Microsoft Dynamics Convergence Houston 2012 - Day 3

Convergence is now in it's last day and the morning opens up with a great treat: some good ol' Texas 2 Step dance and gaming activities for individuals in attendance. It's always good to note that The spOt's party was the night before, so garnishing full attendance to the Closing Session is always been a challenge, but here we were, scrambling for a couple seats.

Texas 2-Step

Place is packed for the closing session!

Doug Kennedy, Vice President, Microsoft Dynamics Partners, opened the final keynote presentation with a summary of our previous days' events (including a recap of conference attendees' volunteer efforts to give back to the local community), followed by an energetic performance by Dance Houston.

Dance Houston

Then the moment everyone was waiting for: an advance welcome to next year's event in New Orleans, Louisiana, host city for Convergence 2013 - If you want to start tweeting about the event, use hash tag #CONV13.

Microsoft Convergence New Orleans 2013

General Colin Powell, (Ret.), shared his insights on how to remain focused, take responsibility and work towards improving processes, organizations and people. With the learning of what it takes to be a great leader, our time with General Powell was, for most, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and for all, unforgettable.

Gen. Colin Powell (Ret.)

It's interesting to note that Gen. Powell is a car fan and drives a Chevy Corvette in which he picks up a ticket or two from the local police departments. Mr. Powell concluded his remarks by taking questions from the attendees, not before popping a delicious Diet Coke open to refresh himself.

Doug Kennedy and Gen. Colin Powell (Ret.)

David and I rushed out of the Closing Session to go do our own "closing sessions". It was time for our repeats, CSGP19-R2 Administering Microsoft Dynamics GP Like a Pro with The Support Debugging Tool which ran from 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM. To our surprise, this session had a good number of attendees (36) despite the time slot it had been assigned - running contiguous to the Closing Session. Granted we were in a smaller room too.

Off we went to lunch and it was just about time again to pack in an extra session, before having to host our own, CSGP23-R2 Advanced Microsoft Dynamics GP Administration with the Support Debugging Tool. We couldn't have predicted still having 57 attendees in this session, given the fact that by midday, most people had already left for the airport to catch their flights. However, we still managed to carry on with the show.

After our session, we attended John Lowther and MVP Leslie Vail's repeat CSGP20-R2 The New Microsoft Dynamics GP Administrator to support and provide these first time presenters with our feedback on their session. I have to say, it was great to see John and Leslie picking up on some cues we provided from their initial presentation.

It was time to say goodbye to Ace Martin over at the speakers room. Believe it or not, she is the true Closer - no offense to Gianmarco Salzano and team over at Reporting Central. Ace was graceful to take a picture holding up her gigantic speaker schedule board which she crafted in Microsoft Excel.

Ace Martin and her Excel Speaking Schedule

The remaining few of us took a picture with Ace before saying our goodbyes to her.

From left to right: Ace Martin, Ted Mauldin, David Musgrave, John Lowther, Leslie Vail, Beat Bucher, Sheila Jefferson-Ross and Mariano Gomez

The Conference had now come to and end and it was time to leave.

Back at the hotel, we gather a few people for dinner and off we went to Mia Bella Trattoria over at the Houston Pavilions. Dinner went on with normalcy, until it was time for Tim Tam Slams. You can see footage on Facebook here assuming you have an account and are friends with the poster.

Well, it was time to go pack the bags for my trip back home.

See you in New Orleans next year!

Until next post!

MG.-
Mariano Gomez, MVP
IntellPartners, LLC
http://www.IntellPartners.com/

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Microsoft Dynamics Convergence Houston 2012 - Day 2

After all the hoopla from Day 1, Day 2 of Microsoft Dynamics Convergence Houston 2012 begins with a solid breakfast at the Hilton Americas Cafe with David and Jennifer Musgrave, and MVP Frank Hamelly.

Breakfast was short lived and off we went to get ready for our second session, CSGP23-R1 Advanced Microsoft Dynamics GP Administration with the Support Debugging Tool. Our session featured MVP Mark Polino (twitter: @mpolino) who was slinging some t-shirts and caps to the 277 strong audience. I have to confess this was ubber fun!

Upon wrapping up our session, Dave and I quickly went over to  CSGP20-R1 The New Microsoft Dynamics GP Administrator to show some support for John and Leslie in their presentation. Leslie has been instrumental in the success of our presentations throughout the years.

John Lowther and MVP Leslie Vail

Next up was an interactive discussion session on one of my favorite topics: security. IDGP02-R1 Ask the Experts: Security in Microsoft Dynamics GP was hosted by Jeff McDowell (sitting in for Andy Snook) from FastPath, Beat Bucher from Forensic Technology, Bob McAdam (twitter: @4mcadam) from TriBridge, Brian Roney (twitter: @BrianPRoney), subject matter expert for Microsoft, and Steve Baute from Interactive Intelligence.

IDGP02-R1 Ask the Experts: Security in Microsoft Dynamics GP

The session turned out to be very informative and with lots of inteaction from the attendees. Dave and I got to add a word or two about the Support Debugging Tool while providing some insight into some of the questions being asked.

The afternoon ended with a speakers "Thank You" invitation, hosted by Pam Misialek, Product Manager at Microsoft, in her suite. It was a great chance to catch up with other speakers and to sip in some free beers, courtesy of Microsoft - believe me when I say it does not happen often enough!

The funniest thing about this social activity, as it turned out, were the t-shirts in the room. Clearly, everyone is drinking the MVP Mark Polino's Kool Aid.

David Musgrave drinking the Mark Polino's Kool Aid

John Lowther, MVP Leslie Vail, and Pam Misialek drinking the Mark Polino's Kool Aid

After having a good time, we all decided to go for dinner at McCormick and Schmik's, a nice seafood restaurant over at the Houston Pavilions. Then it was off to the spOt's Satisfaction: The Intenational Rolling Stones Show being hosted at the House of Blues. Unfortunately, I had to cut my night short if I wanted to present on the following day, so off I went to bed.

Until next post!

MG.-
Mariano Gomez, MVP
IntellPartners, LLC
http://www.IntellPartners.com/

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Microsoft Dynamics Convergence Houston 2012 - Day 1

If you are a habitual Convergence attendee, you probably know that the Opening Keynote with Kirill Tatarinov, President of Microsoft Business Solutions, is one of the most awaited events of the entire event. As usual, Kirill was on point with his opening and playing the part by wearing a nice Texan hat.

Kirill Tatarinov, President Microsoft Business Solutions welcomes attendees

Kirill presented a summary of interesting facts on the conference, including 10,000+ attendees, representing 270 companies from over 50 countries. Kirill quickly turned the mic over to Kevin Turner, COO of Microsoft Corporation, who wasted no time walking attendees through Microsoft's global reach and vision of the future.

Kevin Turner, COO Microsoft Corporation

"Let me set it up with a little bit of an overview of Microsoft and what we're up to. Microsoft, as many of you know, is the world's largest software company, but we're a lot more than just that. We employ over 95,000 people in 191 countries around the world. We've got 640,000 partners that contribute to our ecosystem around the world. We cater to both businesses — and that's small, medium and large enterprises — as well as consumers. In fact, we have over 1.5 billion people who use our products each and every day. And that's an awesome responsibility that we have."

With this global reach, Kevin detailed some of the R&D investments made by Microsoft in its pursue of inventing and shaping the future of technology and contrast that to the strong financial results that allow the company to continue supporting its long-term R&D programs.

Kevin offered insights into Microsoft's efforts around its platforms development and how these platforms aid consumers on a daily basis with their interactions with information, regardless of the device on which they perform those interactions. In fact, Microsoft has began to embrace devices and platforms from other competitors such as Apple and Google.

After wrapping up his presentation, Kirill and Kevin described Microsoft's adoption of its own technologies and how the company is undergoing a migration from Siebel to Microsoft CRM to become a dynamic business to better serve its customers and partners.

Next up were couple demos showing the convergence of social media and the retail business and the new Windows 8 Metro UI and how Microsoft Dynamics takes advantage of these features. I have to say I was most impressed by the latter.

Kirill and Brad presenting Microsoft Dynamics on the Windows 8 Metro UI

A nice look at the UI

Another look at the interaction with the project screen

You can find a complete transcript of Kirill and Kevin's Opening Keynote on the Microsoft Press website, here. You can watch the whole Opening Keynote on the Virtual Convergence website, here.

Following the Opening Keynote, the Nick Brophy band took over and rock the house. A few great covers gave way to the General Session.

Nick Brophy band

After the interlude, Errol Schoenfish, Director of Product Management was on stage and ready to introduce all the wonderful work the Microsoft Dynamics GP team has been working on.

Errol Schoenfish

Errol had a chance to show off his Xbox avatar, TechyErrol - Come to think about it, they both do look alike.

TechyErrol: Errol Schoenfish's X-Box avatar

Attendees to the General Session were encouraged to tweet about the presentation. Tweets were shown live on the big screen every so often. It's amazing to see how many tweets were received during the course of the session. Partner and customers were extremely excited to share their views about the latest developments by the Dynamics GP team.

The surprise of the morning came when MVP Mark Polino and Microsoft's Jennifer Olson, Program Manager, both took the stage to show off Business Analyzer on the Windows 8 Metro UI. It was awesome to see how far the Dynamics GP MVP community has come along working with the Program Management team.

MVP Mark Polino and Jen

Business Analyzer on the Windows 8 Metro UI

After the Business Analyzer demo, Errol returned with Jeff Trosen who would go on to talk about the Microsoft Dynamics GP roadmap and some of the initiatives in motion.

Errol Schoenfish and Jeff Trosen

And speaking about motion... following Jeff's presentation, Chad Sogge took the stage to demo a warehouse management scenario using the Kinect sensor for the Xbox. During the demo, attendees had a chance to see some of the innovations that may be introduced in the Microsoft Dynamics GP product in the not so distant future.

MVP Jivtesh Singh

At the end of the demo, "Thank Yous" went out to MVP Jivtesh Singh who did all the programming required to put the demonstration in place, yet again, showing the deep collaboration that exists today between the Microsoft Dynamics GP Product Management team and its MVPs.

The afternoon was marked by our first session at 3:00 PM, CSGP19-R1 Administering Microsoft Dynamics GP Like a Pro with the Support Debugging Tool. David and I had 199 attendees to the session, which delivered an overview of the features in the Support Debugging Tool. If you attended our session and have not filled out your evaluation, please do so.

After the session, we went to the Expo hall, which was buzzing with partners, customers, and ISVs showcasing their products.

Shortly after, it was dinner and off to sleep.

Until next post!

MG.-
Mariano Gomez, MVP
IntellPartners, LLC
http://www.IntellPartners.com/

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Microsoft Dynamics Convergence Houston 2012 - GPUG DayONE is on!

Saturday was sure an exciting day at the GPUG PreGame event. It was definitely good to see all the Microsoft Dynamics GP '12' Web Client coolness in action, straight from the guys who developed the product to begin with. However, I had been looking forward to Sunday, as it marked the first presentation that David Musgrave and I would be delivering at GPUG DayONE.

The morning started with a breakfast hosted by IntellPartners for its clients attending Microsoft Dynamics Convergence 2012.

Mariano Gomez, Lorrie Hendrickson (East West Manufacturing), Ted Mauldin

After wrapping up breakfast, David and I went over to Ballroom B where we would be presenting our session. We had the opportunity to do some tech check and made sure that our slides were loaded on the presenters desktop computer.

Mariano Gomez and David Musgrave

After our tech check, there was a small gathering for DayONE presenters, where last minute instructions and guidelines were provided. David and I were notified that Microsoft's Pam Misialek would be opening for our session. Pam's role would be that of introducing GPUG to our session attendees and providing all the information necessary about the program, regional chapters, and training opportunities available, all the while exploring the benefits of joining the User Group.

GPUG speakers meeting

It was now showtime. After Pam concluded her introduction, David and I went on to present our session UBGP18 Where do the experts turn for answers? To our delight, we had a good turn out of attendees and we had a chance to walk them through all the different resources available in the community and how to sort through these resources. Our session went by flawlessly, giving us enough time to answer a number of questions from the audience at the end.

Upon wrapping up our session, I went to show some love to my fellow IntellPartners colleague and MVP, Frank Hamelly. Frank's session, Ask the Experts: 13 classic under-used features in Microsoft Dynamics GP was delivered at full room. I definitely learned a few new things in this presentation and I could not agree more with the selection of under-used features.

Upon wrap up of Frank's session, we decided to head over to the Convergence speaker registration room where I was delighted to find Ace Martin and Tracy Stenhjem. As a speaker, it is always comforting to know that Ace and Tracy are watching your back to make sure things are running as planned.

Ace Martin, Mariano Gomez, and Tracy Stenhjem

Back at the Hilton Americas, we sat in Andy Snook and Jeff McDowell's session, Security Best Practices for Microsoft Dynamics GP. This session proved to be extremely informative as it provided valuable tips around the topics of application and database security, and segregation of duties within the organization and its relation to application security. The session was an excellent teaser for the Support Debugging Tool sessions that David and I would be presenting on the following day.

Andy Snook from FastPath

After a good start, it was time for the awaited Convergence 2012 reception to be held at the Houston Astros baseball stadium, the Minute Maid Park. On the way to the ballpark, we past this cool looking Escalade. If you had any doubt you were in Texas...

Cadillac Escalade with a long horn on the front grill

After passing the door security control we were treated to this excellent view of the ballpark's diamond. Things were certainly being prepared for the Daughtry concert, with equipment being unpacked and accomodated throughout the stage. In the background, the videoboard was rotating the Convergence Welcome video.

Minute Maid Park

Next up was the main event of the night: Daughtry! The band played a few of its new songs, while delivering the 'sing alongs' that concert attendees wanted to hear.

Daughtry

It was also great to spend some time and entertain the IntellPartners clients who joined us at Convergence. It was a fantastic evening!

Lorrie Hendrickson (East West Manufacturing), Mariano Gomez, Frank Hamelly, and Sandra Flechas (Albert Uster Imports)

Tomorrow, marks the first day of Microsoft Dynamics Convergence 2012 Houston. The Keynote and General sessions are expected to deliver some key announcements around Microsoft's vision and strategy for its Business Solutions applications.
Until next post!

MG.-
Mariano Gomez, MVP
IntellPartners, LLC
http://www.IntellPartners.com/

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Microsoft Dynamics Convergence Houston 2012 - GPUG PreGame

Yesterday was an exciting day! My day began with breakfast with my good fried David Musgrave (twitter: @Dev4DynamingGP) and his wife, Jennifer. It was a great moment since this is the first time I was seeing David since we both arrived in town. Also, it was an opportunity to meet Jennifer for the first time after so many years of back and forth with David.

Jennifer and David Musgrave

After fueling up with a good breakfast, David and I decided to go to the Registration area to officially check in for the event and claim our badges. On the way, we ran into Microsoft Dynamics GP MVP Mark Polino (twitter: @mpolino), who was coincidentally trying to find his way to the Registration area as well. Registration was being done over at Hall C at the George R. Brown Convention Center. The process was quick, however, and surprisingly no back packs were being given out to speakers :-(

David Musgrave, Mark Polino, Mariano Gomez

On the way back from the Registration area, around 11:00 AM CST, we walked up to the 4th floor of the Hilton Americas, where the GP Partner Connections PreGame event was about to take place. The event was scheduled to begin at 1:00 PM CST. PreGame provides an atmosphere for partners and ISVs to network, while learning about upcoming Microsoft product strategies and roadmaps.

Heather Williams, Event Director Dynamics Communities

Hanging around for a bit, I ran into Microsoft Dynamics GP MVP Ian Stewart, with who I am currently working on a project spanning 4 countries. Ian is based out of Ireland and was appropriately wearing his green shirt, as a good Irish celebrating St. Patrick's day.

Mariano Gomez, David Musgrave, and Ian Stewart

Ian wondered off to register and retrieve his badge, so David and I decided to sit down for a bit and review our DayONE session, "UBGP18: Ask the experts: Where do the experts turn for answers?", which we would be presenting on the following day, Sunday. Once we completed the session material review, we retreated to David's room to retrieve some of the stash of Australian products destined for my household - see Microsoft Convergence 2012 Houston - Getting There over at Developing for Dynamics GP for the full stash on display.

I then went up to my room to drop off the stash and my computer. After a few phone calls, I returned to the PreGame event area, which featured a Sales/Marketing track and a Consultant/Developers track. Of course, I would sit in the latter to absorb all the GP '12' goodness that was coming.

In trying to find a place to sit, David and I ran into the distinguished gentlemen who man up the teams and brains behind the Web Client.

Jay Manley, Brian Rooney, Kevin Racer, and Daryl Anderson

It was now time for the PreGame, with opening remarks from Bob McAdam (twitter: @4mcadam). Bob talked about his roots with GPUG and quickly opened the mics to the good folks of Microsoft who would be running the Web Client show.

Bob McAdam

Next up was the PreGame General Session, conducted by Microsoft Dynamics GP Product Manager, Pam Misialek (twitter: @PamMisialek).

Pam Misialek

Pam's began her session's intro with an account of how she got a black-eye attempting to shoot a gun, drawing laughter from the crowd. Shortly after, she featured some of the strategies being adopted by Microsoft to extend the use of business solutions beyond the desktop. She also touched on the economies of scale of GP '12' over its current counterpart, Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010, presenting a compelling case study highlighting the hosting benefits and cost saving opportunities attained by 40 customers with 5 users each running Microsoft Dynamics GP '12'. Pam also introduced an updated Microsoft Dynamics GP product roadmap. It was very promising to see that GP '12' will also incorporate some Windows Azure enablement capabilities, moving the product closer to Microsoft's overall cloud strategy. Partners were encouraged to "get excited about GP '12'" and take note of key timeline leading up to the release of Microsoft Dynamics GP '12'.

I will begin releasing a series of articles covering key aspects of Pam's presentation.

Next up was Microsoft's Kevin Racer to present the Microsoft Dynamics GP '12' Web Client - Unplugged session.

Kevin Racer

Kevin's session touched on the "Hostability" capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics GP '12' and the different deployment options available for hosting partners and customers alike. In introducing these two theme topics, the session quickly turned into a deep dive architecture review of Microsoft Dynamics GP '12', which highlighted the multi-tenancy and named system database capabilities available with the upcoming release. It was great to see that Microsoft has now released the server and client requirements needed to support web client deployments during this session.

The session concluded with some guidance for partners and developers in preparation for the new brave world.

Kevin continued with an in-depth session featuring various architecture components of the Microsoft Dynamics GP '12' web client. Attending partners had an opportunity to dive into various topics, including the Runtime Architecture of the Web Client; the new Dexterity Object Model, which uses DexML to provide metadata to the Silverlight client, the Microsoft Extensibility Framework (MEF) and the Rendering Engine, and more Dexterity.

The session ended with some cool demos on functionality and macros.

The PreGame session was followed up by a Town Hall meeting, featuring Town Hall meeting, featuring Doug Kennedy and Hal Howard, both ranked executives with the Microsoft Business Solutions unit.

Doug Kennedy, VP Microsoft Dynamics Partners and Hal Howard, Corporate VP, Microsoft Dynamics ERP Research and Development

After an hour of enduring some really pointy questions, the town hall meeting was followed by the Partners Reception. To be honest, I think most partners were brain dead by then from all the content absorbed up to that point.

The partners reception was the occasion to meet up with friends from other organizations attending the conference. It's always a great time to exchange ideas about implementations currently in process and to ask how they are dealing with some of the problems I am facing. My stay at the reception was short, but very effective and off I went to meet with the Microsoft Dynamics Community team at Spencer's.

Community team members Larry Ressler and Andy Leapaldt

I had a chance to speak to various Microsoft Dynamics Community team members about the upcoming improvements in the Community site. You need to wait for the changes, they rock! After some appetizers and drinks, a few of us who were attending the social meeting decided to grab a table at Spencer's.

IntellPartners team: Ted Mauldin, Mariano Gomez, and Frank Hamelly at Spencer's

It was time to call it a night.

Until next post!

MG.-
Mariano Gomez, MVP
IntellPartners, LLC
http://www.IntellPartners.com/

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