My Quest to Dynamics 365 Saturday Stockholm

Recently I attended the Dynamics 365 Saturday event in Stockholm and I have to say, what an excellent event. I have never been to Stockholm, so I was already massively excited about this. I also got to meet a load of new people for the first time which was AMAZING!

These events are so important for the community because they are often the only opportunities some of the community members really have to interact with other customers, partners ISVs and Microsoft employees. I love running into people that have encountered the same issues as I have, that way I know I’m not going bonkers and we can work on a solution together.

The crowd was great! There were many enthusiastic people in the audience who were really getting involved in the sessions, looking for information and really testing all of the speakers knowledge. You can find the list of sessions and speakers HERE.

I big reason I really enjoyed this event was the different layers and levels of content being shared across the sessions. The sessions were split into three tracks, these being:

Applications (Dynamics 365 CE), Dev (Dynamics 365 CE) and Business & Project Management. This gave participants the opportunity to stick to a single, themed, track or weave between tracks. This is pretty much how my experience went. I went to at least 1 session from each track. I wanted to get a flavour for everything. I also got to see some wizardry from folks like Julie Yack, Gus Gonzalez, Nick Doelman and Gustaf Westerlund.

Other presenters and panellists included Sara Lagerquist, Jonas Rapp, Fredrik Niederud, Katherine Hogseth, Mark Smith and Antti Pajunen. Each delivering some amazing content based on their experiences with Dynamics 365 and Power Platform.

There was a plethora of information and content being shared between speakers and passionate attendees. Everything from Microsoft Portals and Social Engagement to developing your own XrmToolBox tools (Careful with the spelling here….HAHA) was being talked about. I personally got involved in a number of Power Platform conversations, which suited me just fine because that’s kinda what I’m doing at the moment.

I had the pleasure of running 2 sessions. One in the Application track and one in the Dev track (I am no developer… Don’t judge me). The 2 sessions were:

1. Power Platform – How it all fits together (Download Here)
2. Building your first Canvas App with CDS, and Azure (Download Here)

Apparently people don’t like the first 2 rows.. great crowd though! Thanks to everyone that attended. Try work out what Mark is doing in the background there! HAHA!

The first presentation focused on the different elements of the Power Platform and the way it all works together. Many Dynamics 365 users often worry a bit about this because it seems so large and complicated, but it really isn’t once you have wrapped your head around the different technologies. To highlight the way the different elements of the technology worked together I included a Roadside Assist demonstration that was created during the PowerApps & CDS Hackathon Those Dynamics Guys and Hitachi Solutions Europe hosted together.

My second presentation consisted some of the “Do’s and Don’ts” around building your first Canvas App with your customer. I followed the presentation with the following:

1. Adding several fields to a custom entity in the Common Data Service (CDS)
2. Importing some data
3. Creating a new canvas app
4. Connecting the Canvas app to the CDS
5. Adding in the Azure translation service to the app
6. Publishing the app

The actual canvas app I created with the little model driven app solution, including data is available HERE.

The below pic gives of the impression that I am about to start having a conversation with my own hand, like an invisible Muppet. May be a great trick for my next demo 

One of the BEST sessions that I have been in was the "CAGE MATCH" moderated by the one and only Julie Yack,  This was EPIC fun! We were split into teams of 5 and given problems by the audience to resolve. It was a little daunting being in the presence of some of these long time MVPs, BUT, THE SHOW MUST GO ON, so we got stuck right in. Unfortunately, the team I was in didn't take the win :( Its cool, I am preparing my battle cards for the next one!

All in All, it was a fantastic event and a great opportunity to network with this amazing Dynamics and power Platform community that we all have grown to know and learn from. A MASSIVE thank you to the sponsors of the event!

Also, a big thanks to all of the folks that hung out after the event and enjoyed several beverages with me. Was a great time and I’d love to do it again J

Here are some more delightful images from the day :) My camera skills aren't great so i had to grab a few from social. Thanks to those that grabbed pics in my session! I hope that this encourages more people to attend these events because I genuinely gain so much from being there.