Round Table: Virtual and Hybrid Training Pros & Cons, Tips & Tricks

A panel of trainers will discuss tips, tricks, pros and cons of virtual and hybrid training, taking questions from the audience with the ability to submit questions in advance. The panel includes trainers from the fields of Microsoft 365, Azure, Dynamics 365, Office and Facilitation.

Experience training new starters in the Power Platform

I deliver many training sessions for people new to the Power Platform. I will share my experiences and feedback from my delegates.
I will give you hints and tips on what to start on and the different roles and products that you can start with

Document automation with Microsoft Power Platform

This session will investigate the automation of documents using Power Automate cloud flows, AI Builder, Power Automate Desktop (RPA), and document automation,
Agenda
1. The automation of documents using Power Automate cloud flows and AI Builder
2. Document automation toolkit
3. Automating legacy applications with robotic program automation

Build chatbots using Power Virtual Agents

Learn how to create chatbots and interact with your systems for different internal and external use cases. In this session will explain how to create chatbots with Power Virtual Agents, best practices for choosing topics, and how to use Power Automate to access your systems

Azure AI certifications

AI is every more important. This session will go over the AI certifications AI-900 and AI-102 and provide an overview of what you need to do to gain these certifications

How Dynamics 365 uses Azure

Dynamics 365 is a cloud based solution running on top of a multitude of Azure services from Azure AD to Kestrel and Cosmos DB.
This session will look at how Microsoft has used Azure for its own applications

Microsoft Dataverse and Power BI

Power BI links to the rest of the Power Platform. In this session we will look at the different ways to use visualize Dataverse data including Direct Query, Dataflows, Azure Data Lake, and Azure Synapse Link.
The session provides best practice and guidance on using Dataverse and Power BI together for different scenarios.

PL-300 Certification exam overview

This session explains the scope of the PL-300 exam for Power BI data analysts, reviews the objectives, explains what those objectives really mean, and directs you at resources to help you prepare for success.

Join this session to learn about the certification and how to pass.

Generate income from exams and courseware writing as a subject matter expert

Microsoft and their vendors use MCTs to help define exams, create questions, and write courseware.
I will explain how I have earned extra money participating in training related activities:
- Job Task Analysis (JTA)
- Objective Domain (OD)
- Exam item writing
- Practice test item writing
- Authoring Microsoft Learn modules
- Authoring books
- Authoring courseware
I will explain how each of these works, the effort required, and how you can get involved.

Power Platform and Azure

Microsoft Power Platform is often referred to as a low-code set of tools for building business applications but there has been a significant change where Azure services can be leveraged to create more complete and complex solutions.
This session will explore how Azure services can be accessed directly and indirectly from Power Platform tools.
Azure services included:
Azure functions
Cosmos DB
Service bus
Logic apps
Azure Data Lake
Azure Synapse Analytics
Cognitive Services
Machine Learning
IoT
Bot Services

Getting started teaching the Microsoft Power Platform

Overview of the Power Platform courses and what you need to know about the Power Platform products to be able to teach each of the courses effectively.
This session will go over the PL-900, PL-100, PL-200, PL-300, PL-400, PL-500, and PL-600 courses.
At the end of this session you will be able to articulate the differences between these courses and the target audiences and will be able to decide which courses you can offer.

This session is aimed at MCTs who want to teach Power Platform.

Low-code application development on Azure

Create web and mobile front ends using low-code tools to your data and services running in Azure. Leverage Azure Functions and API Management to enable Power Platforms' low-code tools to accelerate front-end development and to modernize legacy applications.
The session describes the tools involved and explains the common architecture and patterns involved.
The session will also describe the concept of Fusion Dev teams and how to get started with Fusion Dev

Getting started teaching Dynamics 365

Overview of the Dynamics 365 courses and what you need to know about the product and business to be able to teach effectively

Microsoft Dataverse: A managed data platform for building apps

This session introduces Dataverse, part of Microsoft Power Platform, as a central location to access and manage data. I will walk through the functionality contained in Dataverse, its APIs, integration, enhancing data with AI, and how to import and export data, finishing off with connecting to other data stores.

Cosmos DB with Power Platform and Dataverse

Did you know that Power Platform can read Cosmos DB data directly using virtual tables, and can read and write Cosmos DB directly using Connectors.
This session will show you how to link your app makers to Cosmos DB data

New Microsoft Certified Trainer: What do I do now?

You have just become a new MCT and there are so many things to find out and nowhere to go. This session will guide you around the MCT program and resources and allow you to discover all the official and unofficial sources of information that will help you as an MCT

Creating a learning culture in your organisation

Providing every employee with the skills to perform their job has never been more important as the challenges faced in a rapidly changing world are not disappearing.
What is more important however is embedding a learning culture so that workers and managers can adapt quickly.
This session will discuss why a learning culture is not simply training.
We will look at several examples and lay out what you can do in your company or even just your department to create a learning culture.

Being a Microsoft Certified Trainer: How do you become an MCT and what does it mean

This session will discuss the requirements for Microsoft Certified Trainer program and how you can become an MCT, the benefits you will gain, and the next steps for a new MCT

Skilling up in the Dataverse and Power Platform

What are the skills I need to use, administer, configure, and develop using Microsoft Dataverse as a platform for building and managing apps. This session will cover skills in Microsoft 365, security, importing and exporting data, and data modelling.

Options and methods for customizing Dataverse

Compare different ways of achieving the same customization with different methods: workflow vs flow, Plugins vs JavaScript vs Business Rules, JavaScript vs Embedded Canvas apps, some tips and tricks by creating entities, for Developers and Non-Developers. Will compare code-first vs low-code options.

Discover the Field Service mobile Power App

Microsoft has released a new Power App based mobile client for Field Service. Learn what this contains and some of the cool features

PCF 101 - How to start creating your own code components

Power Apps Component Framework is an exciting way to increase the usability of your solutions. But how do you start, the documentation tells you what to do but you struggle where to start. If you cannot figure out how to begin creating your own components, then this session is for you. A step-by-step walkthrough of how to create and deploy a component and the resources available to you.

This is a session for developers

PL-400: Power Platform Developer certification review

This session explains the scope of the PL-400 exam for Power Platform developers, reviews the objectives, explains what those objectives really mean, and directs you at resources to help you prepare for success.

This session is aimed at developers

AI 101 - Options for using AI in the Power Platform

AI Builder allows you to enhance your apps and data with Artificial Intelligence without being a Data Scientist or having to learn algorithms.
This session will explain how you can use AI Builder to create your own machine learning models and then use those models in your apps and flows.
The session will explain how AI Builder compares with Azure AI Services, Azure Open AI, and Azure Machine Learning and compares these different services.
You will learn that the Azure services are not as scary as they first appear and how they are valid options for your solutions.
Finally, we will look at which service to use in different scenarios.

This session is aimed at developers and non-developers.

PL-900 Power Platform Fundamentals

Overview of the PL-900 exam, who it is aimed at, and the resources available to prepare for the exam

I am an MCT and run community study groups including one for PL-90

Want to be a Solutions Architect

What does it take to become a solution architect in Dynamics and the Power Platform? What skills, knowledge and experience are required? What resources are there?

Dynamic 365 certifications

Dynamics 365 has many certifications.
This session reviews the exams and certification for Dynamics 365 and explains which ones are relevant for each learner.
We will examine the resources for learning and provide tips for taking Dynamics 365 exams.

Using Power Platform for IoT

This session will show how the Power Platform can be used to monitor and control Azure IoT devices. I will explore the capabilities of Power Apps, Power Automate and Power BI to link to Azure IoT, AI and Dynamics 365 to create mobile solutions for users.

Power Platform and Azure: Better Together - Azure Functions as Custom Connectors

Creating reusable calculations for Biz Apps citizen developers using Azure Functions. This session is for developers to learn about how to create custom connectors linked to Azure functions and for app makers to learn how to consume Azure functions.
The session will start exploring how to create Azure Functions and how to access the Power Platform from an Azure Function.
We will next look into using Azure API Management to control access to the Functions.
We will see how to call an Azure Function from Microsoft Dataverse.
Finally, we will create a custom connector for the Azure Function and consume this connector Power Apps and Power Automate cloud flows.
This is a demo heavy session.
#LowCodeProCodeUnite

This session has been delivered before in 2019 but there is now a lot more about how to use Azure Functions and Azure API Management with Power Platform

Azure IoT Central

This workshop will get you started with free IoT Central

Azure IoT PaaS vs IoT Central SaaS

This session will explore the differences between Azure IoT PaaS service (IoT Hub, Stream Analytics, TSI, DPS etc) and Azure IoT Central, a new IoT SaaS solution

Schedule anything with Universal Resource Scheduling

Schedule Anything. Find out how to easily enable URS for any table and what is then required to schedule resources successfully.
This session explains how scheduling works in Dynamics 365 and how you can enable a custom table for scheduling so that you can see scheduling requirements not covered by work orders.
You could for example schedule leads or jobs or anything else were you need to send resources to a customer location
The session demonstrates how to configure URS to schedule a job to perform repairs

Certification for the Power Platform

Overview of the Dynamics 365 and Power Platform exams and how to be become certified in the Power Platform.

AI in Dynamics 365 Customer Data Platform

Customer Data Platform is a hot topic in the world of IT, but what is a CDP and how can it help you

Dynamics 365 Customer Insights is Microsoft’s attempt at a CDP, but here is a secret, you don’t need to have a Dynamics 365 app to use it.

This session will explain the capabilities of Customer Insights, what built-in Artificial Intelligence is provided and how you can use your own Machine Learning models to enrich your data.

This session is focused on the AI that can be used in Customer Insights

An introduction to Power Automate Desktop

Overview of and use cases for Robotic Program Automation (RPA) and how to get going with the Power Automate Desktop tools

Level 100 and is how to start and create you first desktop flow

Beyond MOC: the future of ILT

Historically MCTs deliver MOC courses for learning partners.
MOC no longer exists, we have Instructor enabled Learn content.
Many of us have seen a decrease in demand for "classic" ILT.
So, what can MCTs do.
First, I will look at creating your own courses and explain how I now generate the majority of my income from my own custom courses.
Secondly, Microsoft and their vendors use MCTs to help define exams, create questions, and write courseware. I will explain how you can earn additional income by participating such training related activities.: I will explain how each of these works, the effort required, and how you can get involved.
Questions are welcome and be prepared to challenge the speaker and add your own thoughts on the future of ILT.

This is meant to be a challenging interactive session.