Microsoft reIMAGINE 2016 - Day 2

Microsoft reIMAGINE 2016 hosted by Dynamic Communities is now over, but I did not want to let this week go by without giving you an account of my experiences at the conference, which sure brought a lot of surprises to all the partners in attendance.

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Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Well Day 1, was certainly jammed packed with activities for David and I. Today however, was more of a transition day, where I would get to attend a few sessions, along with presenting one of my own.

I started out the day with Understanding Workflow and Document Attach, presented by Theresa Nistler, Senior Program Manager at Microsoft. Frankly, I neglected learning the initial versions of Workflow, but Dynamics GP 2016 certainly rocks and new and improved version of it, with easy configuration and a slick integration to the Document Attach feature, which I have implemented a few times. It was also good for me to attend this session, as I have a development project that involves integrating with Workflow, to improve some of our product capabilities here at Mekorma.

Following Theresa's session, it was time for me to go get setup to present my session, Dynamics GP Web Client Infrastructure and Troubleshooting. While I have presented web client sessions at previous conferences, as recent as Amplify, this session was totally new in its content and reach, as it was geared toward technical and consulting folks. My approach to this session was fundamentally exploring the web client architecture and infrastructure, all the while showcasing some of the tools I use to troubleshoot issues when installing and deploying the application.

Next off was some lunch with my coworkers, Lee Butenhoff and Jay Manley at Spitfire Bar &Grill, to discuss some of our most immediate project needs and deliverables. Having time with the guys in Fargo was awesome as we don't get to have these face to face exchanges that often, so to the tune of awesome ribs and fountain drinks, we went over all that we needed to accomplish after reIMAGINE.

Apparently, I had walked away from my session leaving my cell phone at the podium. Although the thought of losing once cellphone is always scary, I was pretty sure it would be delivered to the proper hands, so back at the Microsoft campus, I ran into Shanna Hensch from Dynamic Communities, who already was looking for me to turn over the phone back to me.

I made sure all was cool with my phone and to my surprise, I came across this fantastic selfie featuring the beautiful Tonya Anderson, Global Partner Engagement Manager at Dynamic Communities, who thought it would be fun to snap herself for posterity.

Tonya Anderson

At 2:45 PM, I decided to attend the session Custom Workflow Creation with Vince Guzik, Senior Software Engineer at Microsoft. Vince's presentation was a no nonsense display of how to rapidly create custom workflows with Dexterity, by using API functions created in the Dynamics GP dictionary for this purpose. A constant definition, a couple script procedure calls, and voila! A custom workflow! The real kicker is that existing Microsoft Dynamics GP workflows can be extended to include custom fields from other dictionaries, minimizing the need for from the ground up workflows.

Following the afternoon sessions, we had planned to have dinner among the Mekorma developers in attendance and go bar hopping in downtown Fargo, as part of the ISV sponsored Pub Crawl, so I went back to the hotel to change off and meet Jay and David downstairs to leave.

NOTE: Although David is not an official Mekorma employee, he works with us on special projects and we distribute his products worldwide, as part of the arrangements we have with Winthrop Development Consultants, so he's an integral part of the team.

Jay Manley, Lee Butenhoff, David Musgrave, and Mariano Gomez

Jay and Lee, being the locals, selected Rustica Eatery & Tavern in Moorhead, MN, just across the Red River from Fargo. Rustica is a great spot serving creative American fare in one room and artisan pizzas & beer in the other. The atmosphere in this place is upscale without being pretentious and the food is to die for.

On the way out to the pub crawl, David decided he needed to have a picture with Jay's Hummer H2, on the parking deck.

David Musgrave and Hummer H2

Our next stop would be downtown Fargo, just a few minutes from Rustica, where we had dinner. To note also, the keynote was taking place at the Fargo theater, but this year we decided not to attend in favor of the pub crawl. I have to admit that coming to Fargo at the beginning of Autumn is really fantastic. The weather couldn't be any better and the city is just a vibrant place.

Fargo Downtown

Fargo Theater

 Another view of the same street (Broadway N).

While the pub crawl would take us to several spots, our group decided to target Pickled Parrot sponsored by Njevity, Dempsey's Public House sponsored by Binary Stream, and Sazerac Alley sponsored by Greenshades Software. At the end of the evening, we decided to settle for Pickled Parrot - Big up to Njevity for throwing a really cool party!

Until next post!

MG.-
Mariano Gomez, MVP