On December 8th we organised another BDC Connection Day.

Almost one hundred people registered and we had a show up of 75%.
The keynote of the evening was hosted by Guus Krabbenborg from PMC. He talked about 'change'. As an ERP or CRM service company you will seriously need to rethink the way you do business if you want to survive in the online world. The Click-Try-Buy possibilities you have on your smartphone will soon reshape the landscape of business applications.
After the keynote we had 3 sessions:

Eric Wauters, Waldo, talked about cloud as well. In his presentation he showcased a deep dive tecnical session on how a windows phone application connects to Windows Azure & Dynamics NAV in the backoffice.
First time ever we hosted a Non Dynamics topic on a Belgian Dynamics Community Event concerning PLM - Product Lifecycle Management. Mr Monsieur, a very enthousiastic and passionate presenter from PTC explained why PLM is much more important than ERP.
Last session was on Dynamics CRM presented by Tim Shaeps, Tim stood up from within our commuynity to present a session. He talked about all novelties that shipped with the recently released R7 update of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011

You can download the content here...

Hope to see you soon at our events.

Kurt

Gartner predicts it: in 2012, BOYD is the next big thing. The nice thing about BYOD is that is much less boring than, for example, Cloud Computing, which is also a Gartner prediction for 2012 (those guys are really smart: I always wonder how are they get so good at predicting new trends I hadn't seen coming at all).

Anyway, BYOD is nice. BYOD is the path to freedom for any employee in 2012:

• Bring your own dog (if you feel lonely)
• Bring your own drugs (if you're addicted)
• Bring you own drink (if your hands feel shaky by 2 PM)
• Bring your own desk (if you work at Microsoft)
• Bring your own detective (if you work  ... hm)

I'm not sure if I forgot one.

When I was updating my Platform Update list (my previous post), I came across an interesting update which I would like to bring to your attention.. .  Very simple, but nice feature - and strange it's added in a build - very silently - very unnoticed...
So, we're talking about build 32843 (KB 2628466), which says:
"A new Create PDF feature is available in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009"
When you're dealing with about 300+ KB articles, that all says "overflow this", "insufficient that", "cannot do this", "system does not do that" .. then something like "a new.." really stands out.
So I tested it .. and approved!  In the newer builds, we have a new PDF command button in the report request page, like you see here:

As Microsoft describes it: This feature enables the report to be printed as a Portable Document Format (PDF) document on the Microsoft Dynamics NAV server and then to be downloaded to the RoleTailored client (RTC) (so now you know how it works in the background :)).  If the Adobe Acrobat is loaded previously, the PDF document can be rendered. Therefore, you can save the document or print the document to a desired printer.

I really do like this feature, because I find it a better "preview" option for documents.
Upgrade, people!

From: Waldo,  Eric Wauters, Ifacto Business Solutions.

Within the Belgian Dynamics Community (BDC) organization we are constantly looking to improve our value towards our 1200+ members and our sponsors.

With this post I am very happy to announce that we have a new back office framework which enables us to communicate with our members thru the renewed BDC newsletter

With this newsletter vehicle we want to share information about the Microsoft Dynamics products and we will talk about experiences, tips & tricks and sharing best practices.

But we also decided to integrating some new topics in the newsletter.

One of them will be BDC book in the spotlight In this topic we will introduce a newly released book on the Microsoft Dynamics business and its underlying technology.

Thanks to the commitment and support of Packt Publishing you will have the opportunity to get 1 copy of this book for free Only requirement for to get this book
is for you to be interactive with us.

And for those who could not win the book, Packt publishing offering our BDC members a 20% discount if you are interested in buying this book. To receive the discount
you need to send a simple email to info@Dynamicscom.be
and we will send you the discount code.

We are very proud about the first edition of the BDC book in the spotlight� because it is created by one of our members, Steven Renders, an experienced Trainer on Microsoft
Dynamics NAV.

He wrote a book about Professional reporting in NAV2009

The requirement for you to win this book :
The third message which appears in our mailbox which proofs he or she evangelizes the December 8th session thru his social network (facebook or linkedin) will receive a copy!

Thursday November 8 we have an exciting Connection Day planned with three hot topics. Guus Krabbenborg, partner in Dutch based consulting company Partner Master Class will be talking about delivering Dynamics in the cloud, Eric Wauters will inform you on how to integrate NAV 2009 R2 on Windows phone 7 and Tim Schaeps from Cap Gemini will talk about all the new tricks that CRM R7 can do. Stephan Monsieur of PTC asks the question weither PLC is more important than erp.

We might believe software is cold and unemotional (developed by people with no feelings who have no personal life). I think this statement is wrong.

Apart from negative feelings (all to often) associated with using an ERP or CRM solution, I think there can and must be some kind of beauty in a software product. Both developers and users should be open to that beauty.

Most software products or add-ons are the result several man-years of development efforts. Maybe it takes as much human intelligence and sweat to build a software solution than a car. So why not put some beauty in something that takes so much of our time?

The users of the software, from their side, also have the right to enjoy the beauty of their software. Many spend several hours a day behind their Microsoft Dynamics screen - more than behind the wheel of their BMW or hot Alfa.

So, please God, open our eyes to the beauty of the delicate semi-transparent greyshade in a screen header. Of the way a new window pops up. Of how the fields in a customer card are nicely balanced. Of the well chosen font in a title header.

In this world where everything is measured against 'productivity', beauty is what will make the difference.

PS: beauty and ugliness are also in the hardware. Especially if you look at the back side (thanks for the angry feedback. this is a blog after all):

During the Connection Day of september 27th U2U gave a keynote about what to expect in the newly announced windows 8. View or download the presentation here.

The Connection Day on september 27th hosted a presentation bij Infront's Roeland Goossens and Maarten Verhaert about the info that was presented during the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2011 and its impact on the Belgian Dynamics CRM channel. The slide deck can be viewed and downloaded here.

The first videos of Windows 8 have popped up on the web so we thought it would be nice for the Dynamics community to see what there favorite apps might run on in the very near future. Sign up for the Connection Day on tuesday September 27th here! See what its all about in this video 'Building Windows 8'.

We are BACK! Yes, we are back to bring you a year of excitement, information, networking, adventure and ... well, that' about it! Sounds good, doesn' it?!

We would like to invite you for the first Connection Days of BDC's new Fiscal Year - This will be held on Tuesday September 27 starting at 6PM. Read on for the juicy agenda!

Alle filmpjes van de Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2011 staan online. Wil je dus nog iets opnieuw bekijken of beluisteren dan kan dat via deze link http://digitalwpc.com/Videos/VideoFilters/year-2011#fbid=x-i2GHTJiN7

Het zijn er héél wat, even zoeken op de pagina naar 'DYN' helpt om de Dynamics-gerelateerde items te vinden.

We had a great time at our annual event, and since pictures never lie so did you!

With the Worldwide Partner Conference 2011 knocking on the door we take a look at some numbers about NAV of about 12 months ago. During the previous Worldwide Partner Conference in Washington Microsoft threw around some numbers about Dynamics NAV worldwide. We hope to revisit them, and see some great improvements when the WPC 2011 hits of in LA on july 10th.

So here are the 2010 numbers:

• 78.000 users
• 1.4 million concurrent users
• 3.700 certified partners
• over 2.000 add-ons
• of wich over 130 CfMD
• 40 localised NAV-versions