Directions EMEA 2017: Tenerife spotted in Madrid!
Directions EMEA is the independent conference for Microsoft Dynamics partners from the ERP and CRM channels. It brings together over 2000 attendees from Microsoft Dynamics Partners and ISV companies across Europe, and allows the Dynamics community to share knowledge, to network and to discover new opportunities and collaboration. This year's edition was in sunny Madrid and the venue of Directions EMEA 2017 was buzzing with enthusiasm.
Introducing: Tenerife
Each year, there is an exciting announcement to look forward to. The Directions 2017 edition, which ends today, was no exception - quite the contrary! This year we were even allowed a sneak peek at the new Dynamics 365, codenamed 'Tenerife'.
With this new platform, you can build an entire suite - or should we say 'ecosystem' - of Microsoft applications in one common data service. This allows for a seamless integration between Office 365, Azure, Dynamics 365 and power applications. The common data service across all Azure applications and services is the key component here. Interconnecting all data on the Azure platform opens up a whole world of new possibilities to choose from in your next step towards your digital transformation.
New and improved apps
Dynamics 365 will feature new and improved apps. Thus, it will be the ideal combination of the traditional feature-rich Dynamics NAV platform and of the flexibility and availability of Azure and Office 365. Among these apps you'll find:
- Marketing
- Sales, including sales order, contract and opportunity management
- Service, including service order and project management
- Finance
- Operations, including supply chain management and discrete manufacturing
- Talent management, including employee entities and payroll integration
In addition, the entire platform has received the 'Microsoft upgrade treatment' we have come to expect and appreciate: Better (e.g. by providing a simplified import mechanism for transactions and payroll data), Easier (e.g. by simplifying the SO-to-PO process), Smarter (e.g. by adding cognitive services) and better Integrated (providing improved Dynamic 365 Sales setup and sync processes).
On top of that, there will bea tighter integration with Office, which does not come as a surprise. We already look forward to additions such as various Excel report templates (balance sheet, income statement, but also handy reports such as aged accounts payable or aged accounts receivable) and a closer interaction with contacts and reminders in Outlook.
Dynamics as a platform
Dynamics is a wonderful set of features. But first and foremost it is a wonderful platform to start from, for other application developers and system integrators. That's why the platform improvements such as the personalization functionality and the new development environment on Visual Studio Code with the AL language deserve special mention. Oh, and have we mentioned yet that PDF will be embedded for all browsers? Well, we really should!
Availability
Early next spring we can look forward to the first full cloud version of Dynamics NAV, named Tenerife. And for those of you who are waiting for the 'regular' Dynamics NAV 2018: you can still add it to your Christmas list, because it's available as of December 1st. This will be another great version coming out and confirming that Dynamics NAV is still important for Microsoft.
Stay tuned
Just like all previous editions, Directions EMEA 2017 has fuelled us with inspiration. There are so many possibilities with the current and future Microsoft Dynamics platform, the only limit seems to be our own imagination.
At Drink-IT we are very excited about the possibilities the roll out of Tenerife will give, and we will follow the trend and pace Microsoft rolls it out in. So stay tuned for more updates.
