Microsoft Convergence Atlanta 2015: GPPC PreGame

Hi everyone and welcome to Microsoft Convergence 2015 from the beautiful city of Atlanta, Georgia, my hometown. I really like that Convergence has called Atlanta home 4 out of the past 5 years - it also makes it pretty convenient for me to attend while sleeping in the best hotel in town: my home!

Microsoft Convergence 2015 welcome banner at Georgia Wold Congress Center

After not much convincing, David accepted my invitation to stay to be a guest for the duration of Convergence. As such, my jobs is to also make sure we get to and from the convention center on time for the numerous commitments we have this week.

On of those commitments involves attending the PreGame 2015 event hosted by Dynamic Partner Connections, held at the Westin Peachtree Plaza hotel. If you are familiar with this Downtown Atlanta landmark, you will remember it was severely damaged during the 2008 Atlanta tornado outbreak and having to replace over 5600 windows during the renovation process.

David Musgrave and Shanna Hensch

After registering for the event, we both caught up some good ol' friends of ours and had a chance to exchange pleasantries.

From left to right: David Musgrave, John Lowther, Belinda Allen, Kim Peterson, Mariano Gomez, and Bob McAdam

While I had a session to present at PreGame, I took the opportunity to attend a 1:00 PM session, Using CRM, Office 365, Azure, and the cloud to turbocharge sales moderated by Errol Schoenfish.

Errol Schoenfish

In this session the panel conducted an interactive discussion and heard from partners that have accelerated their sales process to accommodate an ever changing sales environment. These partners are also delivering and deploying Microsoft Dynamics GP in a Cloud first world to both new and existing customers.

After the session was over, I quickly returned to the Congress Center to attend the Dynamics GP General Session rehearsal. It's always exciting to catch up with my many Microsofties from Fargo, North Dakota.

Brian Mayer and Jodi Christiansen

It's always cool to see the amount of prep work from the Audio and Video engineering technical staff to make these events and presentations go as smooth as possible. The guys are really engaging and always willing to accommodate pretty much any request as it relates to device connectivity and interfacing to the systems.

Add caption

Unfortunately, a confusion in schedules prevented me from participating in the actual rehearsal since tech check was being conducted from 3 - 4 PM, which encroached on my PreGame session at 4:00 PM. So, I left around 3:30 and back to the Westin.

My session, Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 Installation and Configuration began with sharp at 4:00, with 10 partners in attendance in the room. We walked through the Microsoft Dynamics GP architecture and its evolution to today's Web Components, including web client and Service Based Architecture. We had a chance to conduct a full install of Microsoft Dynamics GP, working through the different screens, but unfortunately, ran out of time to address Web Client implementation in full. Since Service Based Architecture depends on having a domain environment, we could not install it either. Nonetheless, a good effort was made to explain the process and what can to expect during the installation.

The session went over the allotted 2 hours and ran until 6:30 PM. I really thank the attendees for gutting it out until then. However, this type of class is suited for a half-day or full-day format.

Up next was the partner reception hosted by Microsoft on the 8th floor of the Westin. After partaking and exchanging pleasantries with many fellow business partners in attendance, it was time to attend the MVP Mingle event.

Partner Reception

The MVP Mingle is a partner sponsored event. We count with the support of FastPath, which specializes in security access and segregation of duties monitoring and compliance, and Data Masons, which develops integrated EDI solutions for the Microsoft Dynamics ERP products.

MVP Mingle

The FastPath Team: Jeff Soelberg, Liz Piteo, Nate Boettcher, Trish Boccuti, and Andy Snook

The MVP Mingle was hosted at STATS Food + Drinks, which has some great appetizers and a good selection of local, national, and foreign brews.

Having a 7:30 AM GP General Session rehearsal meant that it was time to wrap up early and drive home to get some rest for the next day.

Until next post!

MG.-
Mariano Gomez, MVP
Intelligent Partnerships, LLC
http://www.intelligentpartnerships.com/