The title of the book is Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 Application Design. What does application design mean? And what does it mean in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013?

Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 is a complete ERP package, but unlike other ERP packages, it has a design capable of providing an open structure and a development platform. The idea is to provide 80 percent of the solution out of the box and allow the other 20 percent to be designed by qualified business application developers.

The partner channel is a unique part of Microsoft Dynamics NAV. From the moment Navision was introduced, company management decided that it would only make sense to have an indirect selling model and to let the resellers (called partners) have the availability to change the product and add new functionalities.

This book is about both the 80 percent and the 20 percent. We'll see that the percentages differ per industry where it is applied. Some industries have close to a 100 percent fit while others have a need for an 80 percent development.

So there is a very thin line in this book between using the standard application and designing changes and expanding the product. Although this is not a development book, we'll dive into code and objects in almost every chapter.

Reading this chapter will be more than enough to understand the code but if you want to know more, we highly recommend reading Programming Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013, David A. Studebaker, Christopher D. Studebaker, Packt Publishing.

This book is not a manual for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013. It will give you a clear idea of how the structure of the application is laid out and about its possibilities. We do not want to replace or rewrite the Microsoft documentation but rather want to provide ideas that you might not have thought about.