This book would not have been possible without my coauthor (and son), Christopher Studebaker. I'm very lucky to get to work with such a smart, knowledgeable son, who is also my good friend.
I especially want to thank my partner in life and at work, Karen Studebaker, for her unflagging support, patience, love, and encouragement in all ways. The first 50 years we have been together have been great; I'm looking forward to the next 50.
One of my life's principle treasures has been the enthusiastic support and love of my children, Christopher and Rebecca, of whom I am very proud. Both are successful, thoughtful, high quality professionals, and managers. More importantly, they each place the highest value to their roles as parents and spouses (here, I say "hi" to my special grandchildren, Cole, Alec, and CeCe, and my terrific in-law children, Elizabeth and Frederick).
Special thanks are due to Michael Nielsen of Microsoft for his wholehearted support of this and the previous three Programming NAV books. Many thanks to Mark Brummel, who knows more about NAV than almost anyone (except maybe Michael) and generously shares his knowledge. I also wish to thank all the people at Microsoft and Packt as well as our technical reviewers who assisted us a great deal with their contributions and advice.
Much of what I know about NAV was gained while working with excellent teams of associates at Studebaker Technology and Liberty Grove Software. All my life, I have benefitted from the help of many friends, mentors, and associates. Life would be very poor without all these kind and generous folks.
May you enjoy using this book even a fraction as much as I enjoyed working on it with Chris.
Christopher Studebaker is an NAV developer/implementer and has 15 years' experience in designing, developing, implementing, and selling in the NAV and SQL Server environments. He has specialized in retail, manufacturing, job shop, and distribution implementations, mostly in high user count and high data volume applications. Chris has worked on many NAV implementations with integrations to external databases and third-party add-on products. Some special applications include high-volume order entry, pick-to-light systems, procurement analysis, and web frontends.
Chris acts in a consulting and training role for customers and for peer NAV professionals. He provides training both in informal and classroom situations, often developing custom course material to support courses tailored to specific student group needs. Courses have included various NAV functional and development areas.
Before becoming a certified NAV developer, Chris was a certified environmental consultant working with manufacturing facilities to meet national and state regulations. His duties included regulatory reporting, data analysis, project management, and subcontractor oversight. His accomplishments include obtaining several safety certifications and managing projects for hazardous material management and abatement.
Chris is an expert at NAV installation, configuration, and development. He has been working with SQL in both NAV and other Microsoft applications for over a decade. He has a bachelor of science degree from Northern Illinois University and has done graduate work at Denmark Technical University. Chris was the coauthor of the Packt Publishing book Programming Microsoft Dynamics 2013.