Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Conference 2011 - Day 1 Presentation

After a morning fill with excitement at the Opening Session, where Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 R2 was presented to all partners in attendance, you could only walk out of the session all pumped up. However, it was time for some lunch -- "no MSG and buddies", according to David.

This excitement carried David and I, right into our 2:45 PM CST presentation. Up was our Support Debugging Tool session. Everything went very well despite the computer problems (read David's post for the full scoop) we had in the previous days. We had a great time presenting the session and partners overall expressed the increased adoption of Support Debugging Tool by customers and even themselves.

At the Support Debugging Tool presentation

We then took a ride after the Conference day was over back to the hotel. Interestingly enough, Leslie still believed she was enjoying a nice summer day in Dallas as she did not bring any layers with her, but being the gentlemen we are (ehem!), I gave her my gloves, David gave her his hat, and Beat provided the scarves (yes, he goes along with 2 of them!) for additional comfort.

Mariano Gomez, Leslie Vail, Beat Bucher, David Musgrave - In the bus back to he hotel. Picture courtesy of Stephan Labbe

Once at the hotel, we regrouped in the lobby to go for dinner at Grizzly's Grill, a restaurant located at the entrance of the West Acres mall. The group decided to walk, which perhaps, has been one of the worst decisions I have made since arriving in town. The temperature? A whopping -7F (without the wind chill factor, which surely made it feel close to -17F).  When we arrived at the mall (through the JC Penney's entrance, the closest to the Ramada's lobby) we all felt the numbness in our faces. I personally had my sinuses completely cleared up!

Night went well and dinner was very pleasant, with lots of conversations and topics circulating around the table.

From left to right, front to back: Mark Rockwell (Rockton Software), Yvan Bruneau (Jovaco), Jean-Francois Tremblay (Jovaco), Beat Bucher (Strophe), Terry Blazer (Microsoft), Stephan Labbe (Strophe), Mariano Gomez, Haseet Sanghrajka (ST Consulting), Leslie Vail, David Musgrave (Microsoft), Jim Pelikza (Rockton Software)

Dinner was over and we were back at the hotel with rides offered by Terry Blazer and Sheila Ochoa. The temperature had dipped a few degrees more, but the winds had died down, however, I could not pass on the offer.

At the hotel, David and I had to do some code fine tuning on his machine to ensure that our Visual Studio Tools demo would work for our presentation next day -- up first at 8:30 AM CST. Poor David felt asleep while I was transferring the code and making the adjustments. After all, we have been running on little sleep since we got here.

Until next post!

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

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Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Conference 2011 - Day 1 Opening Session

Microsoft Dynamics GP IS NOT dead! This was the center point message in the opening session of the Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Conference 2011.
 

Errol Schoenfish and Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 R2 key mantras

The Big Shots delivering the opening session (Chad Sogge, Jeff Trosen, and Errol Schoenfish) did an excellent job -- with actions, not words -- to provide the partner community in attendance with reassurance of Microsoft's commitment to the Dynamics GP product line. 10 minutes into the session we were already getting glimpses of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 R2, the next major revision of the now familiar  Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010. In addition to a roadmap (more on that in my next post).

The 3 pillars for the new Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 R2 release?

Enhance Insight
This area will particularly see the introduction of Contextual BI with the newly minted Business Analyzer, a Silverlight (to be) application that is tightly coupled to SSRS to deliver stunning analytical capabilities to business users. The best part... it does not require Microsoft SharePoint Server.

Business Analyzer lite client

Business Analyzer will be delivered in a lite client version and incorporated as part of the Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 R2 rich client interface (shown below).

Microsoft Dynamcis GP 2010 R2 with Business Analyzer and contextual BI capabilities

Make it Easier
While no concrete demonstration was given on the new Word Template Generator feature, attendees were happy to know that Microsoft has worked on a feature that will allow any Microsoft Dynamics GP report to be converted to an actual Word Template -- all and formatting included!

In addition, the new Email Customization Tool will allow systems administrators and users to define and customize, from the Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 R2 user interface, the subject, content, and other parts of an email submitted using the available email options in Sales Order Processing and Purchase Order Processing.

Extend Connections
Jon Zimmermann demonstrated the capabilities of the new Rapid Migration Tool and how simple it has become for users to import information from any Microsoft Excel-based template into their environments.
Errol finalized the presentation capturing a video of the partners response to the new features in Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 R2, Microsoft's roadmap, upcoming projects the company is working on around the Microsoft Dynamics GP ERP platform.

As noted in Bob Scott’s Insights, NetSuite’s CEO, Zach Nelson said that "Microsoft Dynamics GP is disappearing as a competitor"..."The one prediction I will repeat is the continuing demise of Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains.". Frankly, after what I saw in this opening session today, and the reaction of the attending partners (in the video above), I can unequivocally say that Mr. Nelson's views are far from reality. It is now evident the folks at Microsoft had (have) been at work carefully addressing the needs of customers, partners, and ISVs alike. With this much work on the table, heck, even I would be quiet.

Finally, the morning would not be complete without the usual celebrity picture.


David Musgrave, Errol Schoenfish, Pam Misialek, Mariano Gomez

 Until next post!

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

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Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Conference 2011 begins today!

This is a quick note to invite all readers to follow the latest Conference developments via the The Dynamics GP Blogster Facebook feed. As I attend some of the sessions and capture the sound bytes and most interesting topics, I will be posting those over. The posts following this one will be the experiences of the day with the traditional pictures and personalities and will include information about product development, roadmap, and much, much more. Please tune in to both the blog and Facebook feed for regular updates.

Until next post!

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

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Pre-Conference Day 3 - Tech Check

February 28, 2011. Pre-Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Conference Day 3 - Tech Check.

This is a series of articles leading up to the actual Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Conference 2011 event. The goal is to keep you informed of some of the developments leading up to the Conference and also provide you with a "behind the scenes" view of our work and activities.

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Day 2 was a bit hectic, troubleshooting David's computer problems. This set us back a bit with our initial goal of fine tuning the presentations.

The morning started with the usual breakfast and really nothing much transpired.

In the afternoon we took a shuttle to the Microsoft Horizons Campus were we met up with Babs Coler. Babs is in charge of coordinating speakers and sessions. After a few minutes of conversation, it was time for lunch. We met up with Patrick Roth and were later joined few minutes later by Dave Dusek. Patrick and David [Musgrave] discussed a bit about their presentation and had a few last minute ideas on how they would like to deliver it. After lunch, Pat and David began a dry run on their session and invited me to provide feedback.

Once they wrapped up, David and I went visiting the rest of the Support team.

We returned to the room where we would both be presenting. I walked up to the podium and put down my computer, grabbed the VGA connection to plug into my laptop and...no VGA port for me! My brand new laptop only comes equipped with an HDMI port. I quickly went online to establish if I could get an HDMI to VGA converter, not without checking if the audiovisual department at Microsoft had one. Surprise, surprise!

I went online and found that Best Buy carries a converter cable and immediately hitched a ride to the local store at the West Acres mall. In talking to the store's floor manager, he explained they did not carry such cable at the store [though he was aware of it] and offered instead a solution involving a converter from HDMI to DVI, and a DVI to VGA adapter.

This sounded like a working solution, despite the two pieces of hardware required. So, I paid and off I went to the Horizon building, only to find out halfway through that the DVI male and female connectors on both adapters are incompatible. The DVI portion of the DVI to VGA adapter had some extra pins around the flat pin as it was designed to carry analog signals only throughout the adapter. In turn the HDMI to DVI was designed to carry only digital signals -- back to square 1!

Above HDMI to DVI adaptor - Below DVI to VGA adaptor

Given the issue at hand, it was necessary to move off all my Visual Studio Tools demo code to David's machine.

Once again, frustrated, battered, and beaten up -- this time by my computer, we returned to the hotel where we continued working on the Support Debugging Tool presentation fine tuning. Halfway through, we saw Mark Rockwell from Rockton Software checking in at the hotel. Then David Eichner from ICAN Software appeared. It was time for dinner!


From left to right: Mariano Gomez, Mark Rockwell, David Musgrave, Leslie Vail, Dave Eichner

Upon wrapping up dinner, David and I continued working on the Support Debugging Tool presentation, up until 11:30 PM CST, when we wrapped up and did a dry run.

The Technical Conference officially begins tomorrow, so this is the last pre-conference post. We are very confident you will enjoy our material and learn a lot from it. Please come see us over the next couple of days.

Until next post!

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

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Pre-Conference Day 2 - Fine tuning presentations

February 27, 2011. Pre-Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Conference Day 2 - Fine tuning Presentations.

This is a series of articles leading up to the actual Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Conference 2011 event. The goal is to keep you informed of some of the developments leading up to the Conference and also provide you with a "behind the scenes" view of our work and activities.

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After a long dinner evening the previous day, the real work began today. The morning started with a hearty breakfast at Basie's Restaurant located inside the Ramada Plaza hotel, where we are all staying - frankly, I have avoided going outside since I got to the hotel and hope to do so ONLY when absolutely necessary.

Once we finished having breakfast, we returned to our rooms to grab our laptops and sit at a table next to the bar area downstairs. First up was our Introduction to Microsoft Dynamics GP Customization session fine tuning. David will be in charge of presenting the Dexterity and Modifier with VBA portions of the presentation and I will be in charge of the Visual Studio Tools portion. We need to address the presentation flow, timing, and the actual code development which will be shown live - for the first time ever!

David Musgrave and Mariano Gomez

But life's never perfect and always has plans of its own. David (shown above smiling ONLY for the picture) had his own computer problems to deal with as he seem to believe that Dynamics GP 2010 SP1 was missing constant resources in the dictionary (Dynamics.dic). Given this, he could not compile the scripts that were a part of the Dexterity demo... troubleshooting this issue began around 1:00 PM CST.

Upon several maneuvers, David was about to push his computer off the table. This is when the rest of us realized the severity of the problem, given the fact that he had already spent 3 hours attempting to fix the issue, only to compound the problem even more -- Object Reference not set anyone? Look for David's post detailing the problems he ran into and resolution.

After some 4 hours of absolute frustration, stress, sweats, swearing, and the occasional nervous laughing, David Eichner walked in and began providing his own set of ideas on how to troubleshoot the issue. Picture this: 2 MVPs, 1 Escalation Engineer, and a very savvy Microsoft Partner/ISV all on one table, around 1 computer... how much lost revenue!

The bottom line, and after 5 hours troubleshooting this [David] issue, the day was over for everyone. Tired, battered, and beaten up by David's computer, off we went to get some dinner. Now this time, I could use some fresh air, but would not walk far away from the hotel to get food -- it was -3 degrees last night! We went to the Granite City across the street from the hotel. I got to see my beloved Miami Heat get their butts kicked by the New York Knicks in the last couple minutes of the game, all while savoring a good micro brew and having a good dose of Australian humor at the table.

At Granite City, from left to right: David Musgrave, David Eichner, Leslie Vail, Mariano Gomez

It was the general consensus after dinner that we MUST all get an early night and hope that none of the day's issues repeated the following, since we now had work to catch up with and another presentation to fine-tune. Tomorrow also marks the first day we would have a chance to go to the Microsoft Campus for tech check. For now, the rest is well deserved.

Until next post!

MG.-

Mariano Gomez, MVP

IntellPartners, LLC

http://www.intellpartners.com/

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Pre-Conference Day 1 - Getting here

February 26, 2011. Pre-Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Conference Day 1 - Getting here.

This is a series of articles leading up to the actual Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Conference 2011 event. The goal is to keep you informed of some of the developments leading up to the Conference and also provide you with a "behind the scenes" view of our work and activities.

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While flying from Atlanta to Fargo is not quite as adventurous as flying from Perth, Australia, there are a few things you quickly realize, especially this time of the year: a) the 80-degree shift in temperature between the two cities (Atlanta and Fargo) as a result of the still lingering winter weather, and b) perhaps most captivating, the vastness of the upper Midwest United States.

Approaching Minneapolis, Minnesota, you could observe people ice fishing, a practice that has been carried out since the early days of the Midwest colonization. The State of Minnesota is nicknamed Land of 10,000 lakes.

Approaching Minneapolis, MN

The following picture shows a suburban community close to the airport.

Approaching Minneapolis, MN

The weather also served as a reminder of how unforgiven nature can be in these latitudes. Before taking off for Fargo, it was necessary to deice the aircraft, as it had been sitting for a long time on the tarmac with a "weight unbalance" issue as the captain had announced. This made leaving Minneapolis an a bit of an ordeal.

Deicing Truck - window covered in deicing fluid (Ethylene Glycol)

Once the aircraft left Minneapolis, after spending a good 1 hour on the deicing pad, Fargo was just 500 miles closer. Approaching Fargo is always one of those surreal moments. In contrast with neighboring, densely populated Minneapolis, there are extensions and extensions of land where you could count a farm or couple houses at a time, before you see the next patch of houses.

Approaching Fargo, ND

Closer to the airport, there are sparse neighborhoods in middle of the open plain.

Approaching Fargo, ND

Fargo's Hector International Airport airport offers a number of curiosities, including recreational vehicles close to the baggage area. These in particular seem to be able to trek any heavily snowed terrain, which would make them very fun for this time of the year -- here anyways.


Recreational Vehicles at Baggage Claim area at Hector International Airport (FAR)

Upon arriving to the Ramada Plaza hotel, I met up with David Musgrave and exchanged presents. Later on, fellow MVP, Leslie Vail checked in and the band was finally together again for another run at the Tech Conference. After a few laughs and ol' time catch up, we decided to go for dinner where we met up with David Eichner from ICAN Software. We spent a good time talking about the forbidden topics of religion, politics, and evolution.

MVP Leslie Vail

David Eichner (ICAN Software) and MVP Leslie Vail

Tomorrow will bring another day and the work to fine-tune our presentations will begin.

Until next post!

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

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Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Conference 2011 - Quick Reminder!

The Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Conference 2011 is upon us! David and I have an arsenal of information prepared for those of you who are newcomers to the Technical Conference. We wanted to focus our attention in building up the base of future Microsoft Dynamics GP developers and ensure our legacy...ok, maybe I am getting carried away here!

If you are going to attend the Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Conference in lovely Fargo, North Dakota, please come to our sessions. We promise to make them fun! Also, who said you can't have fun in Fargo? Superstar rapper Nelly will be at the Scheels Arena on Thursday, March 3, and yes, I will be attending with a bunch of Softies.

This a reminder of the sessions David and I will be presenting:

Development Troubleshooting with the Support Debugging Tool
Presenters: David Musgrave and Mariano Gomez, MVP

Following the success of this session at Convergence Atlanta 2010, David Musgrave and Mariano Gomez return to the Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Conference with a number of advanced features included in the now popular Support Debugging Tool. Learn how to debug and trace your customizations, build temporary fixes, and troubleshoot development issues and problems with dictionaries. Discover some of the tricks used by the Microsoft Developer Support team. Presenters will demonstrate real life scenarios and work through their resolutions.

Topics:

- Manual Logging Mode
- Advanced Debugger Mode
- Dictionary Control
- Scripting and Triggers
- SQL Execute and Runtime Execute features
- Exporting and Importing fixes


Introduction to Microsoft Dynamics GP Customization Tools

Presenters: David Musgrave and Mariano Gomez, MVP

New to Microsoft Dynamics GP? Welcome to this jam packed session where Microsoft’s David Musgrave and MVP Mariano Gomez will walk you through the different customization tools available to address your next project. If you have plans for a Microsoft Dynamics GP customization, but you don’t know where to start and are skeptical about future upgrade issues, then this session is for you. Gain some introductory knowledge of Modifier and Report Writer with Visual Basic for Applications, Dexterity and Visual Studio Tools with two of the leading Community experts, who will contrast the tools and help you sort through the complicated terminology, to bring you a clear picture of the choices available for your next project.

Topics:

- Where to start?
- Modifier and Report Writer with Visual Basic for Applications
- Dexterity
- Visual Studio Tools
- Resources

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Just a note on this last session... in previous years we focused our attention on the experienced to advanced developer. This time around, if you are just getting acquainted with Microsoft Dynamics GP development, we want you to start out on the right foot without the frustrations, so please attend our session and save yourself the headache of figuring this thing out on your own.

Register for the Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Conference 2011, in the always beautiful Fargo, North Dakota, here.

Until next post!

MG.-
Mariano Gomez, MVP
Maximum Global Business, LLC
http://www.maximumglobalbusiness.com/

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