NAV 2013 using .NET App

Question

I am looking to start a project for my company using NAV 2013.

I want to know if it is possible to develop a .Net application which can be linked into a clients page on NAV.

Any ideas will be much appreciated.

Answer 1

You'll need to be more specific with the term "linked". NAV 2013 does have .NET interoperability support, however that covers a few components;

1. .NET Client Add-ins
2. .NET Add-ins
3. Web Services
4. OData
5. Raw SQL

Options 1 and 2 would be appropriate for bringing enhanced .NET controls or logic into NAV.

Options 3 and 4 would suit if trying to access NAV data from within an external .NET application.

Option 5 is a "last resort" method, but you would directly query the database's tables from an external application. I'd only recommend reading data using this option, and not writing as it doesn't execute any NAV logic.

You may want to review the following MSDN article; http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh168247(v=nav.70).aspx which details these options (Ex. #5) with relevant examples for NAV 2013.