The terms two-tier versus three-tier and Classic Client versus Role Tailored Client have come up several times already in our discussion of NAV 2009. Let's initially focus on the user look and feel differences, and what that means to you when designing an application.

Following is a sample of what the Classic Client (two-tier) user interface looks like. Note that if the login were for a user with limited access privileges, only the permitted menu options would be displayed. Nevertheless, the basic structure of the display is oriented around the structure of the database and the traditional technician viewpoint of how the system works.

Now let's take a look at the appearance of the Role Tailored Client. The same comment applies about the system displaying only the permitted functions. However, the basic structure of the display here is oriented around a definition of the Role (and therefore the tasks) of the specific user who has logged in. Someone whose role centers around Order Entry will see a different RTC home page than the user whose Role centers around Invoicing, even though both are primarily focused in what we used to think of more globally as Sales & Receivables.

Obviously the user look and feel has changed dramatically from the Classic Client to the RTC. The design approach for our enhancements must follow the new RTC style. In some ways this will be a more challenging task, especially for those of us who are purely technical developers without much knowledge of the individual user's point of view.

In order to do a good job of fitting the system to a particular customer, we must have a good understanding of the duties performed by different roles within that customer's organization. This means we need more diagnostic effort at the frontend of our system design and implementation planning. Perhaps we should always have done that, but since our design model was based on how our product worked, rather than how the customer's operation worked, we could get away with doing less. No more. It's not within the scope of this book to discuss that diagnostic effort in any detail. Nevertheless, it is very important that it be done and done well. In this book, we will concentrate on how to address the requirements for Roles once they are defined.