Podcast appearances and mentions of nick doelman

We had an amazing time at the Nordic Summit 2024 at the Hub in Oslo. Ulrikke has been part of the planning committee and was a part of the opening keynote. Nick and Ulrikke were some of the hosts for the Nordic Summit podcast during the event but also made sure to attend some of the many amazing sessions.  The sessions we talked aboutHow to destroy your Power Pages site in 5 easy steps by Morten Krosby-SætherStreamlining environment lifecycles with Power Platform CLI & Azure DevOps by Yannick ReekmansMy Red Cross on Power Pages with Ulrikke Akerbæk, Ida Holdhus, Magnus JacobsenPlug-In to the Future: Low-Code vs. Pro-Code Showdown in Dataverse, with Wilmer Alcivar and Ben den BlankenIt's Power Automate not Power Integrate

PACX resourcesHow to (quickly) set Dataverse table icons - DEV Community by Riccardo GregoriPACX ⁓ an open source, extendable, add-on for Power Platform CLIHome · neronotte/Greg.Xrm.Command Wiki · GitHub Other NewsMeeting cost calculator

News William Dorrington

Julie and Jason took the Biz Apps Classroom to Denver to talk training and learning at DynamicsCon Live 2024. Our guest on this live, in-person episode is Nick Doelman, a Microsoft MVP and former Microsoft employee. AI was all over the conference, and we start by taking on the question of Microsoft Copilot's role in developing Microsoft technology training. Nick shares his perspective on the strengths and weaknesses of today's tools for creating learning plans, classroom training, and self-learning activities. His experiences point to Copilot as a tool, not a solution, and he explains why he still has trust issues with the technology. Nick also shares a recent experience of asking Copilot to develop a syllabus for a client. He had to balance the potential time saved, the skills a Microsoft consultant needs to properly review such AI output, and the risks of some people leaning too heavily on these tools.  Resources:  Power Platform Boost Podcast: https://powerplatformboost.buzzsprout.com/  MSDW's DynamicsCon Live 2024 coverage: https://msdynamicsworld.com/tags/dynamicscon-may-2024 See all Biz Apps Classrooms episodes here: https://msdynamicsworld.com/biz-apps-classroom Support the podcast and get a discount on an annual plan for 365.training by visiting  https://365l.ink/MSDW. Keep up with community content at https://mydigest.365.training/

We had an amazing time at the Color Cloud Conference last week. What an event! We are practically jumping up and down with excitement; this event is all the things a community event is all about! :D Well done to the organizers! As we try to recap a fantastic week, we talk about the Color Challenge on Wednesday, where we colored our hair for charity. Nick had a Power Pages workshop on Thursday, and Ulrikke helped out. The speaker dinner was a bit out of the ordinary, and one we will remember for a long while. Friday was conference day, and we learned a lot about the future of Power Platform and AI, strategy, and how it will affect our jobs.  Speaker dinner Drag CabaretPulverfass Cabaret: Powder Keg Cabaret (pulverfasscabaret.de) Our day at ColorCloud Hamburg 2024Keynote by Ryan CunninghamRachel Irabor - "Unlocking CRM Potential with Power Platform Magic"Panel with Andrew Welch, Ana Inés Urrutia de Souza, Ana Welch, Chris Huntingford, Nick Doelman, and William Dorrington moderated by AJ Zafar - "AI Unboxed: Everything You Wanted to Know""Ask Me Anything" by Ryan CunninghamProject Sophia"I want to become your companion — A different

In Episode 104 of the XrmToolCast, Daryl and Scott talk to Nick Doelman, former BizApps MVP about his experiences being an MVP, moving to Microsoft and then leaving to follow his passion for Power Platform training. Some of the highlights: Scott reveals the not-so-secret news of him moving to work for Microsoft Daryl and Scott might have secret matching tattoos Nick has had to pay for his first conference What it's like transitioning from an MVP to a ‘blue badge' Nick provides insider info on the pros and cons of working at Microsoft Shout-out to The Power Platform Boost Podcast Nick's Info: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickdoelman X-Twitter: https://twitter.com/readyxrm Blog: https://readyxrm.blog Power Platform Boost Podcast: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@powerplatformboost X-Twitter: https://twitter.com/powerplatboost Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/powerplatboost LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/powerplatboost Got questions? Have your own tool you'd like to share? Have a suggestion for a future episode, or like a shout-out? Contact Daryl and Scott at cast@xrmtoolbox.com. Follow us on LinkedIn and @XrmToolCast for updates on future episodes. Do you want to see us too? Subscribe to our YouTube channel to view the last episodes. Don't forget to rate and leave a review for this show at Podchaser. Your hosts: Daryl LaBar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daryllabar | @ddlabar Scott Durow: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottdurow | @ScottDurow Editor: Linn Zaw Win: https://www.linkedin.com/in/linnzawwin  | @LinnZawWin Music: https://www.purple-planet.com

Episode 122: Markus Erlandsson has a chat with Nick Doelman from Microsoft about Power Apps Portals to Power Pages, and what the key changes are. Nick starts by summarizing some recent news then explains the name change to Poages and goes through some of the news in the upcoming 2023 release wave 1. Bio Nick … Continue reading Portals to Pages with Nick Doelman The post Portals to Pages with Nick Doelman first appeared on CRM Rocks.

Long, long time ago, in the universe far away, Nick Doelman and Colin Vermeer had a dream of making a podcast about ADX Portals, I mean Dynamics 365 Portals, I mean Power Apps portals, I mean Power Pages that would rival the entire Microsoft's media department. As often is the case, Microsoft decided to put an end to it by buying out hiring the entire population of Canada both. In this episode of Refresh the Cache we talk to Nick Doelman about his journey from a humble IT guy to MVP to a portal go-to trainer, and now chief explainer senior content developer on Microsoft docs team. Why the move, how did it change the work/life balance, what did Nick do for Canada (unlike his football team) - those are just some of the things we talk about. We talk pretty much about everything except curling. Which is a shame if you ask me. Get in touch voice@crm.audio Nick Hayduk @Engineered_Code George Doubinski @georgedude Nick Doelman @readyxrm Artwork by @dreamstudioai

Episode 109: Markus Erlandsson and Heidi Neuhauser talks to Nick Doelman from Microsoft about Portals and the last year news for Power Apps Portals. From enablers such as Web API, PCF components and CLI to multiple portals, data verse search and progressive web apps. Bio Nick has recently joined Microsoft as a senior content developer … Continue reading Portals and Progressive web apps with Nick Doelman The post Portals and Progressive web apps with Nick Doelman first appeared on CRM Rocks.

Mark and Iain talk to the first family of Power Platform Pro-Wrestling. Nick Doelman, Matt Beard and Paddy Byrne join the podcast to talk about their passion for wrestling.  This is the longest podcast yet so enjoy

Colin Vermander @koolin_ Nick Doelman @readyxrm Nicholas Hayduk @Engineered_Code Configure Azure AD B2C Provider: https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-apps-portals-configure-azure-ad-b2c-provider-for-portals-in-a-new-way-preview/ JQuery Update: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4594428/portal-9-2-10-x-breaking AlexaCRM: https://alexacrm.com/ Portal Connector: https://www.crmportalconnector.com/ Sponsored by 365.Training

Colin Vermander @koolin_ Nick Doelman @readyxrm Nicholas Hayduk @Engineered_Code Configure Azure AD B2C Provider: https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-apps-portals-configure-azure-ad-b2c-provider-for-portals-in-a-new-way-preview/ JQuery Update: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4594428/portal-9-2-10-x-breaking AlexaCRM: https://alexacrm.com/ Portal Connector: https://www.crmportalconnector.com/ Sponsored by 365.Training

Nick, Colin and Nick discuss the recent Fall into Portals Virtual Conference and recap the incredible content. Fall into Portals Recording: https://365.training/Courses/Detail/Fall_PowerAppsPortals Content Publishing on Portals using multi-language: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6EDgqgk9G8&t=317s Colin Vermander @koolin_ Nick Doelman @readyxrm Nicholas Hayduk @Engineered_Code Sponsored by 365.Training

Nick, Colin and Nick discuss the recent Fall into Portals Virtual Conference and recap the incredible content. Fall into Portals Recording: https://365.training/Courses/Detail/Fall_PowerAppsPortals Content Publishing on Portals using multi-language: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6EDgqgk9G8&t=317s Colin Vermander @koolin_ Nick Doelman @readyxrm Nicholas Hayduk @Engineered_Code Sponsored by 365.Training

Colin, Nick and Nick are back from summer vacation and chat about the portals WebAPI currently in public preview. Portals WebAPI (Microsoft Docs) 2020 is the year of virtual conferences, and Power Apps portals are no exception with Power Portals Saturday and Fall/Spring into Portals conferences. Power Portals Saturday (YouTube Playlist) Fall into Portals Colin Vermander @koolin_ Nick Doelman @readyxrm Nicholas Hayduk @Engineered_Code Sponsored by 365.Training

Colin, Nick and Nick are back from summer vacation and chat about the portals WebAPI currently in public preview. Portals WebAPI (Microsoft Docs) 2020 is the year of virtual conferences, and Power Apps portals are no exception with Power Portals Saturday and Fall/Spring into Portals conferences. Power Portals Saturday (YouTube Playlist) Fall into Portals Colin Vermander @koolin_ Nick Doelman @readyxrm Nicholas Hayduk @Engineered_Code Sponsored by 365.Training

Nick, Nick and Colin practice social distancing and chat from their home offices about MVP summit, Web Forms, Virtual Entities, Local Authentication and other Power Apps Portals stuff. Show notes: Colin's post on web forms: https://colinvermander.com/2020/03/09/power-apps-portals-web-form-ideas-desired-improvements/ Nick Hayduk's Portals Community Call: https://www.engineeredcode.com/portals-community-call Nick Doelman's Power Apps Portals online class: https://powerplatformlearning.newzenler.com?affiliate=rVj6rb Colin Vermander @koolin_ Nicholas Hayduk @Engineered_Code Nick Doelman @readyxrm

Markus Erlandsson talks to Nick Doelman about Power Apps Portals and how they are evolving. Nick starts with explaining a bit of the recent history from Adx Portals to Dynamics Portals to the new Power Apps Portals. Then he continues to the new designer and how you can use portals in both consumer and business relationships, … Continue reading Power Apps Portals with Nick Doelman

This episode is brought to you by Maplytics by Inogic. Next week is User Group Summit 2019, and to help get ready we have Nick Doelman, Darly LaBar, Jonas Rapp, Jim Novak, and Sara Lagerquist join Joel Lindstrom and George Doubinski to talk about their sessions. Even if you aren't attending the conference, you will learn something from this episode, as each panelist shares some of the tips that they are going to present in their sessions. Sessions mentioned on this episode: Unit Testing for C# Dynamics 365 CE/CRM/CDS Developers (https://www.eventscribe.com/2019/summit-orlando/fsPopup.asp?Mode=presInfo&PresentationID=566088) Monday, October 14 8:00 AM – 5:00 PMDEV07 - Creating a Plugin With Unit Tests From Scratch (https://www.eventscribe.com/2019/summit-orlando/fsPopup.asp?Mode=presInfo&PresentationID=583252) Thursday, October 17 9:30 AM – 10:30 AMDEV09 - Ask the Experts, CRM Developer Edition! (https://www.eventscribe.com/2019/summit-orlando/fsPopup.asp?Mode=presInfo&PresentationID=583254) Thursday, October 17 4:15 PM – 5:15 PMADM23 - Top 10 Free Tools for CRM Admins and Functional Consultants (https://www.eventscribe.com/2019/summit-orlando/fsPopup.asp?Mode=presInfo&PresentationID=583255) Friday, October 18 1:15 PM – 2:15 PMUI10 - Deep Dive into Model Driven Forms JS for Non Developers(https://www.eventscribe.com/2019/summit-orlando/fsPopup.asp?Mode=presInfo&PresentationID=583253) Friday, October 18 2:30 PM – 3:30 PM DEV03 - Developing XrmToolBox Tools https://www.eventscribe.com/2019/summit-orlando/fsPopup.asp?embedded=true&pfp=D365CEcrm&Mode=presInfo&PresentationID=583336 DEV08 - Working With Liquid Templates in Dynamics Portals https://www.eventscribe.com/2019/summit-orlando/fsPopup.asp?embedded=true&pfp=D365CEcrm&Mode=presInfo&PresentationID=583335 PP11 - Building Canvas Apps - Time to Jump on the Bandwagon https://www.eventscribe.com/2019/summit-orlando/fsPopup.asp?Mode=presInfo&PresentationID=583381   NAAP06 - 5 Steps to Create PowerApps for Any Device https://www.eventscribe.com/2019/summit-orlando/fsPopup.asp?Mode=presInfo&PresentationID=583382   EXCE03 - Let's Build an XrmToolBox Tool! https://www.eventscribe.com/2019/summit-orlando/fsPopup.asp?Mode=presInfo&PresentationID=583380   DEV07 - Creating a Plugin With Unit Tests From Scratch https://www.eventscribe.com/2019/summit-orlando/fsPopup.asp?Mode=presInfo&PresentationID=583252 ADM15 - Improve Your Dynamics 365 Data Quality With a PowerApp https://cdmcd.co/Rz6Z4   UI04 - Tips to Help Drive an Aggressive CRM Roadmap at Your Organization https://cdmcd.co/baqKJ Music: Ben Vollmer Song

This episode of Refresh the Cache is brought to you by Kingswaysoft. Colin Vermander and Nick Doelman dig in to the PowerApps portals announcements--is the something new or the same Dynamics 365 portals that we know and love? Download the release plan here. Music: purple-planet.com  

This episode of Refresh the Cache is brought to you by Kingswaysoft. Colin Vermander and Nick Doelman dig in to the PowerApps portals announcements--is the something new or the same Dynamics 365 portals that we know and love? Download the release plan here. Music: purple-planet.com  

Today on the Power Platform Daily Brief (brought to you by KingswaySoft):  Mark & Iain run down the latest blogs and YouTube videos they have come across Links Neil Parkhurst https://neilparkhurst.com/2019/05/17/introducing-the-omni-channel-engagement-hub/ Jimmy Novak https://futurezconsulting.com/2019/05/21/solution-layering/ Phil Topness http://dynamics365blogs.com/magic-8-ball-in-powerapps-canvas-components-device-accelerometer-youtube/ Nick Doelman https://readyxrm.blog/2019/02/24/replacing-a-dynamics-365-dialog-with-an-embedded-canvas-powerapp/amp/?__twitter_impression=true Music: www.purple-planet.com

Neil is joined by co-host Dermot Ryan to discuss when Microsoft Dynamics customers and partners should consider hiring a scrum master or agile coach for their project. What is an agile coach and how is this role different from a scrum master? A scrum master is a coach for the development team, the product owner and the organisation. Dermot reckons a scrum master can coach up to three teams. An agile coach focuses on coaching the organisation. The growth and agile mindset of the leadership team and the organisation’s digital transformation. An agile coach is familiar with many agile frameworks and tools in addition to Scrum. Some agile coaches also coach scrum masters as well as leadership teams. Dermot’s coaching both! Should Microsoft customers hire an independent scrum master or rely on their Microsoft partner to provide a scrum master for their Dynamics 365 project? Dermot’s advice is that smaller customers embarking on a single project should engage a Microsoft partner with a good scrum master, but if the Dynamics project is partner of a broader digital transformation programme than an independent agile coach is a good investment. Should Microsoft customers hire an independent product owner? After a little consideration, Neil begins to agree with Dermot that an independent product owner can when the person is trusted by the client, knows the organisation well, and is given some time to ‘bed in’ to the project. Can Microsoft partners send their project managers to a Scrum training course and ask them to become a scrum master on their next project? It’s a loaded question for Dermot! It’s tough for project managers to become a scrum master on their first Scrum project. The project manager won’t have a mentor to help them adopt Scrum. This will leave the project manager, the scrum team and the client short-changed. Neil partnered with another Microsoft partner organisation, CIBER UK, on his first Scrum project and they provided an experienced scrum master, Paul Fox, to coach the team through their first scrum project. Investing in outside help through your first Scrum project was a worthwhile idea. Having the get-up-and-go to just try Scrum without any coaching is risky but it can work. Nick Doelman is an example of a Dynamics 365 expert whose teams adopted Scrum without hiring an experienced scrum master to coach them through their first Scrum projects. What are the characteristics you should look for when hiring an agile coach or scrum master? Dermot asks scrum masters situational questions about examples of how to handle difficult team members, when they’ve displayed servant leadership, how they’ve helped product owners prioritise their epics, what metrics they track and what they do with those metrics. He’d ask agile coaches what’s the difference between an agile coach and scrum master. What examples do they have of leading digital transformation programmes, how they have uplifted the capabilities of agile teams, and what agile frameworks they are familiar with and how they’ve leveraged them. And what other coaches do they follow and how do they keep their own experience up-to-date? Neil has seen scrum master candidates asked to facilitate a retrospective without ever having met the team before, and one interviewer who asks scrum masters what they think the most important scrum event is. Are certifications important in candidate scrum masters and agile coaches? Some candidates have a long list of certifications but very little practical experience. A few certifications balanced with practical experience is what Dermot and Neil both prefer to see in a candidate. It’s more important that a scrum master can apply the Scrum framework than having certifications about it. Dermot also likes to see agile coaches and scrum masters involved with the community, who get involved in local meetups and conferences. But it’s not the be-all-and-end-all either. Technical skills in software development and Dynamics 365 can help. Dermot has relied on his software development background to understand the challenges facing his Dynamics 365 teams.

Neil is joined by Nick Doelman (@ReadyXRM) who shares his experience learning Scrum and applying it to one of his recent Dynamics 365 projects. During the episode we cover: Nick’s background in Dynamics 365 since CRM 1.0 beta Some of his recent projects for a community organisation organising summer camps, classic car auctioneer, certification portal for a company in the mining industry, a telecommunications company in the Caribbean, a reinsurance company, and others Before starting a large Dynamics 365 implementation, Nick got started with Scrum by taking some online training courses Using the Scrum Framework on Pluralsight Introduction to Scrum for Dynamics 365 by Neil Benson Using planning poker for team estimation of product backlog items Finding unicorns and sunshine in the sprint retrospective Daily scrums as camaraderie-building check-in for remote teams The possibility of using pair programming and other technical practices in Scrum projects Using Visual Studio Team Services features such as tags in Scrum projects Nick will be presenting three sessions at D365UG Summit in Phoenix in October Remember to download the Scrum Terms Worksheet for a handy guide to all the Scrum terms you hear in this episode.

Today's episode is hosted by Michael Ochs, a Dynamics 365 MVP and veteran developer. Mike was joined by 4 of the best Dynamics 365 developers in the world. Tune in to hear them discuss a variety of deeply technical topics and share their best practices and favorite tools. Guests: Michael Ochs: https://twitter.com/MikeFactorial Daryl LaBar: https://twitter.com/ddlabar Nick Doelman: https://twitter.com/readyxrm Andrew Butenko: https://twitter.com/a33ik Jason Lattimer: https://twitter.com/JLattimer

We were in Austin, TX attending eXtreme 365 and the keynote focused on what we can expect in 2019 from the world of Microsoft Business Applications and the Power Platform. We took some time to reflect on all the changes that have happened over the last 3 years, and see how many things we know and love today were only dreams or perhaps unimaginable back in 2015. Which made us think, where will we be 3 years from now? Can we make predictions about what will happen by the end of 2021? Well, five CRM MVPs took on this challenge and made predictions on what will happen within the next 3 years. Some can only be labeled as outrageous or impossible. Some we all agreed are just around the corner. Each MVP was instructed to write 2 predictions privately and reveal them live during the recording. All of the predictions and reactions you are about to hear are raw and real! My Guests: Steve Mordue: https://twitter.com/stevemordue Jonas Rapp: https://twitter.com/rappen Jerry Weinstock: https://twitter.com/crminnovation Nick Doelman: https://twitter.com/readyxrm  

In today's episode of the portals podcast (brought to you by Maplytics by Inogic), Colin Vermander and Nick Doelman talk about how to learn Dynamics 365 Portals In this episode: Updates from recent D365 Saturday events Upcoming events Training resources for portals Links: Microsoft Docs portal documentation: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/customer-engagement/portals/administer-manage-portal-dynamics-365 Dynamics Community: https://community.dynamics.com/search#q=portal&sort=&defaultAskForumId=0&pi56441=1&group=57&groupVisible=3 Create a trial: https://trials.dynamics.com Elaiza Benitez portal tutorials on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=benitezhere+portals Nick Hayduk's Engineered Code Blog: https://www.engineeredcode.com/blog/category/crm-portals Got questions about portals for Nick and Colin? Email voice@crm.audio. This episode is a production of Dynamic Podcasts LLC. Subscribe to the  CRM Audio network of podcasts on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

In today's episode of the portals podcast (brought to you by Maplytics by Inogic), Colin Vermander and Nick Doelman talk about how to learn Dynamics 365 Portals In this episode: Updates from recent D365 Saturday events Upcoming events Training resources for portals Links: Microsoft Docs portal documentation: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/customer-engagement/portals/administer-manage-portal-dynamics-365 Dynamics Community: https://community.dynamics.com/search#q=portal&sort=&defaultAskForumId=0&pi56441=1&group=57&groupVisible=3 Create a trial: https://trials.dynamics.com Elaiza Benitez portal tutorials on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=benitezhere+portals Nick Hayduk's Engineered Code Blog: https://www.engineeredcode.com/blog/category/crm-portals Got questions about portals for Nick and Colin? Email voice@crm.audio. This episode is a production of Dynamic Podcasts LLC. Subscribe to the  CRM Audio network of podcasts on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Yes, I know, I made up a new term, "Currentcy". I am sure there is a better word for what I am thinking, but I have already typed this one, and changing it at this stage of the game, would simply require too much effort. But probably not as much effort as writing this whole paragraph to justify it, but now I've gone and done that, so there is really no going back now. So let's talk about Currentcy. The other side of the Mirror I have been spouting off quite a bit lately, about the evolution of Microsoft Business Applications, and partners needing to get up-to-speed. No small topic to be sure, and one that will be crucial to Microsoft's success with growing our mutual customer base. What I have not spoken about as much, is the view of all of this massive "change", from the existing customers standpoint. It seems they are not nearly as excited as we are. Congratulations! You've been force upgraded from Hamburger to Lobster! But I'm allergic to shellfish! The concept of keeping instances current, and ultimately everyone on the same version, has clear value to Microsoft and its Partners. With the rapid advancement of the platform, supporting old versions is just not an area where any of us wants to invest our precious time and resources. I mean, we're in a damn race here... against... well... everybody. For new customers, the "story" looks pretty amazing, for existing customers... not so much. I feel the earth move under my feet When Microsoft launched Dynamics CRM Online back in 2011, a fair number of customers jumped on the bandwagon. The growth trajectory has been pretty steady since. Customers paid us, and other partners, a lot of money to customize their instances to fit their needs over the years. But I don't know that enough of them grasped the difference between on-premise vs. SaaS, beyond the subscription vs. perpetual cost aspects. I don't think they fully appreciated what "out of their control" means. Many customers invested large sums of money, building mission critical applications, on top of a tectonic plate. This is not a Microsoft issue, it is a SaaS issue, and the entire world is racing to SaaS as fast as they can. Businesses today, will need to have flexible knees. Buyer's Remorse You know that feeling you get, when you see the new model of your 3 year-old car, at a stoplight? Wow! They completely redesigned it! It looks so modern; faster and more powerful, yet with better gas mileage, and the new tech they added is incredible. Suddenly looking back at your car, it seems like a piece of shit, even though you were perfectly happy with it.... yesterday! That's it, I'm trading it in on a new one. But wait a minute, I am upside-down on mine... damn, I'm stuck. Maybe in a year or two... This is where a segment of on-premise customers are sitting today. They are envious of the features, but have not yet recovered their prior investments. It takes a pretty confident person to march into their bosses office and ask for more money, when they said "This is all we will ever need" the last time they asked. Just Stay On-Premise? That is certainly an option, and one that many are electing apparently. You already own the software, it's functioning adequately for your business, and you spent a buttload of money getting it the way you want... so why are Microsoft and your partner hammering you to move to the cloud all the time? Is there really a compelling reason? A reason that is compelling enough to jump from the static world of on-premise, to the continuous motion word of SaaS? It depends. Don't you hate when people say that? You just want a black and white, yes or no answer, but instead you get an "It Depends". Maybe we should review the pros of each, which also are mostly the cons of the other. Pro On-Premise You own the software, unless you also purchased Software Assurance, your ongoing cost to Microsoft is zippo. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. After all the pain and expense of getting it exactly "right" for your organization, the system is finally running like a well-oiled machine, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. There is a person, or persons, who are being paid to keep that system humming, and they have job security. If something goes haywire, you have direct access to the database as an option to fix it. You can write SSRS reports using SQL, since you can access it directly You finally got all of your finicky integrations working. You can utilize a large amount of cheap additional storage. Its works fast, even with lousy, or no internet connection. You can continue to use the "Classic UI" indefinitely. Some third-party solutions you depend on don't have a SaaS version. Plus 50 more reasons that are unique to you. Pro SaaS All future development of any consequence by Microsoft, will be on the SaaS products. You are not "Frozen in Time". Scale up and down as needed without buying infrastructure that sits idle. Servers will always be patched as soon as possible, meaning the security will be at least as good as on-premise and probably a lot better. Disaster Recovery is baked in. Create Customer, Partner or Community facing web portals. Consistent and known back-end, to simplify partner development and support. Advanced AI capabilities and Relationship Insights Dynamics 365 for Marketing, Field Service and Project Service Automation capabilities. Access to the full suite of Citizen Developer "Power Platform" tools, so you are not completely hostage to your partner, or the one person on your staff who built everything. Never have to Upgrade again... Period. Microsoft support has full telemetry on your SaaS instances allowing then to more quickly fix your issues. The same telemetry allows Microsoft to fix issues before you are even aware of them. Depending on your size, Microsoft will foot the bill to move your ass over. Plus 50 more reasons that are unique to you. I have to give credit to several MVPs who helped me flesh out the above lists, Nick Doelman, Mike Ochs, Aiden Kaskela, Joel Lindstrom and Andrew Butenko. The Price of Currentcy Back to the topic of this post, as I think about it, there is obviously a cost to keeping current, but there is also a cost to not keeping current. Some of these costs have nothing to do with Microsoft, but rather are specific to your own industry, competition or customer expectations. For example, let's say that you and your primary competitor, are both using Dynamics on-premise. You hear through the grapevine, that your competitor is moving to the SaaS version. Would that concern you? I would venture to guess that your on-premise system aligns to the description often provided by the leader of the Dynamics Engineering team, James Phillips, as a "Forms over Data, reporting system". As long as your competition was limited to the same capabilities, no problem. But what if they add everything under the Pro SaaS column above to their arsenal? Uhoh! Maybe you want to explore doing this first! Let's assume you are on the SaaS version... and for those that aren't, this will be a peek at what they get to deal with. Updates every six months. That sounds scary as hell! It is scary, and it is bumpy, but getting less so with each update. Updates bring new capabilities, and if you are on-premise you might not know what those are, but you don't necessarily have to activate them immediately. In theory, new "potentially disruptive" features and capabilities are off by default, so you should not have to worry about your users running around like the house is on fire every six months. I say "in theory", because some things will not be off by default, or they won't stay off indefinitely. Updates are probably the biggest issue that we all need to worry about. They will add some angst to your life every six months, even if they go perfectly smoothly. If they don't, then you will find yourself scrambling for a little while grabbing the loose wires and reconnecting them. You should also prepare to be frustrated, when Microsoft makes available a robust new feature in an update, that you just paid dearly to have custom developed. Maybe you can ask your developer for a refund. The real price of currentcy, is "Change Management", a term that seems to have risen in prominence with the SaaS revolution. In the on-premise world, it reared its head every several years, or for some customers, once a decade. In the SaaS world it is now a minimum every six months, and maybe more often than that. "Change Management" is a bitch. The biggest appeal to moving to SaaS, are the promised gains in productivity, efficiency, engagement, analytics, etc., but none of those are automatically "realized", they are just made "available". In fact, Change Management is such a big topic, I think I'll save it for another post.  

Nick Doelman on the MVP Show Full Show Notes: https://www.nz365guy.com/33

We are taking a break from the "Dynamics 365 Content" to discuss a very important non-technical topic. Back on Episode 22, when asked "Which non-MVP community leader do you want to see here at the Microsoft MVP Summit next year and why?", CRM MVP Neil Benson said: "I'd like to see more women, I'd like to see more people who speak Arabic, and Korean, and Chinese, and Spanish, and Portuguese --- there's a lot of other countries around the world that are under-represented in the MVP Community and are just as passionate as we are about the product and about solving customer challenges. I'd like to see more of those people join the MVP Program." The lack of diversity in the MVP Program that Neil pointed out is a reflection of our industry as a whole, and it is something that we (MVPs) talk about often. So for this episode I invited a couple of people who are passionate about this topic to discuss why Diversity is important as well as what can we do as an industry to encourage more diversity. By the way, I realize that some of you are probably dissapointed that we are not covering Dynamics 365 Best Practices and Expert Insights on this episode, but don't worry, we'll be back to our original programming on Episode 30. :) Follow us: Salim Adamon: https://twitter.com/salimadamon Nick Doelman: https://twitter.com/readyxrm Gus Gonzalez: https://twitter.com/GusGonzalez2 Julie Yack: https://twitter.com/coloradojules