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Introduction
This post is part of my series on the journey from being an End-User to becoming Microsoft Partner-Side Consultant.
Here I’m reflecting at the Microsoft D365 Community. I have a simple message, and I cannot stress this enough, join in with your local User Group and get along to some of the national all-day free events if you can!
The Power of Community
Soon after landing my first job as a consultant I decided to pop along the local Cambridge D365 User Group meeting.
I don't recall the specific topics presented on the night, but I came away with a feeling of being warmly welcomed, a bunch of new contacts and a big list of resources to check out. I was encouraged by those who I had just met to come along to some of the all-day events.
Another interesting and somewhat unique aspect of this community is that people love sharing solutions to common problems. They not only explained their approach to the problems and the possible solutions in detail, but also often blogged about it, creating a super handy resource. This really resonated with me and highlighted how this community is full of people with an abundance mindset.
A Welcoming Environment
In my experience, the D365 community is super welcoming and friendly, no matter your experience or seniority - if you are a Junior Associate Consultant, Microsoft MVP or Senior Director of a large partner organisation - people at these community events are all there to learn, share and have fun.
Learning Opportunities
Many of the community events also provide direct access to Microsoft people who may present updates on the latest release waves, new features and trends - helping you stay ahead and understand the future direction of the platform.
Other presentations from experts working across the stack naturally can directly contribute to your learning, the biggest benefit of these talks is that they often have a practical angle and naturally you can ask questions or go and chat with the person afterwards!
Networking and Collaboration
Most of the Microsoft community people use LinkedIn, following those who are active in your areas of interest soon turns your LinkedIn feed into a very useful news source! This is great for two main reasons - lots of great functional resources for your area of interest, but also all the people movements and organisation news for the channel.
Groups, Events & Conferences
To make this blog post actually useful for someone, here I will try to list out as many of the D365 community resources I know about for Local, National, Global and Online community events & conferences; free, low cost or paid!
I’m a UK based D365 Business Central person so this list below is likely to be a biased in that direction!
- Microsoft have a directory of community groups and events User Groups | Microsoft Dynamics 365 Community you can search for things happening in your local area. It’s mostly up-to-date!
- UK Dynamics 365 & Power Platform User Group (d365ppug.com)
- Local & online evening events and London based all day events
- Free to attend
- Local & online evening events and London based all day events
- Power Community – Microsoft 365 Saturday Power Community
- Many all day events across the globe, in person and online
- Mostly free or low cost, some paid workshops/bootcamps also offered
- Many all day events across the globe, in person and online
- South Coast Summit – A Microsoft Cloud Technology Conference
- Annual 2 day event held in the south of England
- Free to attend main event, some paid workshops/events also offered
- Annual 2 day event held in the south of England
- Scottish Summit
- Annual 3 day event held in Scotland (usually!)
- Free to attend main event, some paid workshops/events also offered
- Annual 3 day event held in Scotland (usually!)
- ColorCloud Hamburg | The colorful Microsoft Biz Apps conference
- Presumably annual event held in Hamburg
- English and German speaking sessions
- Free or small feed to attend
- Nordic Summit
- Annual 2 day event held in the Nordics
- Small fee to attend ~10 GBP
- Annual 2 day event held in the Nordics
- Directions for Partners
- Many all-day events across the globe - only open to Microsoft Partners
- Days of Knowledge series - focused on Business central, educating consultants and developers, sharing knowledge.
- Fee to attend ~450 GBP
- Directions series - the "Go To" multi-day conference SMB focused Dynamics partners.
- Fee to attend ~1100 GBP
- Dynamics Minds
- Annual multi-day event held in Portoroz, Slovenia
- Fee to attend ~850 GBP
- Annual multi-day event held in Portoroz, Slovenia
- Dynamics Con
- Annual in-person multi-day event held in the US
- Fee to attend ~840 GBP
- Dynamics Con Virtual - multi-day online event, hosted in the US
- Free to attend (online)
- Annual in-person multi-day event held in the US
- Dynamics User Group (DUG)
- Many user groups, conferences and events across the globe.
- Check out the events calendar here https://dynamicsusergroup.com/events-calendar/
- Check out the forums here https://www.dynamicsuser.net/
- Free sign-up required
Conclusion
Get along to some events, join the community! You will have a lot of fun, meet some great people, & learn a lot. For sure it will only be a good thing for your career & professional growth.
What do you think?
Please let me know your thoughts in the comments
Connect or follow me on LinkedIn to get all my updates Andrew Wingate | LinkedIn