I caught up with AXUG Program Director Frank Vukovits to chat about the upcoming AXUG Summit, happening this October in St. Louis, MO. This year’s event marks a great milestone for AXUG – it’s the 10th annual conference for the group, and according to Frank, it’s sure to be the best one yet.
Michelle (MS): Frank, you’ve been with AXUG since the beginning. First of all, congratulations on 10 years! How have the user group and this event continued to grow and thrive over the years?
Frank (FV): AXUG was founded on a simple idea around a table at Convergence ten years ago – the idea that Dynamics AX (then Axapta) users could learn a lot from talking to one another, swapping stories from the front lines, and sharing things they’ve learned through their use of the product. That idea remains at the core of what we do year-round in AXUG and at AXUG Summit. What really makes it work is all the members of the community who’ve been willing to step up and share their experiences, lead roundtable discussions, champion our local Chapters, present Summit sessions – that’s the heart and soul of what we do.
MS: You mentioned that the members deliver Summit sessions. How do you come up with the content that gets presented at AXUG Summit?
FV: It’s a culmination of what we hear members talking about all year. We do hundreds of interactive webinars and in-person Chapter meetings throughout the year, which allows us to have a constant pulse on what’s top of mind for Dynamics AX users. We also keep a close watch on AXUG Collaborate, our online community, to discover what topics members are discussing there. There’s also a formal call for proposals every year to give Dynamics AX folks an opportunity to submit topic ideas that they’d like to learn about or topics they’d be willing to present. From there, we have a planning committee and track leaders – including Dynamics AX users, Partners and subject matter experts – who help determine the sessions for each track.
MS: So what are some of the hot topics that Dynamics AX users can expect to learn about in St. Louis this October?
FV: AX 2012 R3 was released earlier this year so, of course, there’s a lot of interest in the new version, which has some nice new functionality for retail, warehousing, transportation, and business intelligence. The Microsoft team will be on hand to help us understand the ins and outs of this new release. But we also recognize that there is a large percentage of users out there who aren’t on the new version, and maybe don’t even have an upgrade on the radar yet, so you’ll find a good selection of sessions that focus on AX 2009, AX 2012, and version-agnostic sessions as well. We’re also seeing some chatter on the Power BI Tool with Office 365, which is giving Dynamics AX users some new options for business intelligence. We also have added more executive leadership sessions this year, along with more theoretical sessions, which are less about using Dynamics AX, and more about trends in specific job roles and industries that user group members can learn from.
MS: We see a lot of attendees that come to AXUG Summit year after year. What new things can the veterans expect to see in 2014?
FV: They’ll see more sessions than ever at this year’s event – there are more than 200 planned in 23 different tracks or focus areas. We’ve added new tracks based on feedback we’re hearing from the community, including AX 2012 R3, Order to Cash, Procure to Pay, Workflow, Retail, the Cloud, International deployments, and AX 2009. We’ve also doubled the number of ‘Optimizing AX’ sessions, where we take a deep dive into specific areas of the product, and users share real-life stories of how they’re effectively using the different components and the impact it’s making for their organization.
MS: What can attendees expect from this year’s host city, St. Louis, MO?
FV: I’m very excited about hosting the event in St. Louis. It’s a great, centrally located city for our U.S. attendees and, for me personally, I’m looking forward to driving to St. Louis from my home in Indianapolis. We’ve visited the hotels and the America’s Center (Convention Center) several times in preparation for the event – everything is within walking distance and it will be easy for folks to navigate throughout the week. The city is ready and anxious to welcome our group to St. Louis and I’m confident it will be a great experience for our attendees. If we are lucky, my baseball team - the Reds - might even be playing the hometown Cardinals in the MLB playoffs during AXUG Summit, too!
You can learn more about AXUG Summit 2014 and register at www.axugsummit.com. Experience It!
