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Dynamics 365 Community / Forums / Microsoft Dynamics AX (Archived) / AX vs NAV: best for &q...
Microsoft Dynamics AX (Archived)

AX vs NAV: best for "complex" item hierarchy and characteristics

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Posted on by Community Member

Hi

We want to switch from our homemade ERP.

Context

Our items are defined as so (metal parts).

Each metal piece has a:

  • Category (matter)
  • Subcategory (forge type)
  • Provider
  • Country (origin)
  • Brand
  • Quality
  • Dimensions (length, width, height)

First requirement

We DO need to have all theses information in separate "field" to analyse the sales by provider/country/dimensions/....

Second requirement

For some products the dimensions of the item we have on the bill are not the real ones, but "market-standard dimensions" (market requirement). In our current ERP we do associate to each product a list of "potential market-standard dimensions" that we can pick and set on the bill for this item (this has only a visual impact on the document we do print for the customer).

Question

The issue is that with NAV, I am not sure how to setup this. How to obtain a category/subcategory hierarchy ? Are attributes the only way to achieve it ? Is there no way to have a hierarchy of item ?

What about AX ? 

Could you please advice (or reference some doc) on how NAV or AX could answer to our requirement ?

Regards

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  • Suggested answer
    Vilmos Kintera Profile Picture
    Vilmos Kintera 46,149 on at

    We have implemented alloys and metal related information at one of the largest aluminium manufacturer using AX before. You need to have a separate product for each measurement you have that you refer as dimension and each type of metal including all variations. To set the values as separate fields, you would use the product category hierarchy (i.e. we used it for distinguishing between parts and various finished product types), and product attributes (type of alloy, cut length/width, special treatments, etc). You can have as many product attributes created as you want, you can default the values by product category type, it is a very flexible setup.

    For the products to be easily searchable we have also done a customization, where if the product attributes were added/changed, we have automatically generated a search name out of the fields which we have set up a sequence for to be included in the product name, and set the search name on the released product based on those attributes.

    I do not know about NAV, try asking it on the forum dedicated for that.

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