I'm catching up and am now writing about "today", day 3 at GP Tech 2019. My previous posts from the other days are here:

The third day of the conference is always a short one - a half day of content and for some, various meetings or simply a chance to start the journey home early. By the time this day rolls around, even though it's short, most people are feeling a little brain-dead, and I'm no exception to that!

Using On-Prem Data with Power Platform

The continuation of sessions around Power Platform concluded today with a step back by Mariano Gomez on what other kinds of things are possible when connecting Dynamics GP on-prem to the cloud applications that make up Power Platform.

Rather than a "hands-on" format, this was demo-style and Mariano covered 3 different demos:

  • Using Microsoft Forms to send a survey to new GP customers based on a Flow triggered by adding a new customer in Dynamics GP.
  • Using a Microsoft Forms trigger to update Dynamics GP from a customer contact info update form, with approvals.
  • A PowerApps solution he built using AI to read certain utility bills (phone, internet, cable etc.), extract the content and push it to Dynamics GP Payables.

The one that resonated most with me was the middle one, something outside of Dynamics GP triggering a quasi-workflow type of scenario where data was getting updated in Dynamics GP but only after someone approved it via email. It gives me ideas for several other scenarios where that could be useful.

Advanced Word Templates

This was my last session of the day (even though there was another time slot after this). The aforementioned Leslie Vail was presenting this and again, she was the best person to present it. She went into a deep dive into the various things a user can do and how to do them via the Word Templates in Dynamics GP.

I'm looking forward to reviewing her slide deck and supporting materials for this one as there are lots of references there, just like she did a tremendous job of documenting the User Defined Functions in GP Report Writer.

Lunch with friends

I skipped the last session of the day and attempted to sit down and write some of these blogs. I was soon joined by Belinda Allen and then shortly after by Kim Peterson and Annette Brown. Most people were starting to grab lunch by this point and looking for places to eat and there were few places with tables to do that!

Terry Heley (Microsoft) dropped by and said hi to us all. I hadn't seen her at all this week yet and when she mentioned meeting Shawn Dorward for lunch downstairs, I invited myself (haha!). It was nice to catch up with her and Taylor joined us as well. Shawn and Taylor dropped me back off at my hotel after that which was a bonus.

Dinner with friends

If there's a theme this week, it's meals with friends whether old or new ones. A bunch of us were all travelling through Minneapolis airport to our various destinations and all of us had 3-hour layovers so we agreed to meet for dinner in the airport. There were 7 of us altogether and we ended up split into 2 groups but coincidentally ended up at the same place - Black Sheep. It's a pizza joint and fits the bill for this evening's dinner!

Recap

That's it for this trip and this conference. I'm about to board for my final flight home and I'll get to YYZ about 11:30 pm EST this evening, and in bed by probably 1:00 am tomorrow by the time I drive home. I'll sleep well tonight! I've decided to take tomorrow off to catch up on admin and on Friday am volunteering at Habitat for Humanity for the day to finish off my week.

Many of the people who were at GP Tech will be seeing each other in a few weeks at the GPUG Summit in Orlando but I won't be attending that one. I chose between this and that and the smaller, partner-focused event is always my first choice.

Until next time!