Learning & Growing at Summit, the Dynamics Conference

This October was my first time going to the Dynamics User Group Conference, Summit.  I was not really sure what to expect as I had never been to a conference that size, or to Nashville, TN. Now that I have been there, I see that there are so many great reasons to attend Summit:

• Breakout sessions – Learning new things
• Expo Hall – See what is available from other vendors
• Team building – spending more time with your co-workers
• Meeting clients and other contacts
• Travelling to a new place and checking out the night life

Sessions

I was registered as a GPUG member but was able to attend sessions for other User Groups like NAVUG as well. There was a wide range of topics from entry-level introductory topics to more advanced and hands-on sessions where you can follow along on computers and try out the techniques being shown.

The opening sessions were very informative and showed the roadmap for your product and showcased a few new features for the upcoming release.

I attended two sessions on NAV Administration (101 and a 102) where they talked about best practices for backing up and restoring your data, user maintenance and disaster recovery. The 102 session went deeper into ensuring that everything is running correctly and about the things to check in SQL server management studio.

PowerShell hands-on lab was probably my favourite since I was interested in learning more about this topic. The fact that it was hands-on was great, I could try some things out during the class. They also had handout material so that you could try it out again when you get home and didn’t forget everything that you had learned!

Blurring the lines between Power BI and SQL reporting was another good session. The speaker was comparing and contrasting both products and showed how Power BI has come a long way and is a lot more interactive than traditional SSRS reports.

The Expo Hall

I was surprised by the size of the expo hall. There were so many vendors and booths, it was hard to check it all out. I was also working at the Encore booth and this is where I got to meet some of our customers for the first time. I also went to dinner with some of them and had a better chance to speak with them personally.

Team Building

Summit was a good opportunity to spend more time than usual with my co-workers and meet some Encore employees that work in various locations that I have talked to but never met in person. We all worked together to setup the booth and make sure that everything was ready to go for the Expo hall. We also found some time of course to head to Downtown Nashville and check out a few of the parties!

All in all, it was a wonderful experience, and now I feel I have more of a personal relationship with people I work with regularly. I could hardly wait to get home and share the things I had learned! The Summit Conference gave me ideas for so many things to look into and learn more about. If you have any questions about this or other Dynamics conferences, please contact us.