Hey folks!
I hope you're all well and enjoying the month of February...or at least looking forward to March! I... went to Disneyland (I mean Microsoft HQ), so I'm all good for February.
I do have a roadtrip to Cheshire and Wakefield planned next weekend to visit some friends, so I'm definitely looking forward to that. There are, however, no events booked in my calendar for March so I better make this write-up a top-notch read to get you through to the next one.
So I went to the Reading UKD365PPUG all-day event on the 22nd of February...
Exciting!
Yes, it was exciting for me. A long old day, but a great one.
I was buzzing about using my 'event write-up planner' template that I'd created, for the first time.
I couldn't wait to meet up with friends and meet new friends.
I was chuffed about the concept of going to Microsoft HQ - if you hadn't gathered by now.
And always eager to learn some new stuff.
I love events, I can't help it.
The one thing that did break me a little, was the time I had to wake up. I woke up at 4 am, to leave the house by 5 am so that I could get there without hitting any traffic. We all know (or may not know) that the m25 is a terrific nightmare and I worked out that the difference of even half an hour could add another 1.5 hours to my journey if I wasn't careful. This journey already takes 2 hours by the way. So 4 am it was.
It was a dark, rainy, and fog-filled morning...
And Reading roads stress...me...out...
I used to live in Reading and couldn't believe what I'd done when I started driving around it. It's especially intense in the dark when it's raining.
I think I should get the medal for first to arrive at the event! Some others may say I need my head examined but a medal will be fine, thanks.
I arrived before the woman who opened up the building arrived.
And, I was welcomed by the guy on the carpark barrier comms with the question; are you 'the crazy eager person attending the Microsoft conference?'.
There was no way I could deny it. I was there at 7 am for an event that started at half 8...
I had a little nap.
If I hadn't, everyone would have been asking me all day, if I was ok. :)
So! 8.30 am happened.
I went in, saw Andrew Bibby, followed him to the conference rooms, sat down, and started prepping my event planner. I was in my happy place.
Getting organised whilst eating biscuits.
First over was...Paul Murana. Then Jon Russell and Bill Irvine.
Then followed Chris Huntingford and EY Kalman. Great bunch! Chris appeared and then disappeared as he needed to build his slide deck for his talk...which was in a few hours time.
I gave Paul his Tech Trump Card and stupidly chose the moment others were around to do it, which sparked many a jealous look. Jon it's ok I won't name names.
I did go to Jon's session instead of Paul's though, so he couldn't be sad for long. But although I missed Paul's session, I did hear that his slides were amazing.
I saw my wonderful friend and colleague, Sumit Kumar and went to say hello, then I gave Chris Huntingford his Tech Trump Card and he returned the favour by taking a terrible photo of me.
And so it began...
We went and sat down in the (2 becomes 1) conference room and Mr Bibby kicked of the show! He gave an introduction to the User Group, the event and also mentioned the date and location of the next one...8th June in London, Paddington.
There will also be a chance for new speakers to get involved! I was extremely happy about this, as I really want to up my experience of speaking at public events and even gett into the practice of coming up with topics of interest.
[So for those that aren't aware, the sign-up for the D365PPUG events is on meetup.com]
Andrew was also kind enough to remind Paul Murana that he is booked in for a session in April, and he also checked in on how Chris Huntingford was doing with his slide deck (still writing them).
Some useful links that Andrew mentioned were:
2023 Release Wave 1
Mark Oburoh (generally known as Mark O) did a fantastic overview of the release wave 1 features. I can't believe he managed to fit it all into 60mins, but he did!
Something I appreciate about Mark is the energy and passion that comes across when he speaks about Microsoft products. For those of you that don't know Mark, he works for Microsoft and is a really friendly and approachable guy - you can find him on LinkedIn - Mark (thatguymarko) Oburoh | LinkedIn. I met him at the South Coast Summit during the Digital Contact Centre workshop and he has a lot of banter and really knows his stuff.
My key takeaways:
✎ D365 Customer Service updates-
New look for the CS Workspace app.
✎ Customer Insights-
Timeline is now automatically embedded into forms rather than having to manually add it.
✎ D365 Marketing-
OOTB (B2B) dashboard.
✎ Power Apps-
Fluent UI for canvas apps and model driven apps. Fonts, borders, colours, shadows and test engine.
✎ Power Automate-
Multiple approvals and stages, if one person rejects, then the approval is cancelled.
AI/ChatGPT allows you to describe your flow and have it built for you.
✎ Power Virtual Agent-
Adaptive Card enhancements.
Activity and event triggers.
Sentiment analysis.
✎ Viva Sales-
ChatGPT now helps to write email responses during a sale.
✎ Chat GPT-
ChatGPT can improve code, explain code, and add comments to code.
Some useful links that Mark mentioned:
It was a good start to the day and set a great standard for the rest of the event to live up to.
For the rest of the blog post, I'm going to summarise only 3 of my favourite sessions, otherwise, you'll be here reading all day long with the amount I write.
Elena Baeva-how to inspire, attract and nurture more women in the D365 community
This session was probably my favourite... Elena is the Founder and CEO of 365 Talent Portal, International Vice President of IAMCP, and also used to work for Microsoft. She can be found on LinkedIn - Elena Baeva | LinkedIn so definitely follow her profile. Elena's profile features tip videos, blog posts, and courses on how to improve hiring processes, how to transition to tech roles, and how to be more inclusive.
I think Elena has become a new role model of mine.
At the end of the session, the people in the room, (mostly ladies, but I was really happy to see a few men in there) ended up having a discussion and sharing their thoughts and experiences. I loved this and decided to jump out of my comfort zone and join in. Elena passed the mic to me and I nearly landed on my backside when sitting back down - I didn't realise the seats shot back up once you had stood up. Nearly made a fool of myself!
The session mentioned role models and shining a light on women who are already in the tech industry so that those who aren't can see that it's possible to change careers even if you don't come from a tech background.
I found this to be a great opportunity to mention my Tech Trump Card initiative to the group. This is exactly what my initiative is about! Not just for women, but for all those who don't know; what help is out there, who has made it in a role they would love to be in, how to get their name out there, how to enter the tech industry, or don't feel like they could, OR SHOULD!
The response was lovely...
Especially from Areti Iles, who I got to have a nice chat with after. It still takes me by surprise when someone I've never met before, says that they have been following the Tech Trump Cards for a while and love them. It brings me so much joy. Someone asked how they could get in touch with me about it and I was like...'Oh, I don't know!'
After telling them my name and my blog name and hoping that would be enough, I then made a QR code for my mobile lock screen.And it worked a treat! [Just a little tip there for those that find themselves in a similar situation]
Anyway, sorry, back to Elena.
My key takeaways:
✏ People like to work in inclusive teams.
✏ Women like to be around other women.
✏ Customers like diverse organisations.
✏ The industry is changing.
✏ Things to consider in order to improve the current situation-
Hiring processes - rethink them
Allyship - Diversity and inclusion
Network - LinkedIn
Become a role model - share your stories
✏ Hiring -
Remove essential requirements from job descriptions.
Update job description templates so that they are relevant to the job being advertised.
✏ Retaining employees -
Consider the following:
Flexibility
Advancing opportunities
Wellbeing
Personal leave for mental health
Support for miscarriages
Menopause (female employees)
Care of adults
Parental responsibilities
Menstruation (female employees)
Mentoring
Manager support
The helpful links that Elena mentioned:
Women in Dynamics | Directions 4 Partners - sign the pledge.
Next up was Jon Russell, talking about his journey with the Power Platform
I'm starting this one with this photo, because it sums up Jon perfectly.
Jon is a top bloke. A really nice fella. And it's lovely that he's sharing his story regarding his experiences with mental health and how the Power Platform helped him with this journey. I personally can relate to this type of topic so I just had to attend.
I heard someone say to Jon at this event that he's a 'natural born speaker' and they're right. It's like he's just having a conversation with friends. Obviously, if this was just a conversation, we would be wondering why Jon has been talking about himself for a whole 45 mins. Jeez Jon, let us get a word in!
Kidding. ;)
I feel like there should be more talks like this, rather than just tech talks - don't get me wrong, I do love to learn about tech. It would almost be good though if the story sessions could be paired up at the same time without any tech talks on during those slots, so that everyone feels encouraged to attend at least one talk about someone else's experiences. The tech heavy talks sometimes dominate attendance over the story sessions, and I feel like it would benefit people to hear about others that make up our community.
Jon started by giving us an overview of his timeline and said he was sparing everyone the details of his birth, which was nice of him. He spoke about how he used to work for the BBC, Siemens, and Amazon before hitting burnout around 2018/19.
Jon bravely showed everyone a photo of himself when he was feeling at his worst and then a photo of him now since finding his way to the Power Platform. I think this is an incredibly powerful thing to do and I tip my hat off to him for doing it.
Jon continued to explain how he found a silver lining from the challenge that was the pandemic - he was able to build himself back up during this time and also went on to use SharePoint and Power Automate to support the vulnerable in his community and this gave him a real sense of accomplishment and purpose.
Jon proves this as he has since become a mental health first aider and is always happy to listen to others.
Whilst being a consultant, Jon has started a blog and found his passion for user stories. He mentioned that he feels like he's really connecting with the customers when working through user stories with them.
Finally, Jon mentioned the #HowAreYou challenge.
If you ever get a chance to chat with Jon, please do, you won't regret it. He can be found on LinkedIn - Jon Russell | LinkedIn
Then it was lunch!!
I got to speak to Elena Baeva and EY Kalman about being a speaker/blogger and inspiring people in the tech industry.
Then I caught glimpse of Sam Saunders and had a chat with him for a bit. I promptly explained after our chat that I was just heading out to eat my chicken salad in the car. As you do.
During some of the other breaks, I got a chance to speak to the awesome AJ Zafar, which I really enjoyed.
I was also lucky enough to have a good chat with Bill Irvine. We have been like passing ships at various events, so it was nice to get to know each other finally. And I had the pleasure of meeting his team too. One member of the team was Mo Islam, who I'd already hung out with before. It was great to see him again.
And Sharon Smith! She made it!
Tim Leung - as he gave top tips on how to save data with canvas apps like a pro
I enjoyed Tim's session. He mentioned at the beginning that he had found that 25% of the forum questions were to do with saving data and that's why he was doing this session.
Tim's agenda included the following:
Saving data with forms
-Setting default values, make fields non-editable on edit
-Save calculated values
Saving data with formula and Patch
-Updating multiple rows
-Creating editable grids
Combining forms and Patch
-Creating multi-step/wizard input forms
-Saving copies of records
Some of the things that Tim showed us, I had never thought about before. And yet, they seemed simple and in some cases, obvious. There are so many commands and different Power FX formulas knocking about today, that it's easy to miss some of the most helpful ones. It's not until a session like this comes a long and provides a good level of teaching, so that beginners, as well as...those... not beginning...can learn something.
My key takeaways:
✐ Form capabilities-
Basic built in validation
Detect unsaved changes
File attachment data types
Visual
Can handle OnFailure and OnSuccess conditions
[Form].Mode
[Form].Valid
[Form].UnSaved
[Form].ErrorKind
[Form].Error
[Form].Updates
[Form].LastSubmit
✐ Updating multiple records matching certain criteria.
How to call UpdateIf-
//1- Update multiple records where create date <1/1/2021
UpdateIf(Issues, CreatedDate < Date(2021,1,1), IssueStatus:IssueStatus.Cancelled))
//2- Updating records with matching Dataverse GUID
UpdateIf(Issues, Issue in
["6B29FC40-CA47-1067-B31D-00DD010662DA",
"8AED8824-67EC-423D-B4E6-EB924267F9AC",
"3B07258B-B256-492F-90CD-FE3BCD2F79D0"], (IssueStatus:IssueStatus.Cancelled))How to use ForAll-
ForAll (SourceTable, FormulaToRepeatForEachRow)
ForAll (GalleryItemsThatHaveChanged, PatchChangedItem)The ForAll function, loops through each row of the SourceTable and executes the FormulaToRepeatForEachRow for each row. This allows you to perform the same set of operations on each row of data in a table or collection without having to write the same code multiple times.
✐ Update the status of the records that have been patched and ticked, with the status selected in the dropdown
UpdateIf(Issues, Issue in Filter(gal_Patching_Issues.AllItems,
chk_Patching_IssuesSelected.Value=true).Issue,
{IssueStatus:drp_Patching_Status.Selected.Value})✐ Update the "Clients" table with changes made in two different forms and navigate the user to a success screen.
Set(varAddedRecord, Patch(Clients, frm_HybridF1_ClientFormPart1.Updates,
frm_HybridF2_ClientFormPart2.Updates)); Navigate('Success Clients')The Updates property of each form contains the changes made to the data source in that form. So, the Patch() function combines the changes made in both forms and updates the "Clients" table accordingly.
Ok, so my failing was that I didn't manage to record every single thing that Tim said. I 100% know that he mentioned so many other super handy tips, but I found the info that I did absorb (above) to be very interesting (I hope I've relayed it correctly) and I look forward to giving them a try in future builds. Hopefully the above gives you a bit of an insight into the kind of content you can expect from Tim at future events. And I highly recommend to anyone that they go to Tim's sessions, I definitely will be.
Some useful links related to what Tim spoke about:
At the end of the day...
During the 'Ask us anything' session, I spotted Lewis Baybutt and gave him his Tech Trump Card. He's super lovely.
I got nabbed for a quick chat by Erfan at the front door, which was nice. Erfan has been super supportive of my activity on LinkedIn, so it was great to finally meet him in person.
When I got home, I was wiped out! For several days.
I had such a good time though and it has sparked something in me for some future activities, so watch this space...
A great many thanks to Andrew Bibby, the other organisers and the speakers for pulling off a great event and sessions!
Well that's it!
Another beast of a write-up, but I hope you like it.
Please share this, and like it, and comment!
I will leave you with this photo board..............
