see these GP Navigation Lists in a whole new light! Please contact us if you have any questions about using Dynamics GP.