The Dynamics GP Blogster

Day 3: April 12, 2011 Today started with David and I meeting in the Speaker Room catching up on the previous days activities. Of course, if you want to blog about what's going on at Convergence, while you have sessions to present, it is absolutely necessary to isolate yourself from the rest of the world - sort of! So, on we both went catching up with our blogs for the major part of the morning. However, we did take the opportunity to overview the samples we would present in the afternoon at our deep dive session, DDGP03 Microsoft Dynamics GP Customization & Integration Tools Review . After catching up with our blogs and presentation, we went down to the Community & Learning Center where we ran across a few of my long time Fargo friends in Support and Microsoft Professional Services. Emily Roen (MS Professional Services), Mariano Gomez On the way out to room A-305 where we would be presenting our session, we ran across Kim Peterson form GPUG who was kind e...

Day 2: April 11, 2011 The morning was exhilarating with the keynote and General Session  being the main attractions. It was now time to visit the Expo Hall and see some of the exciting solutions and meet some of the people that make the Microsoft Dynamics product family a success. Convergence Expo Hall On our way around the Expo we caught up with our friend Constance Quigley at Q Factor Consulting. David Musgrave, Constance Quigley (QFactor Consulting), Mariano Gomez We also caught up with Mr-larger-than-life-Italiano Gianmarco Salzano of Reporting Central , the people who make your subsidiary ledgers balance to the T with your General Ledger. Gianmarco also gave us a pair of shirts like the one he is wearing in the picture. Gianmarco Salzano @ Reporting Central It was time for lunch. My stomach was really clamoring for some food. As it is customary, David went off to the back of the hall, to the Specially Prepared Meals area to get some food suitable to h...

Day 2: April 11, 2011 Between GPUG's DayONE and Convergence General Reception , it was clear that week was lining up to be very exciting. Today, I decided to ride the MARTA train to the event as I had to drop the kids off to school and traffic coming out of the past week's Spring break would be at its craziest. MARTA train I was a bit late for the opening keynote, but got there when Microsoft's CEO Steve Balmer was presenting some real life customer deployments of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 - customers in the TAP program - and announced general availability for August 2011. Microsoft's CEO, Steve Balmer Corporate VP, Kirill Tatarinov introduced the new Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 with its substantially improved Role Center Silverlight interface. The demos on AX centered around usability, policy based data and transaction entry based on built-in organizational controls, and overall integration of ERP technologies with other Microsoft products. M...

Day 1: April 10, 2011 After spending time with attendees answering questions at our GPUG DayONE session , UBGP15 Ask the Experts: Microsoft Dynamics GP Development Tools , it was now time to go have some fun and comingle with the crowd attending this year's Convergence. I had the chance to catch up with my fellow IntellPartners  cohorst and exchange impressions from the event. In addition, it was just time to sit down, have a beer, and really enjoy the beautiful evening. From left to right, MVP Frank Hamelly (EVP, IntellPartners), David Musgrave (Microsoft Corp), Ted Mauldin (CEO, IntellPartners) The venue couldn't be anymore original. Microsoft chose to host the opening reception at the Georgia Aquarium  - the world largest aquarium - and World of Coca Cola museum, two of the most recognizable landmarks in the Atlanta Metro area. Convergence General Reception  It was also time to catch up with the newest addition to the Microsoft Dynamics GP blogging communi...

DayONE: April 10, 2011 Today marks the GPUG DayONE event at Microsoft Dynamics Convergence Atlanta 2011. I can tell you that the my anxiety levels are climbing, but at the same time I am very happy to be a part of this event. I drove down to the Georgia World Congress Center and went straight to complete my registration, then walked over to the Omni Hotel to pickup David and return to the GWCC so he could complete his registration - No badges, no access! The DayONE pre-conference event started out with Kim Peterson opening the General Session. Kim did an awesome job leading the opening and turning it over to Andy Hafer, president of GPUG. Kim Peterson @ GPUG's Welcoming General Session Andy outlined the "Andy's 6-pack for success" for Convergence, which focuses on using the event for networking and building relationships in the community, all the while holding yourself and your organization accountable for achieving results.  Town Hall session . From ...

Day -1: April 9, 2011 We are just a day away from the official Microsoft Dynamics Convergence Atlanta 2011 registration and reception. Our day started very early, with David packing his stuff to check into the Omni Hotel, where he will be staying for the duration of the Conference. Once at the hotel, we dropped off his luggage and went to meet with Microsoft MVP and certified trainer, Leslie Vail , who would be helping us as usual with our timing and making sense of our presentation delivery approach. Leslie keeps us real! We joined Leslie for breakfast at the Embassy Suites hotel where she is staying. Breakfast was all about catching up and prepping ourselves mentally for the grueling day ahead. We were joined by Sheila Jefferson-Russ and the conversation somehow diverted to comparing smartphones - iPhone vs Windows Phone 7 vs Blackberry - their memory management capabilities, and ability to add memory cards without having to destroy the phone to do so. Breakfast ended an...

Day -3: April 7, 2011 The previous day was clearly very agitated for David and I - him traveling from Australia and me, returning from Florida. We both had a bit of an extended night's rest. Nonetheless, we got up and decided to start the morning relatively slow, by having breakfast at one of the oldest diners in North Fulton County, Alpha Soda , where we begin planning the flow of our presentation delivery: the jokes, the dialog, the main pointers, etc. Once breakfast was over, David and I went to visit my friend Ron Trochelmann, over at Performing Imports , a nationally recogined leader in BMW high-performance modifications, as well as unmatched service, maintenance, and repairs. Of course, Ron was extremely busy running some software updates on his car. Ron running some software upgrades on his 2011 BMW 750i It's interesting to see how software powers the world. A car as sophisticated as a BMW is considered a Computer on Wheels and requires as many service packs ...