Work smarter - not harder with Plans

Let’s be honest—building business solutions can be a pain. You’ve got requirements flying at you, stakeholders changing their minds, and a mountain of components to configure. But what if you could skip the hassle and go straight to a working solution?

That’s exactly what Plans does. You describe your business use case in plain language, throw in a few images, and let AI do the heavy lifting. In minutes, you’ll have a full Power Platform solution—Dataverse tables, canvas apps, model-driven apps, Power Pages sites, Power Automate flows, and even Copilot Studio agents.

In this session, we’ll cover:

How Plan Designer transforms your ideas into working solutions
Examples of end-to-end solutions built in minutes
Why Copilot-first development is the future
If you’re tired of reinventing the wheel every time you build a solution, this session is for you. Let’s cut through the noise and get straight to the good stuff—because your time is too valuable to waste.

What is FS, RSO & URS

Scheduling is becoming more and more a process that customers are looking to either automate or build processes around.

In Dynamics 365 CRM there are 4 different ways that this can be done.

We will look at these 4 different methods, the licenses behind them when to use which area of the platform and what your integration points are to EPR systems.

This will be 15 years of information downloaded in 1 session so you better clear your schedule to allow you to help others schedule.

Transforming Field Service Management with AI and Automation in D365

This session will explore how machine learning and predictive analytics can be used to transform field service management by enabling proactive maintenance and reducing downtime. We will cover the latest advancements in predictive maintenance techniques and how they can be applied in D365 Field Service and Universal Resource Scheduling. The session will include real-world use cases and examples of companies that have successfully implemented predictive maintenance programs using D365.

The, Now, Forever… The Field Service Stories

Microsoft have always aimed Field Service at Enterprise level customers with Enterprise level Functionality and Enterprise level costs!!

Mark and Thomas have been petitioning for years for a license or solution that hits the space for the SMB market.

Microsoft are listening and are considering changes.

Join Mark and Thomas for a session where we talk about everything now and everything that might be.

The low hanging low-code fruits of model-driven Power Apps

There are several hidden gems of model-driven Power Apps that you might not have used or even heard about.
As a functional consultant, there are a lot of things you can configure (not code!) to make the system smarter and better for your customers, and we'll go through several of them.

Did you know you don't have to have your subgrids all shown? There's a better way of doing it.
Have you tested everything that a business rule can help you with?
Did you know you can show stars instead of your regular column?
There's a calendar view out of the box, so you can see your activities in a calendar.
Are you having trouble creating proper Power BI reports? Well, let the system do it for you!

How to make sure the product group doesn't cry!

Join Yannick and Mark as they talk about how interacting with the product team can help you shape the future of the products that you use day to day.

They will talk about,
The best way to interact with them,
How you can get access to the team, and
Tell some stories of where their input has directly made it into product.

By talking with the Product Teams it will give you a deeper understanding of the product, find out what is on the roadmap and other NDA things

You do not need to be an MVP to speak to the product teams so lets see how you can use it to your advantage.

DevOps and User Stories – Making Power Platform Projects Slightly Less Painful

This is a one-day workshop aimed at folk who are either Business Analysts trying to make sense of delivery chaos or those brave souls attempting to deploy DevOps properly with the Power Platform. It’s not going to be death-by-slide-deck or some LinkedIn fluff worksohp. It’s real-world, “here’s what actually works” kind of stuff.

You’ll leave with a much better idea of how to handle user stories, how to build a DevOps process that actually fits what your team does, and how to connect the whole thing to GitHub without throwing your laptop out the window.

What You'll Learn (A.K.A. Why should you let this mad scotsman rant at you)
You’ll come away from this with:

A solid understanding of how to write user stories that aren’t complete nonsense

A handle on creating a DevOps process that works for Power Platform – not just some template from 2013 someone found on Stack Overflow

The ability to plan sprints and use boards without the usual faff

Actual knowledge of how to connect Azure DevOps to GitHub (and no, it’s not just clicking “Connect” and hoping for the best)

Some practical skills to make your project delivery feel less like herding cats

The Day Itself – Timeline
09:30 – 10:00 | Welcome and Irn Bru
Grab an Irn Bru, get comfy. We'll kick off with a chat about what DevOps actually is and why it's more than just a fancy word for "chaotic deployment with post it notes."

10:00 – 11:00 | What is Azure DevOps and Why It’s Worth Your Time
I'll walk through what Azure DevOps does, and more importantly, what it doesn't do unless you make it. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t write your user stories for you.

11:00 – 12:00 | Writing User Stories Without Losing the Will to Live
We’ll get hands-on with writing proper user stories—ones that don’t require a detective and a whiteboard to understand.

12:00 – 13:00 | Lunch Break (a.k.a. Recovery Time)
Grab a bite, share war stories, and take a minute to wonder why you ever thought deploying apps would be “fun.”

13:00 – 14:30 | Building a Custom DevOps Process for Power Platform
We’re talking about shaping your own process. Not every team works the same way, so let’s stop pretending one-size-fits-all. We’ll look at workflow states, boards, sprint planning—basically the guts of how your team works.

14:30 – 15:30 | Getting GitHub Involved Without Making a Mess
Time to connect the dots: how to link GitHub into the process so you’ve got version control that doesn’t look like a toddler’s art project. Branching, pull requests, merge strategy—the real stuff.

15:30 – 16:30 | Planning, Pipelines, and Practical Tips
We’ll walk through boards, pipelines, dashboards, and maybe even get into some sneaky automation. By this point you’ll either feel empowered or exhausted—but you’ll definitely be learning.

16:30 – 17:00 | Wrap-Up: What Next (and What to Avoid Doing Tomorrow)
Final thoughts, some Q&A, and a reminder not to go back to work tomorrow and try to implement everything at once. Pick one or two wins and go from there. We’ll talk about what that might look like for your team.

The Power Platform is f**ked, and so are you

When you have been in the Microsoft Business Application space since 2006 you really think you have seen it all……… Until Microsoft decide to change something.
It could be a total rebrand of the product, a new look and feel of the user interface or a complete rebuild of a product! Ohhhh and did we mention that they might just decide they don’t want to do anything with that product anymore?

In this session we will go through the history of where the Power Platform started, where it is going, what Is new, what won't be there when you wake up in the morning. There will also be some tips on how to communicate these with your customer and also some things you should be sacked for ever using.

But what is Field Service?

You have seen all the Microsoft slides and you keep seeing the name Field Service appearing. Piqued your interest? Well we will take a whistle stop tour of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service.

Everything from an apprentice getting his first aid certificate to an engineering fixing a £1,000,000 machine, we will cover it all.

The Connected Customer Service Journey

Let us jump into the Customer Service Model-Driven App. Or perhaps we can do it in Omni Channel? Or wait, This might be a job for Field Service? Heck! Let's just build our own Support Power App.

I'm ready to take you all through the ever-expanding suite of Power Platform and Dynamics 365 tools, taking the route from the initial contact of support to the moment a support agent connects to you with Remote Assist's one-time meeting feature.

The talk will then turn to the benefits of each application and call out the right stage to deploy them in the support process. The session's main objective is to drive some inspiration on crafting an innovative support experience using the latest Microsoft tools. We'll Micdrop in some Copilot capabilities too, aiming to reduce the support team's time spent on calls and case management.

What is the ultimate goal I hear you ask? To transform the Customer service function from reactive responders to proactive professionals.

This choose-your-own story adventure will equip you with ideas to revolutionise the support process, combining innovation with practicality, all while navigating the world of Microsoft's Technology.

The Field Service Revolution

Microsoft Dynamics Field Service was always used predominantly in North America, but recently it has become one of the fastest growing areas in the Dynamics Stack in Europe.

Having extensively worked with the Field Service team in Redmond and training the Field Service team it's now time to take it to the public.

In this one-day workshop, you will learn how the data model in Field Service is the most important part of the application. Data is 75% of the platform. You'll also learn how to configure the platform and be able to talk in-depth to customers and colleagues about Field Service.

Not only will you find out about the standard uses for Field Service you will also find out about the not so standard ones! Did you know that you can collect dead bodies? how about collecting seaman samples from cows?

Utilizing Teams for your Dynamics 365 solutions

In this session we will walk you through how and why you can integrate Dynamics 365 Sales, Customer Service, Field Service and Human Resources in Teams. This way your company will get an even wider user area for Teams and bringing you entire company together working in Teams.

Mental health

Everyone is talking about mental health - and most of us have experienced mental health issues at some point in our lives. Come and listen to and learn from some individuals who have lived with and continue to work on managing their mental health.

How to, and how not to, run a community conference

After organizing a number of successful conferences over the years, and coming off the biggest conference yet with 1,000 attendees and 200 sessions, join us for a session on how we run the Scottish Summit community conferences.

We will go in details about our lessons over the years from both virtual and physical events - including a deep dive into the technologies we used to keep everything ticking over and also give some insights into the things we won't be doing again!

Event marketing IS Dynamics 365 Marketing

Do you run events?
Do you struggle with a multitude of different platforms?
Do you really have control over everything that needs to be done?

Mark Christie and Malin Martnes will take you through some real-life scenarios on how Scottish Summit, Proximo 3 and other customers use Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing as the hub to Run their events and business.

Join them and take a deep dive into the event module of Dynamics 365 Marketing. They’ll go through;
• Speakers
• Hotels
• Sessions and session tracks
• Social and email marketing
• Sponsors, vendors, and of course your budget.

They will also delve into integrations with Sessionize, Eventbrite, and event apps.

After this session, you can create your event and have complete control over it in Dynamics 365 Marketing.

Closing Keynote

Closing Keynote will include thanks from the event team and Dona Sarkar talking about Mental Health in I.T

"Are you sure I should talk openly about this?"
How many times have you had that thought about openly speaking out about your mental health challenges because of how it might impact your credibility in your work? Will your peers take you seriously after this? What about your customers? Yikes! We've had the same concerns and have come up with a formula that actually works.

In this session, we will cover:
1. WHY is it important for leaders like YOU to talk about mental health
2. WHAT you should be talking about and what you should not be talking about
3. HOW to even have the conversation openly
Some resources you can use to help others.

Restricted entities - Do you even need them?

I will detail what restricted entities are and where they are used.

Then we will look at how we can build model driven apps using the Per App Per License model without the restricted entities to give more value for your customer

The Complete Customer Service Journey

Mark will take you through The Customer Service stack at a high level, Covering Power Virtual Agent, Forms Pro, Power Automate, Common Data Service, Case Management, Field Service and Remote Assist.......... Are we going to place bets to see if he makes it through?

Career Planning in the Power Platform

How to plan your career, get promoted or get hired

Partner success (How we work with Microsoft)

We have a line-up of experienced Microsoft Partners who will share their perspective and experiences of working with Microsoft.  

We will cover everything from skilling, practice build, programs, investments to listing on the Microsoft Commercial Marketplace. 

Join us to learn how to get the best out of partnering with Microsoft!

Q&A With James Phillips

Mark and Iain will have a sit-down Question and Answer session with President of Business Applications Group James Phillips

Scottish Summit 2022 Keynote - Disability Awareness & Inclusivity

Connell speaks about his own experiences as a deaf person in IT and how he has been able to use tech to empower him.

So you want to be a Solution Architect?

So you have been in the Power Platform or Dynamics 365 for longer than you can remember? Looking to take the next steps to become a Solution Architect?

Mark will share his years of experience with the Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of what skills you need and what your roles and responsibilities would be.

He will also share tips and tricks on how to make your life easier

The softer side of consultancy

In this day and age, you can easily go online and found out how to use a platform or learn how to do technical tasks. However, we are still miles behind that with our Consultancy skills. Mark Christie will take you through the softer side of being a consultant and bring to life the soft and personal skills that will help make you an all-round better consultant.

So you want to start your own company?

Many people get to the stage in their career where they are looking for the next progression. Are you moving from consultancy into a C-Level management position? Are you moving to a Senior Consultancy role?

Have you thought about starting your own Microsoft practise?
Mark Christie will share the trials and tribulations of starting a new company, what is needed and what your end goals should be.

Field Service is not just a person in a van

When someone talks to you about field service it's about the generic person in a van going to fix the HVAC unit.

What if I was to tell you that Field Service was so much more?

Did you know that Bull Sperm costs $1,000,000 a shot?
Did you know that Dead Bodies are collected using Field Service?
What about some clever API integration to the MetOffice?

Mark will run through 5 of the best edge cases for Field Service

This session has been a success with the Field Service product team and has also been delivered to the internal Field Service sales team at Microsoft