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Entity-oriented Task Pages

In Microsoft Dynamics NAV, entity-oriented task pages are used to support users when their tasks revolve around a single business entity. The most typical entity-oriented task page is the card, which provides details about a customer or other master data, and the document, which represents a transaction or other important business event.

Entity-oriented page characteristics

The overall characteristics of an entity-oriented task page are:

  • The page title identifies the specific entity represented in the page. For example, a customer card will have the customer number or name as the page title.

  • Ribbon commands act with regard to the entity shown in the page. For example, if you choose Delete from the ribbon of a customer card page, the system will delete that customer.

You use the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Development Environment to develop and customize pages for your solution’s needs. The UX guidelines for designing entity-oriented pages are organized into page templates. Each page template represents a better way to design pages for a particular type of user task.

We recommend designing pages according to the suggested templates, and following the associated guidelines. Design a custom page style only when your application has special requirements that are not met by any of the standard page templates.

Entity-oriented page templates

Standard page template Usage characteristics Page object contents/properties

Card

For tasks related to managing master and reference data, such as Customer, Vendor, and Item entities. The name card refers to how this kind of data was kept on paper cards in filing cabinets before it is computerized.

A page object of type Card having fields organized in groups each appearing as a FastTab. A card page may have a single grid that displays data from a repeating field. If there are more repeating fields, use a separate Details page to show these.

Document

A document page represents a transaction or other important event in the domain of business. Document pages are the computerized counterpart to paper-based documents: quotes, invoices, orders, and so on.

A page object of type Document having fields organized in groups each appearing as a FastTab. The second FastTab on the page should contain the document lines. There should not be any other grids on the page.

Details

For tasks related to managing or browsing business entity or event details which go beyond what a card or document page can support. Details pages can show persistent data about the entity/event in addition to transient data relevant for a task.

A page object of type ListPlus having fields organized in groups each appearing as a FastTab. There may be up to three FastTabs with grids to show repeating fields or related entities.

Statistics

A particular type of Details about a business entity or event. Statistics pages typically have read-only fields resulting from calculating sums and other totals, but may also have input fields.

A page object of type ListPlus having fields organized in groups each appearing as a FastTab. There may be up to three FastTabs with grids to show repeating fields or related entities.

Setup

A particular type of Card or Details for managing setup and administration of the system.

A page object of type ListPlus having fields organized in groups each appearing as a FastTab. There may be up to three FastTabs with grids to show repeating fields and related entities.

For all entity-oriented task page templates, you can choose to add the following additional page elements:

  • Ribbon actions that the user can act on for the specific entity represented in the page, or navigate to its related pages and reports.

  • FactBoxes that show related details (statistics, links, notes) about the specific entity represented in the page, in textual or chart form.

Since entity-oriented task pages are always represent a single domain entity, such as a customer or an item, we recommend that you do not use Repeater groups in the construction of entity-oriented pages. Use Repeater groups only when you construct collection-oriented pages. Note that Repeater groups may be used in pages that are included as parts in an entity-oriented task page.

See Also

Concepts

Navigation Pages
Collection-oriented Task Pages
Dialog Pages