Over the years the Dynamics User Group, first as navision.net (Navision Online User Group), then as mbsonline.org and now as dynamicsuser.net has been THE MICROSOFT DYNAMICS ONLINE USER COMMUNITY.
No other place on the internet you find so many users of Dynamics NAV (Navision), Dynamics AX (Axapta), Dynamics GP (Great Plains) and Dynamics CRM (Microsoft CRM) in one place. After almost 12 years more than 28000 users have registered themselves as member here.
In the channel we have always been know as the place where you get the answers of the highest quality compared to other sites (according to a small survey done amoung a selection of our members). Many of these good answers we can also thank former and current Navision/Axapta and Microsoft employees for. But this has basically been a well known secret on the site, as they were not allowed to say that they came from Microsoft (or Navision etc.). They wanted that their employees only used the official channels for support and information to users and customers.
But in May 2007 Microsoft had invited all the Dynamics NAV MVP's (Most Valuable Professionals) to a meeting at the Microsoft Development Center Copenhagen (Vedbæk) where they are developing both Dynamics NAV and Dynamics AX. The topics here was not only to teach us about the new version of Dynamics NAV, but also to give us an update on the future strategy of Microsoft Dynamics. We also discussed how Microsoft could work better with the user community.
Here David Singleton and I had a very fruitful meeting with Ilona Smith of Microsoft. As you can see in her member profile here on the site, then she has a past with the Dynamics CRM development team in Seattle, and here they are used to work with the non-Microsoft driven communities in a very different way than what we have been used to see in the Dynamics NAV/AX world. Much more open. And Ilona had been one of the more active and community open in the Dynamics CRM world. At our meeting Ilona made the promisse to us in the future we would see much active and open Microsoft employees participate in all of the non-Microsoft driven Dynamics comminities, starting with http://dynamicsuser.net today!
So now I would like to say a happy welcome to all the Microsoft employees already member on this website, and all the ones who will come in the future. Until now 130 Microsoft employees have registered as members, and I'm sure more will come. They will be here to help all of our members and to participate in the debates. As soon as we have been able to update all the member profiles, then you will see a small icon, similar to the ones I have who says "Moderator" / "Dynamics MVP" / "Administrator" - but instead it will just say "Microsoft". This way you will always know if the person who answers comes from Microsoft.
Still also remember that even though they come from Microsoft, they might not always have the correct answer to everything, and that everything you see posted here (as for what comes from every other member) should always be seen as "AS IS" information and without any warrenty.
Best regards,Erik P. Ernst - webmaster at dynamicsuser.net
Erik P. Ernst:At our meeting Ilona made the promisse to us in the future we would see much active and open Microsoft employees participate in all of the non-Microsoft driven Dynamics comminities, starting with http://dynamicsuser.net today!
This is Great news!
Erik P. Ernst:Until now 130 Microsoft employees have registered as members, and I'm sure more will come.
wow.
Awesome
Cool
Great!
Not sure if you want to identify Microsoft employee though, they may be at the receiving end of user bashing...
No information is so valuable that it cannot be shared.
Very nice. Alex, your are right, but that is inevitable. What is a point of MS employees involving if we don't know that they are MS employees (except their expertise which is already at great level here).
People want to know that their words have been heard by MS employees (no metter that MVPs are present here).
Well if memebrs start Bashing Microsoft on this forum, then they will just ruin it for everyone. But in reality I don't think that will happen. The Dynamics User Group since the NOLUG days has been running now for 12 years and has 28,000+ members, and we are avery mature crowd.
This is a great opportunity, and keep in mind that Microsoft WANT to listen and want to have happy customers out there.
I think it is very good news.
Also her name is Ilana, not Ilona. . She is also a great person to work with. She was also part of the Tech Ed team in Orlando this year and did a great presentation of the webservices in 5.1.
The change is going slow though. Do not expect sudden changes. There are still people at MS who not like the communities.
People at MS that do not like the communities? Can you tell us what the reasoning is behind that?
Well MS has a long history of "liking" communities, but it's very different with the old companies Navision and Damgaard. Here you found a very closed environment and the only people they usually communicated directly with was their partners. So here the employees was basically told "not to talk". But still we saw a lot of Navision employees posting in our old forum navision.net - but they usually did it under an alias, or at least never by mentioning who they work for. But we knew....
Marq: I think it is very good news. Also her name is Ilana, not Ilona. . She is also a great person to work with. She was also part of the Tech Ed team in Orlando this year and did a great presentation of the webservices in 5.1. The change is going slow though. Do not expect sudden changes. There are still people at MS who not like the communities.
Of cause her name is Ilana! I'm sorry about that!
And yes we should not expect sudden changes, especially since "they" have always been here - just "hidden". But one major change is that I know some MS employees does also get their bonuses based on their community involvment. And usually money talks...
There is a closed community for partners (PartnerSource). The customer equivalent is CustomerSource.
It's interesting that in Portugal they created something different. I wonder if it was about different language/version, or if there were community features that they felt were missing.