Directions

Dynamics Events in 2021

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We are at the end of this year. I could hardly say – good year as we have global pandemic and people dye. But new year is coming and there are some lights at the end of tunnel; vaccine appears and probably we will have better year as I think it is not possible to have worse one.

Let’s see what events await us in 2021. I (and probably nobody) don’t know if these events will go virtually as this year or on site if this is possible, but let’s see what we will have.

In the first half of year, we will start with Directions events:

This is what we have on the list for the first part of year, but we have two more events already scheduled for the second half of 2021:

Of course we have more, but still not scheduled. What you can do now is to sign up and join mailing lists to be updated when they announce dates. Currently, I can suggest to do it for the following events:

Dynamics 365 Community Summits (Australia, Europe, US)

Microsoft Business Application Summit

On the end, I really hope we will win Corona virus and we will have minimum few events in live as conference is not only about content and it is about networking and building friendships. We as human beans still need live communications. Maybe we proved that a lot of things can be done in virtual environment, but some thing can be done only in real world.

I hope we will have healthier and more successful new year and I’ll meet some of you in person.

Directions EMEA 2020 – Day 1

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Directions EMEA and Asia has just started today. This is the first-time virtual Directions ever and I can just imagine how challenged it was to prepare everything in very short time. But based on what I saw today, everything is well organized. OK, this is not the same as live event and I would like to have an opportunity to meet all of you in person, but it is still the great option with not only sessions but with a lot of networking opportunities. And just to mention, this is the biggest Directions ever with 2775+ attendees. Great achievement!

Today we had the first day Keynote and after that I had my first session. Now I want to share my experience from these two parts of today’s event.

Christian Sega started with good news about numbers (2775+ attendees, 60+ countries, 147 sessions, 101 speaker…) and future of this event and finally we had an opportunity to see Mike Morton as a new GM on the Directions stage… unfortunately not in live, but again this is the first time on Directions stage.

Mike presented roughly the most important directions from this BC release and they are:

  • Deliver seamless service and performance
  • Design for compliance and security
  • Develop ISVs and globalization
  • Delight customers by exceeding expectations
  • Drive better together Microsoft experiences

Let’s talk about these directions in the next days. Now I want to talk more about numbers. First time we had an opportunity to see official numbers about BC SaaS customers – there are 10.000 BC online customers and by my opinion this is an amazing result. And only this, there are other impressive results…

I don’t want to forget great rest of the keynote with Claus, Jannik and other PM’s where they showed some new and really good features.

And finally, Mike announced roadmap and some new features ready for the next release. First let’s make a look at new roadmap:

Now make a look at some of the next release’s features:

  • Finally, we will get Report Extensibility as this is one of the highest voted idea from users and partners… this is something we are really missing.
  • We will get enhancement printing features in BC, improving complex hybrid setup, taking care about user access to printers, eliminating admin of print servers or printer drivers, printing from anywhere…
  • Easily onboard of new clients to BC using step-by-step guide how to configure and prepare your solution, and it will be possible to use for partner’s addons as well.
  • Better integration of BC with Teams as using BC directly from Teams.

What I wanted to emphasize… completely experience with the Directions4Partners platform was/is great (if I forget some minor technical issues… who knows, maybe only at my place😊 because of my connection). You could have a feeling you are really on a site. This is briefly my experience from my first session. After 30 minutes prerecorded session, we had additional 15 minutes for live Q&A. I have a lot of questions and I had an opportunity to have a live answering session and it was good experience. As we probably had more question, we needed to continue our chat somewhere. For this purpose, we could go out to the Q&A session room and continue with discussions about all specific topics. Really great experience. I had an opportunity to meet some of friends and big thanks to Arend JK who attended my session and who continue chat with me and few other attendees in the Q&A session room. He also helped me answering on some questions. Big thanks for you Arend as well as to Christian Sega who joined us in after session time.

I’m looking forward to see more sessions today and next two days and I really hope it will be great experience.

All Dynamics events in 2020 are going virtually

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All Dynamics events until the end of 2020 will go virtually… or they are cancelled. I don’t know what to say… if it is a good or bad. Definitely virtual event cannot replace live one and I’ll try to explain why. But with given circumstances, I think that going virtual is the best possible option… on the first place because of our health and not losing community work.

Right now, we have the following situation with all our Dynamics events:

  • First, we will start with D365 Community Summit. It will go virtual instead in Nashville and it will be held in period October 7-9, 2020. Agenda is already ready and if you didn’t register, you can see details and register here.
  • Directions EMEA and Directions Asia, instead of Prague and Bangkok will be organized as a common virtual event in period November 3-5, 2020. More information here.
  • Directions NA, Orlando is unfortunately canceled for this year. But as Directions EMEA and Asia will go virtually, it means there is not any limitations for colleagues from North America to join this even.
  • NAV TechDays is canceled somewhere on the beginning of Corona crisis and we will not have opportunity to meet before next year.

OK, I wanted to explain why I’m not a fan of virtual events… but to be honest it is probably better to have them in comparison with cancelation all these events. With virtual event you can still have an opportunity to listen prepared content and this is good. But… attending conferences is not all about content… content is important of course, but more important is an opportunity to openly ask what you need and not to get an answer only from presenter. You have an opportunity for discussion on sessions, but probably more important during the pauses. All these networking is not possible to be created in a virtual world… minimum it is not possible in this moment. And communication between presenter and attendees actually doesn’t exist in the virtual event. And when I’m talking about all of these, this is not problem only for attendees, it is not inspiring for lecturers as well (it is not the same when you have people in the front of you and when you have camera and laptop).

But again, with these circumstances, this is much better to have virtual events than not having them at all. And I must admit in a few digital events I’ve already participated, organization was really the best possible what somebody can make in a virtual world… and probably beyond my expectations. But again, this is not the same ☹.

And on the end, our hopes for the next year are that we can see each other in a live. I hope we will have much better health situation and we will attend minimum these already scheduled events:

  • Directions Asia, April 15-16, 2021 – Bangkok, Thailand
  • Directions NA, April 25-28, 2021 – San Diego, CA, US
  • Directions EMEA, October 7-9, 2021 – Milan, Italy,
  • NAV TechDays, November 16-19, 2021 – Antwerp, Belgium
  • …and hope others will schedule events soon.

My Sessions during Fall 2019 Conference Season

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This fall I’ll be active and attend to four conferences as lecturer. If you want to see some of my lectures or to meet me, register for some of these events:

BCEE People, Prague – Business Central Roadmap in CEE countries

Directions EMEA, Vienna – Demystifying Posting Groups in Business Central (for partners)

BCUG Summit NA, Orlando – Demystifying Posting Groups in Business Central (for users)

NAV TechDays, Antwerp – Business Central with Power Platform (together with Renato Fajdiga, MVP)

Directions NA 2020 and what we heard

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Directions NA 2019 has just finished and I’m writing this article in a plane on my way to home. It was great opportunity to meet 925 Dynamics professionals and not only from North America. It was amazing event and I’m happy because I had opportunity to speak here. We got a lot interesting information regarding Business Central Spring Release and to listen about experience of implementations of this solution here in US.

If you were there, you know what I’m talking about. If you were not be there, you can find all that news on Microsoft official document here. I’ll only emphasize some facts we hear from Jannik and Claus on a closing session as well as they will have a big impact on a future of BC.

  • In the future, ISV scenarios will include 15 objects for Team Members
  • From July 1st, we will get device license – CSP pricelist = 40USD
  • For On-prem transition to BC, user ratio is changed to 1:3 (for each concurrent user in NAV/GP user, they will get 3 named BC users) and this time this includes limited users as well
  • On-premises partners will get more internal users licenses
  • On-premises license will include one CAL for external accountant and one CAL for a system administrator, the same as we have in a subscription

If you read only these few facts, you can understand how important it is for partners and for clients as well.

We also heard that we will get new certification exams for Business Central functional consultants in FY20 as well as better differentiation through the Cloud Business Applications Competency and/or the Small and Mid-Market Cloud Solutions competency. Also, there will be secondary transition journey for clients who want to stay on-premises and to use cloud benefits or to migrate to the cloud (stay on BREP and purchase Midterm Offer).

And on the end, Directions NA 2020 (April 19-22) will be again in Orlando in Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress and for me it has a special place in my hearth, because in this place a few years ago, I had an opportunity to speak on Direction North America for the very first time.

My Sessions on Directions North America 2019

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Directions Asia has just finished, and we will continue with spring conference season in Dynamics. The next Directions will be in North America in Las Vegas in period May 5-8 in Red Rock Casino Resort & Spa. Registration is still available.

This year I want to show you about benefits of integration with different Dynamics 365 solutions. Why? Generally, I think we have great features in Business Central, but possibility to integrate this solution with other solutions using Azure tools or using different UI are the amazing possibilities. These options are why it is important to have Business Central in Dynamics 365 family.

Because of these reasons, you can find my sessions in agenda. From today (April 12th, the full agenda is available):

How and Why You Should Combine Dynamics 365 for Talent with D365 Business Central (May 7 2019, 8:00am, Room: Veranda B)

‘Dynamics 365 for Talent’ is a new Microsoft Dynamics HCM solution. This solution is available independently or through Unified Operations plan. Because we can use it independently, it is interesting if we can integrate this solution with Business central. You will see how to integrate Talent with Business Central and very important thing – without coding. And of course, you will see different integration options based on different user scenarios.

Using Model-Driven PowerApps with Business Central (May 5 2019, 3:15pm, Room: Red Rock A)

Although on the first sight, there is no so common things between Business Central model driven PowerApps, it can be very useful if we could use it with Business Central. Generally, model driven PowerApps is a tool for CRM development, but there are many reasons why to use it with Business Central. If you want to know why, come to this session to see why to do it and how to do it… and maybe even more. As we expect more and more CRM and ERP solutions in simultaneously work, it can be very interesting.

OK, I will not write more, but if you think these topics are interesting for you, you are welcome on my sessions and see you in Las Vegas.

And of course, my sessions are not only reason to come on Directions 😊. You will find great sessions there… you will see details about Business Central Spring release ’19 as well as amazing sessions by MVP’s and other experts.

Business Central – Spring & Fall ’19 Release

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In my previous post, I’ve introduced you with the news from Directions ASIA and Business Central spring release. As I said in this previous post, there are a lot of improvements. Some of them are on this slide, and as very important improvements in performance, reliability and scalability, we can find that now we have

  • 50% faster Role Center load time
  • 40% faster in Lead to Cash scenarios
  • 2x improvement in RapidStart

Of course, there are a lot of other improvements. I’ve recently had a session about this topic in eXtreme 365, but this time I’ll not write about them, because you can find all of them in the following:

In total, there are more than 100 enhancements and some of them are extremely usable.

But what is also interesting? We got some hints what will be in Fall ’19 release. And as I mentioned yesterday, the first things – there will not be Windows Client and C/SIDE anymore; only Modern Client (web) and AL with VS Code. But in on-prem, you will get full BC code as an app and you can change this code as you used to work with that in old Development Environment. Not exactly the same, but you can do it. But even if you can do it, this is not recommendation as we heard that in one moment in the future we will continue with extensions only even on on-prem. Nobody can say when exactly, but this is a future. Because of that, start with extensions immediately.

Of course, team will continue to improve proficiency, to reduce ISV friction, enhance migration tools, to improve service fundamentals… and now we can see plans for CDS in 2020 and further.

What is not so good information (especially for countries without MS official localization) is that team announce that we can expect expanding localizations after October release, not before that ☹. But on the other side, team will invest in really cool things in this period.


And on the end, Directions NA will come in May and we will see if we have stil something new regarding all these topics.

Directions ASIA 2019 – After Keynote

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Directions ASIA has just started a few hour ago. On a first day keynote, we could hear a lot of interesting information. I’ll start with some numbers. As this is third Directions in Asia, number of attendees still increase every year. This year we have the following statistic:

  • Number of attendees: 453
  • Attendees from 157 companies and from 32 countries
  • Number of sessions: 70
  • Number of speakers: 55 (Microsoft, MVP’s and industry experts)

Now, what we could hear about product and market? Based on showed information, Business Central and NAV together are implemented at 223.000 customers with more than 3.3 million users in 196 countries. Impressive numbers, right? And I really hope, this solution will continue as previously and even better.

As this is announcement of Business Central Spring ’19 release, we can see what is new in this release and the full roadmap for this solution. During keynote, we could see that product team is extremely proud on stability, security and performance. Of course, there is a lot of new features. In my following texts, I’ll write about all these things.

Currently, we could see new roadmap for our solution, and it looks fine:

We can see that system already got a lot of new feature, especially trying to improve user experience. And I can conclude, they really succeed with this.

But if we look in more detailed roadmap, you will find two very important facts. This release will be the last one with Windows Client and with C/SIDE and C/AL.

From October ’19 release, we will have only Modern Client (web client) and VS Code + AL in development side. If you used only BC on a cloud, you will not recognize some difference, but if you used on-prem solution, then it is the right moment to migrate to web client asap. And in development, please start with extensions immediately. But to be honest, in on-prem solution you will still be in situation to change a code, but this time in VS Code using completely BC system as an App. But it will still be much better if you start to move all your customization to extensions.

Of course, there are some other news, but I cannot put everything in one blog post, but you can expect all this news soon.

Dynamics 365 Business Central Updated Roadmap

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A few days ago, after the first day and first keynote of Directions NA, I’ve posted Business Central roadmap. But now after this event has finished, we can find updated roadmap for our NAV successor – Dynamics 365 Business Central and it looks very interesting:

D365BC Roadmap

I’ll wait Directions EMEA to collect all information and write more detailed about this, but from my point of few, big changes are coming in two years and this is the last moment to change some old habits and to continue our journey in modern business applications.

My Dynamics Events Sessions – Fall 2018

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For all of you who want to see what I prepared for this year conference season, I can share that I’ll have sessions on two conferences this fall.

First, I’ll be on BCUG/NAVUG Summit at Phoenix, AZ, US and after that I’ll be on Directions EMEA in the Hague. On both of these conferences, I’ll have the similar sessions – How and Why You Should Combine ‘Dynamics 365 for Talent’ with ‘Dynamics 365 Business Central’ / ‘Dynamics NAV’. But the first one will be more how you can do it if you are user, a the second one how you can do it as partner and how you can make this as a model for the future implementations.

NAVUGDirections.PNG

I already know terms, and it will be Wednesday, October 17 at 2:30 PM – 3:30 PM at BCUG/NAVUG Summit and Wednesday, October 31 at 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM at Directions EMEA. If you like this topic or think this topic can be interesting, join me there.