Episode 107: Markus Erlandsson talks to Mike Hartley about accessibility and how you can get a bigger audience by considering it. Mike starts by explaining what the term accessibility is and how it differs from usability, he then continues to explain screen readers and contrast, as well as tab orders, canvas apps portals and model-driven apps, and what to avoid the most obvious accessibility issues, by actually checking.
Bio
Mike is newly awarded Microsoft MVP and a big advocate and user of the Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365 stacks, including the Power Platform (Power Apps, Power Automate and Data verse particularly) and Office 365. Founder and co-host of The Things We Don’t Talk About podcast and frequent blogger, speaker and advocate of Mental Health and Accessibility. Believing in Capability, not Disability and Accessible By Design solutions and events.
Episode 106: Markus Erlandsson talks to Helena Fuchs from Microsoft Sweden, about catalyst where Helena starts with explaining what catalyst is as a sales help and how it differs from sure-step. Then she continues to talk about how it comes from the Dynamics business application group in Microsoft and why it is important to a partner and customers. Helena then goes through the steps included as IDEA, Inspire, Design, Empower and Achieve.
Bio
Since October 2016, Helena Fuchs has been the business area manager for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform at Microsoft Sweden. She has previously worked there as product marketing manager for Office 365 and has a background in sales and marketing in the hardware industry from Samsung and Dell.
She is passionate about the new opportunities created through cloud digitalisation and contributes to a better and smarter future
In her spare time, Helena is a sports fan who likes to spend time with family and friends. She sings in a choir and is constantly curious about things that can make life a little bit easier and above all more fun.
Episode 105: Markus Erlandsson talks to EY Kalman from ANS Group about Omnichannel, where EY starts with explaining the term omnichannel and what it means for Dynamics, he continues to talk about what is the most popular channels and how you can bring your own channels using the channel integration framework. EY explains how Omnichannel differentiates between chat channels and voice and then how it compares to Unified Service Desk.
Bio
EY Kalman has worked with Dynamics 365 since v3.0, over a decade, he is an IT geek who loves tech and gadgets. He is also a motorbiker, traveller, and former skydiver.
He runs his own weekly interview series with people from across the globe – ‘The Oops Factor’ and regular presents at community events.
Episode 104: Markus Erlandsson talks to Heidi Neuhauser from Reenhanced about Power Automate Connector Bonanza, about the fact that we have now passed 500 connectors and what a milestone that is. Heidi starts by explaining that she has reviewed, tagged and rated all of them. Then she continues with explaining the Dataverse connector and how to use that (or those). Reenhanced has made two Microsoft Certified connectors so Heidi explains the process and just how much testing is done, she continues to talk about how open source could be beneficial and what Independent connectors are how cool they can become. The show ends with some teasers about how good Desktop flows are.
Bio
Heidi Neuhauser is Director of CRM Projects at Reenhanced, a software company specializing in rescue projects. With more than ten years of experience in Microsoft CRM, she has a wide variety of industry and product knowledge working with organizations of all sizes (from small non-profit organizations to Fortune 100 companies) to implement CRM and train end users.
Heidi has a notable passion for Microsoft Dynamics and it shows in every project she works on. She volunteers regularly in the CRMUG community. She serves as Chair for the CRMUG Philadelphia Chapter, speaks at CRM industry events about best practices and provides webinar trainings for others in the CRM community.
Heidi has experience with CRM across multiple industries, including education, oil and gas, distribution, manufacturing, travel, insurance, construction, not-for-profit, software, manufacturing, government and transportation. Some of the integrations Heidi has managed and trained end users around include ClickDimensions, ActOn, Hubspot, Exact Target, call center integrations and a number of ERP integrations. Additionally, she has assisted multiple organizations to roll out Sales, Marketing and Service for the first time, helping them to leverage technology to gain user adoption of the system.
Episode 103: Markus Erlandsson talks to Ulrikke Akerbæk from Skill AS about Portals and the training program called Portal Zero to Portal Hero. Ulrikke starts by explaining how she joined the Portals Justice league, and where she now spends her time training other members of the PowerApps portals community on how to become a hero just like her. She continues to talk about the Portal studio and how it helps everyone to make a portal easier. Ulrikke talked about some of the recent name changes and then explains what a custom list is, how much she loves branding and CSS and how bootstrap makes it all possible, with some help from her trusted friend the scout app.
Bio
Experience and interaction design, branding a visual design has been my passion and focus for the last 10 years. First through configuration and development of collaboration platforms on SharePoint. Now her attention is on Power Apps Portals and the development of web portals for customers service and partner collaboration. I thrive in tight collaboration with the customer in an operational and advisory role. I am organised, efficient and structured in my work, detail oriented, curious and I always have the end customer in mind. Being active in the Power Platform community, doing public speaking on events and helping others on their journey is something I love doing.
Episode 102: Markus Erlandsson talks to Julian Sharp from Ready 365 about Customer Insights and how you can use the application to get insights about your customers. Julian starts by explaining the difference between Audience Insights and Engagement insights, then goes into details about the different feature parts of the application, Data ingestion, Segments and Intelligence and enriching data. Julian explains that this can tell you who your best customer is, and it’s never who you think it is. Julian continues with extension points like bring your own lake or your own or your own ML model.
Bio
Julian is a specialist and Trainer in Dynamics 365, Power Platform, and Azure solutions. He focuses on creating solutions for businesses making use of Microsoft Dynamics 365, Power Apps, Power Automate, Azure, and supporting technologies. Julian has long had an interest in using AI to enhance the customer experience, using Cognitive Services, Bot Framework, and Azure Machine Learning.
Episode 101: Markus Erlandsson talks to Antti Pajunen from Forward Forever about Project Operations and how this new application is a new platform play from Microsoft on the power platform. Antti starts by explaining the product history and what the different areas are today. Antti continues to explain that the project for the web planning tool is in Dataverse and where the different areas play into Dataverse and together form this application, he goes on with explaining how dual write works here and how virtual tables can be leveraged as well. The episode ends with how licenses work and how you really can lower your costs if you plan.
Bio
Antti is a Project Operations enthusiast and a CRM guy at heart, Antti loves giving back to the community.
Episode 100: Markus Erlandsson talks to Emma D’Arcy from Hitachi Solutions about Power Virtual Agent and what the newest member of the Power Platform family can do. Emma starts by talking about what it can do and how it connects to Dataverse, what this chatbot can do. Emma continues to explain how she has used it for helping veterans, building a beer bot and choosing your own adventure for children at school lockdown, she continues to explain where you can publish your bot and how you can bring in a human when it fails.
Bio
Emma is a Power Platform Expert with over ten years’ experience in the industry with a passion for Sales and Marketing. Originally from Dublin, Ireland – she now resides in Philadelphia with her two cats – Oscar and Lewis. Sometimes she builds cool bots with Power Virtual Agent
Episode 99: Markus Erlandsson talks to Guro Faller about Banking Accelerator and what that accelerator contains. Guro starts by talking about why the accelerator program exists and what benefits we can get from using them. Guro continues to talk about what the banking accelerator is comprised of and what processes it supports, like Know Your Customer, onboarding and referral sharing. The show ends with Markus asking about The Gathering and the Minecraft concert that Guro was involved in and responsible for putting together.
Bio
Guro has over ten years’ experience in IT, working in different roles varying from support and applications maintenance, event management, user experience, digital marketing, customer service and everything revolving around CRM-systems; she has for the last 8 years focused her career around CRM and Dynamics platform. Currently working as Solution Architect and Head of CRM in Avanade Norway.
Episode 98: Markus Erlandsson talks about his favourite parts of 2021 Release wave 1, within the application that he spends most of his time. First its Power apps, and then its Sales, Customer Service, Marketing and then some Canvas Apps to finish it off.
