Elly Yates-Roberts |
Community Summit North America concluded its conference on 13 October, having celebrated the Microsoft Dynamics 365 community and its technologies over three days of keynotes, sessions, education tracks and more.
During the event, Microsoft partners from across the globe demonstrated their latest solutions that will help users get the most from the Dynamics 365 platform.
Among these was accounting, consulting and technology firm Crowe. Managing director Dan Edwards held a presentation titled, ‘Using Power Automate with Dynamics 365 F&O (AX) Finance and Supply Chain’, where he spoke about connecting Power Automate with Dynamics 365. He cited several examples, showcasing how users can create workflows for new customers that need credit team approval and for new vendors to get tax information, create journal entries from Excel, and integrate Dynamics 365 workflows with Microsoft Teams.
Consulting managing director Staci Kimmell also held a session on lowering costs and moving faster through Dynamics 365 F&O (AX) implementations.
Other exhibitors included Althiya, a 2022 Microsoft Partner of the Year, which demonstrated how it helps customers to implement Dynamics 365 solutions to grow, evolve and transform business; ClickLearn, whose customer success manager Christine Eltz outlined how the firm supports end-users across platforms and services while significantly reducing the time to create learning content; and Insight Software, which highlighted its Jet Reports and Jet Analytics solutions that integrate with Dynamics 365 to help businesses use their data in the format that works for them.
Bill.com – a provider of cloud-based software to automate financial services processes – also showcased its solutions at Community Summit North America. Team members hosted a session which detailed how the firm can help businesses drive efficiency and growth, specifically by using its Intelligent Virtual Assistant (IVA). According to the presenters, IVA can perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, detect duplicate invoices, and learn from the customer’s process and preferences to optimise the process.
The use of Dynamics 365 across back-end financial services processes is widespread, and this was apparent from the number of organisations that demonstrated solutions that are extending the platform in this area. For example, accounting solutions provider Blackline showcased its Microsoft Dynamics 365 Connector. The benefits included more complete and accurate data, greater control and visibility into the movement of data, and deeper connectivity with Dynamics 365.
In addition to financial services, manufacturing and warehousing solutions were popular among the exhibitors. Insight Works’ solution advisor Mark Hamblin led a presentation on streamlining manufacturing processes and warehouse operations, while Wipfli’s Nina Kortas and Steven Chinsky discussed using Power BI to enhance how users interact with data and creating advanced warehousing processes.
enVista also hosted several speaking sessions over the four days, where attendees heard from individuals from enVista, Accenture, Alpha Variance Solutions, Fastpath and Hitachi. They discussed various topics across the Dynamics 365 platform, including integration with Dataverse, the necessity for a ‘War Room’ in enterprise resource planning integrations, warehouse management systems and more.
With data becoming the life blood of business, the topic was well-covered by the event’s showcasing partners. Eone’s Popdock solution, for example, enables users to connect Business Central tables and create complex queries. It also provides a universal interface to filter and work on data, offers access to historical data and embeds Business Central data in other systems.
Other Microsoft partners outlined their customer success stories to showcase their business benefits. Experlogix and its customer Kelly Roofing looked at the challenges of complex selling in today’s fast-paced world, and how the combination of document automation and a configure, price, quote software can simplify and humanise complex products and processes to create a better customer experience.
Community Summit North America 2023 will be held in Charlotte, North Caroline on 15-19 October.