When the first version of Microsoft Dynamics NAV for Windows was released in 1995, the system was very closed. It was possible to import and export data using flat text files and that was basically it. These flat text files were placed on a floppy disk and sent by postal mail. Internet and e-mail were just coming, large USB sticks were a dream, and when the previous version of this book was released in 2009, OneDrive and Azure where being invented.

Since then, the world has changed tremendously. Internet, e-mail, SQL Server, .NET, and Azure changed the way we think about interfacing with applications and we are still changing. Today Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 has a completely open database and supports a wide range of interfacing possibilities, which we will learn in this chapter.

Version 1.0 of Navision ran on Windows 95, which later became an industry standard and for more than a decade, Windows was the only serious platform. Today, business people use...