What MB-800 exam can guarantee?

I wanted to write this article as I recently passed this exam and I wrote about how to prepare yourself. I already mentioned in this article that if you have an experience in BC or NAV, you generally don’t need to prepare for this exam (but it implies you know and understand BC on the cloud). Now I’m not planning to continue in this direction how to prepare for the exam, but I want to discuss about what we can expect as result of passing this exam.

Generally the most of questions as well as case of study will show your real knowledge, but to be honest you can learn it even if you are not experienced and it cannot prove some specific level of knowledge. Of course, there are some questions non related with real implementation process and as a person with 15+ years in implementation I don’t know why someone thins it is important to know some report by heart, but there is not so many such a questions.

What is more important by my opinion is related with this that I personally am not a fan of this new exam models where we have one exam from whole solution. OK, for F&O we have 4 functional exams and there are similar situation with CRM exams, but there much more topics there and personally I think we have a small number of exams even in F&O and CRM areas. But when we talk about BC, I really cannot believe that one who will pass just one common exam can prove some serious knowledge. Generally BC is implemented very often as a big project and you cannot expect universal consultant who can implement all areas.

Based on my experience, we need to have minimum three exams: one core (we can use MB-800 for this) and another for essential features and third one for premium features (+WMS). And OK, we need development exam. In this case if these exams are prepared on the level as this one, they can prove serial knowledge.

Just to clarify, I like this exam, especially as it comes after a couple of years with no certification for NAV and BC. This is really well done job, but I think partners will need more. Currently, when you see that someone passed MB-800, it can guarantee that this person have basic understanding and knowledge of Business Central. It can be a case that this person is an expert, but this is definitely not necessary to pass this exam.

But as my conclusion, I would like to encourage all BC consultants (and developers as well) to try to pass this exam. Generally I think it is a good idea and especially I would like to recommend passing this exam for junior consultants. Preparing for this exam, they can learn something new and consolidate knowledge. Start with Learning Paths as now we have a lot of really good materials there.

Disclaimer: Everything I wrote in this article is my personal point of view and based on my personal experience and opinion. It doesn’t represent any official opinion companies I’m connected with.

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Business Central & Power Platform Exams Experiences

Recently I’ve passed these two new exams: Business Central Functional Consultant Associate and Power Platform App Maker Associate and I would like to share some my experience about them. I’ll try to be brief and just to give you some basic directions.

First I need to admit that I’m not big fan of this kind of certification. Based on my previous experience 10+ year ago, it was more about getting certificate and less about proving a real knowledge. I had an opportunity to meet a lot highly certified persons, but they couldn’t implement even the easiest projects. But still, partners wanted to invest in certification as some kind of knowledge proof.

But with new exams in the last few years things are slightly changed and I had opportunity to check them. But with these two new exams I’m talking about, things improved drastically. And I can say I’m really positive surprised.

First what I want to say is that I didn’t prepare myself for these two exams. And when I say ‘I didn’t prepare’, I mean it for real. I wanted to see if it is possible to pass these exams with real experience and practical knowledge. And I succeed! From my perspective this is the most important fact – if you are waring with these technologies and have a real practical knowledge, you can pass them without any problem. It still means you should be focused on questions as they can sometimes be complicated, especially when it comes to the case studies. I didn’t want to say these exams are easy as they are not, but you don’t need to prepare yourself if you know topics. But to be honest, you can still find a couple of useless questions, you really don’t need in practice, but even if you fail on some of them you will still have big chance to pass exams.

What I want to mention about BC exam is to be prepared with SaaS topics as this is very important. It is not enough to know only features in system, as you need to understand cloud concept as well. On the other side, when we talk about Power Platform, you should know both Canvas and Model-driven Power Apps, Power Automate as well as other Power Platform features (AI, Chat Bots…) and CDS. But this is what we imply with the Power Platform knowledge.

If you are newbie, in this case you need to learn for these exams. But good thing is that if you want to start, you can find everything you will need on the Learning Path site. But one small note, when you start to learn from Learning Paths, I often hear that there are not enough information and some of people often fail on exams. This is because, you need to open every link you have in your learning path as often you can find basic information in this part of text, but when you click on some links, you will be redirected to Microsoft docs site with all necessary information with related topic.

On the end I want to say THANKS to all people involved in preparation these two new exams as they made a good result. And for all of you who didn’t register for these exams, do it… you will not make mistake.

Cloud Partner Competencies and Business Central

You are involved only in Business Central business and now you have Enterprise Resource Planning competency. But this competency is not in the cloud and if you want to get Cloud Business Application competency you can choose one of the options as a two different paths in achieving competencies:

  • Customer Engagements options
  • Unified Operations option

The first one is for CRM partners and the second one is in ERP. But when you read details, this is for Finance, Supply Chain Management, Retail and Talent (F&O) and all required exams are from F&O. If you want to continue only in Business Central and want cloud competency as Business Central is cloud product, you probably don’t know how you can fit with these requirements.

OK before I continue, I need to mention that this is my private text and it doesn’t represent Microsoft official statement, and this is not an announcement. Everything I’m writing here is based on Cecilia Flombaum presentation on the Microsoft Inspire a few days ago. If you want to see whole presentation, session is still available here (first part of presentation is mostly about Partner Contribution Indicator, but you can find BC details from cca 13:30).

She mentioned that we can expect a Business Central differentiation as well as Power Platform differentiation if you are focused only on one of these solutions. That will allow Business Central partner to achieve their silver and/or gold statuses in Cloud Business Application competency.

Currently we don’t know what will be required to achieve competency and statuses and if it will be connected with recently announced BC exam (probably yes).

But Business Central implementers will have one more opportunity – to achieve Small and Midsize Cloud Solutions competency through a Business Central differentiation opportunity. Probably there will be some differences i.e. slightly different threshold.

OK, this is everything we know for now. As sook as we have more information, you can find it on the Microsoft Partner Network.

Business Central Certification Exam and more…

Yesterday on the first day of Microsoft Inspire (this year in digital format), we had an opportunity to see some long time waited news. We will finally have certification exam for Business Central. It will be MB-800 exam – Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Functional Consultant and this exam will be available from October 2020. It will cover the following processes of implementation: set up Business Central, configure Financials, configure Sales and Purchasing, set up operations, and of course how to use Power Platform components. More about the exam here. When you pass this exam, you will become Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Functional Consultant Associate.

But this is not all. We have more news in certifications. As Power Platform takes more and more spaces in solving business issues, we will get two new exams for Power Platform and they will be available from September 2020:

Directions 2016 NAV Conferences

In this moment, we have the final countdown until Dynamics NAV conference season will start. We have 47 days until the opening Directions NA and 64 days until the opening Directions EMEA this year.

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This year Direction NA will be held the first, but Directions EMEA will be only 17 days later and I’m sure we have something new on both of them. Currently we have published agenda only for Directions NA, but I’m pretty sure that agendas will be similar, maybe with only small changes.

I love these conferences and I’m sure you will find a lot of reasons to attend on one of them, depending where you actually live. I think that the most important reasons will be launching of NAV 2017 and Project “Madeira” as well as Dynamics 365. You will find a lot of sessions about news in these new products. You will also learn more about integration with other systems, about using of PowerShell, how to take advantage of using Managed Services, how to improve your knowledge in lot of different areas… Also, you will learn more about project management, user experience, get some real-life experience… You will enjoy in awesome Keynotes … and maybe the most important – meet new people. I think these kind of events are the best places for networking; people are the most important wealth… and you can find and meet a lot of them on these conferences because they are the biggest NAV conferences.

In the same time, you can attend Cloud Sure Step sessions or try to pass new NAV exams powered by Association of Dynamics Professionals. I advice you to try some of these exams; I had participation in some of them and I think they are very good way to prove your expertise.

And finally, I will be lecturer on both of these conferences and I hope I’ll meet a lot of you – amazing people. See you there:

New Dynamics Exams – finally

Finally we’ve started with Dynamics Exams. Currently, there are following exams available:

  • NAV Core Application Setup Certification
  • GP Core Financial Setup & Functionality Certification
  • GP Core Installation & Configuration Certification

As you seen, currently there are only three exams, but we will get new NAV exams in Q2 2016:

  • NAV Core Installation & Configuration Certification
  • NAV Core Development Certification

All these exams are prepared by Association of Dynamics Professionals. The vision of the Association of Dynamics Professionals (DynamicsPro) is that every Dynamics professional recognizes and adheres to high quality and certification standards for all Microsoft Dynamics products. I am part of this project and I think these exams are really good way to approve your knowledge and recognition. I know other people who are involved in these exams preparation and I strongly believe in this. Exams were written by people who know what it takes to have a successful project. They will help consultants deliver excellent service and ensure they meet professional quality standards.

Beginning this month – February, exams will be available on many different location in US and finally in Europe. You can register for exams here. Please take a look and register for the next exam in your area. If you don’t see something in your area, check back often, as DynamicsPro will be adding new exam dates and locations regularly.

Thea are currently available on the following locations, based on the next schedule:

  • Tuesday, February 23, 2016: Houston, Minneapolis, New York, Phoenix
  • Wednesday, March 2, 2016: Atlanta
  • Thursday, March 10, 2016: Las Vegas
  • Tuesday, March 15, 2016: Washington, DC
  • Tuesday, March 22, 2016: Minneapolis, Phoenix
  • Tuesday, March 29, 2016: Netherlands
  • Tuesday, April 5, 2016: Midlands, England
  • Thursday, April 7, 2016: Tampa
  • Tuesday, June 7, 2016: Chicago

You can expect on more location soon. Online exam delivery has been delayed, but it will be available in the future. Be among the first in the industry to prove your knowledge and skills on the latest versions of Microsoft Dynamics NAV and GP through this new certification program.

New Certification Exams for NAV

As you already know, Microsoft has canceled official exams for Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Currently, three exams for NAV still exists, but only for NAV 2013. Microsoft does not want to prepare new exams in future for NAV and GP. But it does not mean that we will have not exams in the future.

Microsoft want to support the launch of the Association of Dynamics Professionals and exams preparation by Community, because certification is an important way for individuals to develop their skills and enhance the value they are able to add to their clients or employers.

In the close future, the Association of Dynamics Professionals will continue with certification exams for NAV and GP. First, we can expect two new exams for NAV 2015 at the fall this year. After that, it will be continued. You can find more about it on http://www.dynamicspro.org/.

About the Association of Dynamics Professionals:

Founded in 2015, the Association of Dynamics Professionals is an independent, not-for-profit membership organization devoted to the Microsoft Dynamics Community. The Association exists to serve its members and to improve the community as a whole through knowledge sharing, education and the establishment of competency standards and assessments.

See you soon with new NAV certification exams…

You can find more about exam here.