User Group Summit Conference – Worth Considering for Next Year

Having just returned from the Dynamics User Group conference in Tampa, FL called Summit I think I can speak for all the Encore clients and team members in attendance that it was a resounding success!

If you are not familiar with Summit you should understand this conference combined the User Groups for Dynamics AX, NAV, GP and CRM this year in one city and one expo hall for a combined total of over 6500 attendees. Breakout sessions were split between 3 venues but all were within proximity and walking distance of each other.  Even though you may have registered as a NAV user for example, you had the freedom and flexibility to attend sessions in the AX, GP or CRM track if a topic interested you. This ability to cross over was very well received and allowed attendees to reap the benefits of topics / solutions they may not otherwise have considered. One such topic this year was Power BI.  Power BI is becoming such a hot topic that a new user group has been created called PBIUG.

In prior years, Encore encouraged clients to attend the premier Microsoft customer conference called Convergence. Since this conference no longer exists we encourage you to familiarize yourself with the User Groups and consider Summit the conference to plan to attend.

As a veteran attendee to these events I love to hear what peers and clients take away from the experience. Here are a few of the comments I heard this year:

• The Pre-Conference Training Academy courses were great – well worth the extra time and effort.
• There are so many great sessions to choose from; I needed more teammates here to take in all the material we need to learn about for our organization.
• The Hands-on Lab was incredible; I spent a whole afternoon in there. They kept giving me different scenarios and I worked through them all afternoon. It was great learning for me.
• I’ve been using Dynamics GP for 15 years and I just learned it has Fixed Allocation functionality that is going to save my Accounts Payable people hours of work.
• There are so many reporting options, I was confused which ones would be best for me, but by the end of the week I had a good grasp on how I should proceed.
• We never heard about Summit until we read about it in an Encore newsletter; what a great find. We are so glad we attended.

It is typical for Dynamics user organizations to question the value of conferences but there is no denying the quality of the presentations, the networking opportunities, and the chance to meet with exhibitors firsthand to make it a worthwhile investment.

It is an exceptional relationship-building venue and a lot of fun. You can’t work hard all day absorbing all this new information and not decompress somehow. Laughter is best for that and the Encore team loves to laugh!

Plan to join us next year in Nashville, TN, October 10-13 at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center.  We don’t think you will regret it!