#CONV15 – Convergence 2015 Atlanta – Day 2

I was exhausted already and it was only Day 2 of the Convergence 2015 conference.

As there were no sessions Mariano and I planned to attend first thing in the morning, we started the day a bit later. The downside is that the morning traffic had built up by the time we left and so it took a bit longer to get into Downtown Atlanta.

Once we got to the Georgia World Congress Center, we went to the Speaker Workroom to make final preparations for customisation session later in the day. Not very exciting, but it did help make the session better for those who attended.

At the CSG024-R1: Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015: Customizing the user interface session as Mariano and I were getting our machines setup and the audio guy was wiring the microphones for us, I noticed someone in the audience with writing on their shirt that looked like it had my name on it.

I had to stop and investigate further. It turned out that Steven Vallarian, knowing that I was negotiating with Microsoft for the rights to the Support Debugging Tool, Menus for Visual Studio Tools and SnapShot, had got a number of t-shirts made up with the wording “Free David Musgrave’s Code”.

David Musgrave and Steven Vallarian with the Free David Musgrave’s Code shirts

Thanks to Steven, a few lucky people have one of these rare shirts. While I loved the thought that went into the shirts, the negotiations with Microsoft had already been successful by the time Convergence started. This meant that Beat Bucher’s #FreeCode hash tag, did not really trend on Twitter. However, it did provide everyone with a laugh. Thanks Steven for the shirts and for putting a smile on many faces.

After that the session went very well, with brief explanations of the strengths and weaknesses of each of the options for customizing the Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 user interface. We covered Modifier & Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), Visual Studio Tools (VST), Modifier with VST instead of VBA and Dexterity. We had demos of each tool in action, but due to time constraints, only discussed the code at the conceptual level. The source code for these demos will be posted soon on this blog and Mariano’s blog.

The message for this part of the session was that there are many options available to you and you can mix and match the tools to find the best solution for your customization.

We also surprised people by including a couple of demos for the new Service Based Architecture functionality added to Dexterity for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015. We showed posting a batch via a web service call and pulling data into a Project Sienna application.

The message here is that you no longer have just limit yourself to customizing the user interface, but you can now extend the user interface into other environments and devices using REST based web services.

Thank-you to everyone who came to the session, especially those who answered questions or came up afterwards to ask questions or say hello. Hope you enjoyed the Tim Tams.

After the session, I had a meeting to go to, but wanted to see if I could find Pam Misialek. Pam was my contact at Microsoft for the software code negotiations and I had to give her one of Steven’s t-shirts. While looking for her, I found Chad Sogge, who had always been supportive of giving me the code for the products I developed. I thought it appropriate for him to have a shirt as well.

Chad Sogge showing his support. Thanks Chad

Chad told me that Pam was in a particular room, so stuck my head in the room to see if she was free…. Only to be spotted and called to the front of the room by Mark Polino, just before they started the popular DDG101: Excel, Excel, Excel. An Excel Shootout session. I had time to wave to everyone, give Pam the t-shirt (without an explanation, which confused her as the code was already “free”) and make a quick exit.

After my meeting, I went back to the Expo and continued visiting the various exhibitors. Sadly, I ran out of time and the Expo closed after I had only been there a little while.

I caught up with Mariano and we headed back to the Omni Hotel Lobby bar to relax and chat with other attendees and presenters. While there I caught up with the eOne Solutions team who are always ready to have their photo taken.

eOne Solutions team, including my ex-Microsoftie pal Patrick “Superman” Roth

After a few drinks, Mariano and I sat down at the Omni Hotel’s Prime Meridian restaurant (just next to the lobby bar) to have some dinner before the Rock-n-Rave party. Just after we sat down, Cindy and Tanya (who were at our customisation session) came in and were going to sit at another table. As much as I enjoy Mariano’s company, dinner would be much more interesting with additional people, so I asked them to join us. They are much prettier than Mariano anyway.

Dinner: Mariano Gomez, Cindy Reeves, Tanya Markwith and David Musgrave

After dinner we headed over to the Rock-n-Rave party which had a zombie theme to it this year. Thanks to the sponsors of the party: http://www.rock-n-rave.com/sponsors/

John Lowther and Mike McDowell: One is ugly and the other is a zombie

 
Rock-n-Rave party at Georgia Railroad Freight Depot

 
Zombies don’t scare me … much

 
Craig Klapman and Ora Goldman scare Ora’s daughter

Mariano and I did not stay too late as we needed to be awake for the repeat of our customization session the next day.

David

This article was originally posted on http://www.winthropdc.com/blog.