1ClickFactory and QBS Group Merge to Form Companial, an International Network of Microsoft Dynamics Partners

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1ClickFactory and QBS Group merge to provide additional service offerings to customers as it becomes Companial, the largest and fastest-growing international network of Microsoft Dynamics Partners.

Leusden, The Netherlands, Vilinus, Lithuania, Feb. 2, 2022 –  1ClickFactory, based in Vilnius, Lithuania and QBS Group, headquartered in Leusden, the Netherlands, announced today, February 2nd, 2022, that the companies are merging to form a new company named Companial.

1ClickFacory and QBS Group are well known in the Microsoft Business Application area, providing services and licenses to Microsoft Dynamics Partners. When 1ClickFactory and QBS Group began its strategic partnership in 2017, it quickly became obvious that both companies’ offerings around technical services, enablement, license operation, support for Independent software vendors (ISV), marketing services and Dynamics Partner engagement were very complementary, all focused on Microsoft Dynamics and Power Platform. Companial comes to market with a clear vision to become the preferred community for every Dynamics professional.

1ClickFactory is a Microsoft ISV Development Center and Gold Certified in Enterprise Resource Planning, Application Development and Cloud Platform. As a global business, it delivers services to 300+ Dynamics Partners in 40+ countries. 1ClickFactory’s high-quality Microsoft Dynamics 365 upgrade, development, and training services, together with its leading Microsoft Azure managed hosting service, help Microsoft Partners offer better business value to customers, delivering solutions on-premises and/or in the cloud.

“I am very excited to join forces and offer a One-Stop-Shop for every Dynamics Professional with Companial. Our clear mission is to exceed expectations by putting our Microsoft Partners at the center of all our efforts, offering outstanding services, developing and supporting Dynamics Partners on their (cloud) journey, and empowering them in all aspects of their business. The central word in our vision is “community”. We do everything to make the community work and to inspire those in it.

Companial promises that it’s easy to do business with us, that we offer a high-quality portfolio of services supporting all Dynamics workloads, and that we provide our Dynamics Partners with appealing offers!

We are dedicated to the success of our Dynamics Partners, and above all we prioritize personal relationships and a personal touch for the good of our community,”
Louis Rustenhoven, Chief Executive Officer, Companial.

QBS Group is the largest Dynamics ecosystem, second only to Microsoft itself. Situated in over 25 countries worldwide, with over 800 Partners that manage more than 40,000 customers, QBS Group was one of the only Dynamics-focused indirect Cloud Solution Providers. With its expertise and personal contact, QBS Group has helped Dynamics Partners transition to the cloud and supported them in driving the digital transformation. Microsoft has recently recognized QBS Group with the Inner Circle Award for Microsoft Business Applications 2021/22, the 8th year in a row QBS Group has received this honor.

“Seeing Dynamics Partners in our ecosystem scale is the number one thing for growth. We recognize that our Microsoft Partners are the wakeboard, and we want Microsoft Partners to be as efficient, capable, and notable as possible. We have had such great experiences with QBS and 1ClickFactory in the past and we are confident that this combination is really going to enable Companial to bring on more customers, do a better job, have a higher level of customer satisfaction, and have a great relationship with Microsoft. A win-win-win situation for everyone!”
Mike Morton, General Manager Business Central, Microsoft.

While the launch of Companial will have no impact on existing relationships and contracts that Dynamics Partners have with 1ClickFactory or QBS Group, Dynamics Partners can expect additional services and offerings that will help them to either establish a Microsoft Dynamics practice or evolve an existing business to enable digital transformation and better satisfy customers. One example is the newly announced partnership with Plataan, one of the leading training providers for Microsoft Dynamics and Power Platform. This partnership will result in a full set of trainings and enablement tools that will be offered under the Companial brand to Dynamics Partners worldwide.

“I am happy to share my thoughts about the integration that is now happening between QBS and 1ClickFactory. We are excited and we think it’s a great move. Collectively, as a community, we have an enormous amount of work to do to take Dynamics customers forward to a bright Dynamics 365 cloud future. And only collectively do we have the resources to make that happen in any kind of sensitive timeframe. We are already enjoying working with your team to move our customers forward and we hope to do much more of that in the future and having a single throat to choke. We look forward to working with you”
Paul White, Chief Executive Officer at The NAV | 365 People

About Companial

Companial is the largest and fastest-growing international network of Microsoft Dynamics

Partners. Companial supports its Dynamics Partners – Resellers, System Integrators, Service Providers, and ISVs – with business and technical services aimed at growing revenue, lowering costs, and improving customer satisfaction. Companial is an official SMB ERP Distributor; Indirect CSP Provider for Microsoft; a Microsoft ISV Development Center; and Gold Certified in Enterprise Resource Planning, Application Development and Cloud Platform. Companial’s high-quality Microsoft Dynamics 365 upgrade, development, and migration services, together with its leading Microsoft Azure managed hosting service, helps Microsoft Partners offer better business value to their customers when delivering solutions on-premises and/or in the cloud. Companial is currently delivering and supporting over 1000 Dynamics Partners in more than 40 countries worldwide.

For more information reach out to: Ursula Koller, ukoller@qbsgroup.com

Visit our website: www.companial.com

How can you win the market with Power Platform in 2022?

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Power Platform is just that, a platform. It’s difficult to go to market with a platform proposition to your customers – so how can you start to make money from Power Platform and its associated technologies? If you would like to think about how you can go from Microsoft Dynamics 365 or Business Central to broader Business Applications, you need to think outside of the product box and broadly consider what can be delivered.

Attend this session to learn about how you can begin to commercialize the Power Platform, what scenarios may fit the market, what has worked well for partners already, and what you will need to consider when starting a successful Power Platform practice.

Microsoft New Commerce Experience in CSP – Office Hours

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Microsoft has released the New Commerce Experience for seat-based licenses in the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program.
There are some important changes compared to the current CSP subscriptions that you as partner should be aware of.
Therefore, we are pleased to invite you to our Office Hours regarding the New Commerce Experience in CSP, hosted by the Partner Care team.
During these Office Hours, we will go through important updates, and give you the opportunity to ask all your questions.

Date Time
Thursday 3 February 2022 13:00 – 13:30 CET
Thursday 17 February 2022 13:00 – 13:30 CET
Thursday 3 March 2022 13:00 – 13:30 CET
Thursday 17 March 2022 13:00 – 13:30 CET
Thursday 31 March 2022 13:00 – 13:30 CEST

 

Do you really need the Business Central Universal Code Initiative? Are you shocked? Let’s hope not…

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What’s the Business Central Universal Code Initiative?

For a while now, Microsoft has been emphasizing the move to the Cloud. We’ve had their ‘Cloud-first strategy’ and then more recently, the ‘Business Central Publisher Program’ targeting ISVs to convince and even force them to adopt the ‘Cloud-first strategy’. Microsoft forces ISVs to put their solutions on AppSource, even if those ISVs are only serving on-premises customers right now. They’ve even gone so far as to announce possible fees in the future if you won’t adopt the Cloud-first strategy. And now, with the Business Central Universal Code initiative, they are targeting everyone to adopt this strategy.

Basically, with this new initiative, selling extensions not targeted for online use to new Business Central on-premises customers could require you to license two additional modules:

  • Module “Implemented code is not in extensions”
    When the Microsoft Business Central base application is modified, customers will need to license this module.
  • Module “Implemented code is not cloud-optimized”
    When code is developed in extensions, but they are not cloud-optimized, customers will need to license this module

The cost of these modules (read: fees) will start at $0 per full user (both Essentials and Premium) per year and will increase over time. Here is the timeline Microsoft is currently aiming for.

And what about those increasing fees?

Recurring fee(s) Timeline Implemented code is not in extensions Implemented code is not cloud-optimized
2022 $0 $0
2023 $75 $0
2024 $125 $75
2025 $250 $175
2026 onwards TBD TBD

Note: Customers who licensed Dynamics NAV or Dynamics 365 Business Central on-premises before April 1, 2022 will not be required to license the non-Universal Code modules in their current configuration. They can add, remove users and first- and third-party functionality without the need to license previous mentioned new modules.

More information about Business Central Universal Code

What’s Microsoft’s Goal?

To put it very simply, Microsoft would like to create a Business Central SaaS world where every (potential) customer can get any (ISV) solution they need to be able to run their organization on Business Central SaaS. Therefore, Microsoft wants you to create solutions that will work in Business Central SaaS. It’s the future for Microsoft Partners and customers in the Dynamics 365 (Business Central) community, and Microsoft wants to see everyone collaborating on this. Microsoft tries to motivate us by charging fees to those who do not cooperate.

The benefits of the Universal Code initiative, according to Microsoft:

  • Universal Code can be implemented everywhere, in Business Central online, in on-premises or Partner-hosted environments.
  • By listing your Universal Code on Microsoft AppSource, you extend your sales force, reach more customers, and connect directly with decision-makers.
  • By bundling your connected Microsoft cloud services with Universal Code, you generate customer stickiness.
  • Universal Code frees up capacity to improve our mutual offerings and we will be able to serve more customers.

Let’s Get Technical about Universal Code

From Q4 2022 onwards, technical enforcement will be introduced in Business Central so that only ‘Universal Code’ is allowed as additional code in customer environments. You need to move to full extensions only, meaning no more code customizations in Base App. That means in your app.json you should use: “target” : “Cloud”, so your code will work both in SaaS and in on-premises environments.

To make your solutions compatible with Business Central SaaS you need to meet the requirements of SaaS, such as:

  • No usage of .Net Interop (please think about Azure Functions)
  • No file system (please think about Azure Blob Storage, Cosmos etc.)
  • No direct access to SQL
  • Web client only
  • No Base App Source Code modifications
  • Lack of events
  • Printing

This means you not only have to think about moving your code to AL, but also about how to overcome the limitations or requirements of Business Central SaaS. You really need to think outside the box and see the opportunity offered by the whole Microsoft Platform instead of just focusing on the Business Central app itself.

You really need to have a look at Azure (Functions, Storage, SQL, Apps, etc.) which offers multiple solutions in the stack to help you meet the requirements of Business Central SaaS. And yes, that requires other skills you probably don’t have in your organization yet.

Conclusion, Impact and Calls to Action

So, are you shocked, or do you need to make use of this initiative? Let’s hope not, because that would mean you have missed all the Microsoft news in the last 3 or 4 years.

Microsoft has shared their vision for the direction of Business Central SaaS.  It should be the easiest-to-use business application suite, delightful, efficient, “video-game” fast, powerful, simple to discover and quick to onboard. All of this should be available for every (potential) Business Central customer, and they want you to collaborate on that by making your solutions available for SaaS (too).

Hopefully you are already there, or at least almost there, but if not, please rethink your organization’s approach or even the right to exist in the next few years. If you really would like to embrace the cloud you need to think outside the ERP box. It’s not a single solution, but just one part of the platform you offer to your customers.

  • Rethink your solution: Get rid of legacy customizations that are included in Business Central nowadays. Think about Buy or Build. If something already exists on AppSource, why are you going to invest in creating a similar app?
  • Embrace Azure: Have a look at your solutions through the eyes of an Azure Solutions Architect. Train your team in Azure (Blob, SQL, Logic Apps, Functions and Cosmos to start with).
  • Pick your battles: Use Horizontal ISV Solutions. Don’t develop something which already exists. Team up with other Partners. Outsource development and maintenance of your apps.
  • Search for Value: Only invest in solutions where you are really adding value to Business Central and your vertical. Have a look at the QBS Marketplace. Tell your PSM that you would like to have a chat with one of our Architects.

 

I would like to close with a quote of Marije Brummel (Azure Solutions Architect);

“No one needs to be left behind!”

Strategic Partnership QBS Group and 1Clickfactory with Plataan

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Plataan, based in Hasselt, Belgium and QBS Group, headquartered in Leusden, The Netherlands announced today that they will join forces moving forward. As of January 2022, QBS Group has acquired a shareholder majority of Plataan.

This transaction is an important step in the strategy of QBS Group to enhance the portfolio of partner growth services delivered to the worldwide Dynamics partner channel. It perfectly fits in the vision of the group to be the most preferred community and center of expertise for every Dynamics professional in the world.

In 2021 Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (BC) SaaS growth figures showed that it is now imperative that Dynamics partners become proficient in the relevant Dynamics 365 Business Central competencies, skills and knowledge. The tremendous growth of Business Central SaaS is also reflected in the accelerated intake and number of certifications of new Business Central professionals in the “Business Central Booster” Training Program delivered by Plataan. This program is a virtual online program designed to learn through practical, hands-on exercises whilst being guided by an experienced certified trainer. Apart from the Booster programs for Dynamics Business Central, Plataan is offering training courses for Microsoft’s Power Platform, Office 365 and the Customer Engagement workloads.

With this important strategic announcement, QBS Group and Plataan move into a league of their own when it comes to training capabilities, capacity and coverage to serve the Dynamics partner channel:

We consider Plataan as a leading strategic training partner for our community of current and future Dynamics partners. The ambition of Plataan to build all-inclusive online competency programs for Dynamics partners perfectly fits with our unique set of technical services covering Business Central, F&O, PowerApps and Customer Engagement and our expertise in Traditional and CSP (Cloud) licensing. We’re all looking forward to a great collaboration with multiple benefits for our partner community!
 Louis Rustenhoven, CEO QBS Group & 1ClickFactory

 

Both companies are true partner focused organisations. Both have a ‘Microsoft Dynamics only’ strategy. No other Value-Added Distributor in the worldwide Microsoft channel can claim this. Our (digital) training offerings and capabilities combined with the sales & marketing and deep technical skills of QBS Group & 1ClickFactory together plus their wide international distribution network create a great fit! The Dynamics partner community can expect from us more attractive training offerings, including offerings around the domain of D365 Finance & Supply Chain and Power Platform.
Vincent Bellefroid, Partner Plataan

 

QBShare In-Person Event

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Thursday 2nd December at the beautiful Coombe Abbey Hotel

Join us for our ‘In-person, 2021 QBShare’ on Thursday 2nd December at the beautiful ‘Coombe Abbey Hotel’ set in the tranquil Coventry and Warwickshire countryside. View Agenda

 

We hope you will be able to join us for this rather special QBShare event and use it as an opportunity to explore a great variation of some truly informative topics around Microsoft Dynamics 365, Power Platform, ISV solutions and indeed enhanced QBS services.

 

 

Coombe Abbey. A rather special venue for us and our partners to enjoy and celebrate the coming together, face to face as a community once again!

Founded in 1150 AD as the Abbey of Cumbe, Coombe Abbey Hotel has had an interesting life and enjoys a rich and fascinating history, with ties to royalty and the Gunpowder Plot.

 

 

Timings

We promise an action packed agenda with great speakers, great ideas and great fun ! VIEW AGENDA HERE

 

2nd December

9.30am – 5.00pm               QBShare, an action-packed day with guest speakers and great topics

 

7.30pm – 8.30pm               Pre-Dinner Drinks

8.30pm Onwards               Dinner, Awards, Celebrations

 

3rd December                    Opportunity for 1-1 meetings

 

A really good combination of business led and technical focussed sessions, open forums to allow for networking and sharing, and product and service led sessions too.

 

We will have the pleasure of being joined by our Microsoft colleagues and have a great line up of other guest speakers from within our ISV partner community as well and not forgetting our keynote speaker .

 

Meet Our Sponsors 

We are delighted and looking forward to our sponsors joining us for QBShare.

 

COST

Conference with Dinner is Complimentary

Bed & Breakfast @Coombe Abbey  (NOW FULL)  Alternative hotel accommodation is available at Brandon Hall Hotel and Spa.

 

Only a few spaces remain, book today to avoid disappointment.

Directions EMEA in Milan and we as QBS Group will be there!

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It was a tough year without meeting each other in person, having the network possibilities at events and not seeing each other in the conference of Directions. But the focus at this event will be on the fall release of Dynamics 365 Business Central, efficient use of the new development environment, cloud infrastructure and Power Platform.
Gain first-hand knowledge about Dynamics 365 Business Central and the Power Platform.

Innovate your business to successfully deal with technological requirements, and new pricing and sales policies. Offer customers outstanding extensions, innovative solutions, and apps in AppSource using Business Central, Azure Services, Microsoft Power Platform, AI and Machine Learning Collaborate with Microsoft and other Dynamics partners worldwide to enhance your offerings and SMB market presence.

Join Directions EMEA 2021 in Milan on October 27-29, 2021 and get inspired by the QBS presentations during our expertise sessions.

See you in Milan!

 

How to rapidly sell Business Central as a 100% fit, and let your customers recognize the value immediately.

William van Voorthuijsen
William van Voorthuijsen

Target audience: Sales & Marketing, Leadership, Consulting

In this session, you will learn the tips and tricks on how to sell Business Central SaaS to customers in the lower end of the SMB space. We all know that those customers don’t expect high implementation costs. They would rather love to recognize the value of Business Central immediately at low costs and as a great fit with their business. Learn how to complete standard Business Central with some great AppSource offerings and rapid implementations making use of wizards so that your end customers are up and running very quickly as well as recognizing the value of using Business Central in their business.

Session Info – Thursday, October 28, 2021 – 11.00 a.m. – Room Amber 5+6

There is a solution for almost every business challenge, but where can you find it?

Herman van Leeuwen QBS group
Herman van Leeuwen

Target audience: Sales & Marketing

The cloud transformation offers the opportunity to use a dedicated ISV solution rather than developing customizations. Today there are over 1,500 Business Central solutions published on AppSource. Herman will explain how you can find the right solution.

Session Info – Wednesday, October 27, 2021 – 11.00 a.m. – Room Amber 5+6

Go to Market with Power Platform

Chris Parkes
Chris Parkes

Target audience: Sales & Marketing, Leadership

Power Platform is just that, a Platform. It’s difficult to go to market with a platform proposition to your customers so how can you start to make money from Power Platform and associated technologies?  If you would like to think about how you can go from Dynamics 365 or Business Central to broader Business Applications, you need to think outside of the product box and broadly consider what can be delivered.  Attend this session to learn about how you can begin to commercialise power platforms, what scenarios may fit the market, what has worked well for partners already and what you will need to consider to get ready to start a successful Power Platform practice.

Session Info – Wednesday, October 27, 2021 – 11.00 a.m. – Room Coral 3

Have a look at the sessions of 1Click Factory at Directions

Pass by at our booth S09 – a nice surprise is waiting for you!

We are looking forward to seeing you at Directions EMEA in Milan.

If you have any questions, please reach out to us!

Dynamics 365 Update Webcast 1 July 2021

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This series of webcasts is intended to share the latest information on Microsoft Dynamics 365 and related ISV solutions, both from a technical, functional and business perspective.
And along the year we will keep you informed about the latest news from Microsoft biggest events like Inspire, Directions ASIA, North America and EMEA.

Topics – 1 July 2021

Part 1: Dynamics 365 Business Central Update
Dynamics 365 Business Central Update (20 Minutes)

Part 2: PowerPlatform and CRM update
PowerPlatform and CRM update (20 Minutes)

Part 3: Solitea
Solitea (15 Minutes)

Dynamics 365 Update Webcast

Dynamics 365 Update Webcast

Cosmos versus Azure SQL and how to integrate with Dynamics 365 Business Central #MSDYN365BC

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One of the highest-scoring FAQs from partners and customers moving to Business Central is about direct access to the SQL Server database in combination with the maximum database size.

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Since Dynamics NAV in the last ten years only ran on SQL Server this is what most partners know. Large customers often buy CPU licenses and since they have a SQL Server this is what they often start using as a Data Warehouse too.

The cloud equivalent of SQL Server is Azure SQL and this is fully supported by Business Central. In fact, this is what Microsoft uses for hosting the SaaS platform.

One might be tempted to use Azure SQL then also for cloud data storage, but this may not always be the best choice. On Azure, we have more than just a hammer.

Azure Cosmos Database is a good alternative in Azure if you are looking to store large amounts of data from different sources that you want to use in a Web Shop or other Web-Based solution.

The question that rises is then, what would this cost, and how do I send information back and forth between Cosmos and Business Central.

The pricing model for Cosmos is different from Azure SQL in a sense that you pay for real throughput and storage. The storage model is cheaper than the model for Azure SQL.

Cosmos is also auto-scale and auto indexed even though I expect that most of the workload from SMB customers will not be affected by this a lot.

Cosmos vs. Azure Data Lake

In this article we discuss Cosmos as an alternative to Azure SQL. Cosmos is not the only alternative and in the next articles, we will also discuss Azure Data Lake and other blob-based solutions.

Working with Cosmos & Business Central

As you may expect from my profile the main topic of this blog is the technology required to get data to move from Business Central to Cosmos. For this there are two options and I’ll describe both and share code examples.

In both cases we are going to use the Cosmos Rest API.

The AL way

The first option and probably the option of choice by experienced AL developers is to call the API directly from Business Central. This is a straightforward HTTP request where we send json information to a Cosmos container. The thing that may require to fiddle with a bit is the security tokens, but this has been laid out in the example code. You can find code examples on our GitHub.

The C# way

Another option which will most likely be the preferred option by developers who are new to our community is to call the Business Central REST API from an Azure Function and push that data into Cosmos using some C# code. This is also part of the examples you can find on GitHub.

Best of both worlds

Both options can also be combined. This depends on how you want to schedule the synchronization. Scheduling can be done using a Logic App that synchronizes data every x minutes, or hours, or you can push the Azure Function from the Business Central Job Queue. Alternatively, you can even call the Azure Event Grid from a Business Central Webhook and use that to transform data from Business Central to Cosmos.

The Azure Function also allows data to be stored from other data sources such as a SOAP endpoint.

Pitfalls and tips

You can store all kinds of data in Cosmos, based on containers just like Azure Blob Storage.

Cosmos is a no SQL database so it does not force you to follow schemas.

The consequence of the lack of schema’s is that it becomes the responsibility of the owner of the database to make sure data in a container is consistent and all json files follow the same structure.

As an example, let’s assume you have created a container with Item Inventory by date and you want to add location code as a new field. You need to update old records with the location code or create a new container with fresh data.

The example code provided on the GitHub contains a Version No. field and some extra Metadata about the json stored in the container. This allows you to have multiple versions of a record in the same container and store, for example, items and resources in the same container. This can have an advantage if you need an aggregation across Business Central entities in one container.

Because throughput is the main driver for cost in Cosmos it can also be beneficial to duplicate data across containers if there is a clear difference in data requirements across certain BI dashboards. For example, certain dashboards only require a customer name, where other dashboards require post codes or city.

Since data is stored in json format you can store parent and child information in one container, such as Sales Headers and Lines.

Creating a new Cosmos Instance & Database

One of the reasons Cosmos can be interesting for the SMB market and Business Central users is that it provides a free entry level of 25GB and 1000ru. This should suffice for an average Datawarehouse combining data from Business Central and other entities.

Cosmos versus Azure SQL and how to integrate with Dynamics 365 Business Central #MSDYN365BC
API

You can choose any API you are familiar with, but the examples on our GitHub are based on Core SQL. This syntax is relatively close to Transact SQL that most Business Central power users are familiar with.
Cosmos versus Azure SQL and how to integrate with Dynamics 365 Business Central #MSDYN365BC

 

Serverless or Provisioned

Probably serverless since we are having very incremental workloads. If we don’t use Cosmos, we only pay for storage.

Account Name

The account name is a generic name, used for all databases, just like an Azure SQL Server.

Other options may be left default or may vary based on your organizational backup and security policies and are not part of the scope of this document.

Creating a Database and a Container

In our code examples, the Database and Container are created by the Azure Function in C# if you try to write to a Database and/or Container that does not exist. The AL code does not contain examples of creating a Database or Container automatically. If you go for AL only you need to either write this code or create them manually via the Azure Portal.

Cosmos versus Azure SQL and how to integrate with Dynamics 365 Business Central #MSDYN365BC

 

GitHub
https://github.com/qbsgroup/QBS.BusinessCentral.Cosmos
https://github.com/qbsgroup/QBS.AzureFunction.Cosmos

 

Dynamics 365 Update Webcast 27 May 2021

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This series of webcasts is intended to share the latest information on Microsoft Dynamics 365 and related ISV solutions, both from a technical, functional and business perspective.
And along the year we will keep you informed about the latest news from Microsoft biggest events like Inspire, Directions ASIA, North America and EMEA.

Dynamics 365 Update Webcast

Dynamics 365 Update Webcast

Get Insights from Microsoft about the directions of Business Central in the SMB Channel

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Michael Hartman, CEO of QBS Group, interviewed Mike Morton, General Manager Dynamics 365 Business Central at Microsoft.

What’s next for Dynamics 365 Business Central On-Prem? Where does Microsoft see the current and future target market for Dynamics 365 Business Central and which related technologies / solution areas will become more important for Business Central partners? Those are only a couple of questions that were answered during this interview.

“The vast majority of innovation will be delivered on BC SaaS – but it’s a journey to get there.”

Hear in this video the critical questions answered. Mike Morton states, that there will be support for individual releases and there are scenarios to keep the support going, there is no lifecycle ending in sight for Business Central in the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, the differentiator in the market is the Cloud offering and the adoption of Dynamics partners to deliver digitalization to their customers. As an example, Morton mentioned the Microsoft Teams integration.

Microsoft believes in Cloud/SaaS as the best place in the long run for customers. As an intermediate step going from an On-Prem solution to a hosted environment is a big step forward in the right direction. Morton takes away the fear of the too frequent update cycles with the argument that there is a maximum of innovation aligned with a traditional update cycle, which keeps stability, trust and flexibility.

What is the positioning strategy of Microsoft for Business Central versus Finance & Operations, beside the fact of the respective target markets? How does the competition landscape look and last, but not least, looking to the future – what is planned within the next 18-24 months and what is Mike Morton’s advice to the partners? Watch here the full interview.

 

ERP Migration – the Friendly Hill That One Day May Become a Hostile Mountain

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Cloud computing is probably the most profound IT-innovation of this century so far. The software industry has rapidly embraced the paradigm shift and has introduced Software-as-a-Service solutions paid for as recurring subscriptions.

The market acceptance of the SaaS format has been equally impressive. Customers simply love it, and for good reasons.

They get rid of their IT-infrastructure and the hassle of keeping it up to date. Instead, they get access to a virtually unlimited capacity that can adapt quickly (CPU and storage) to their needs at little additional cost. They no longer have to worry about hardware and software operations, maintenance and updates. They move the bulk of their IT-expenses from the CAPEX to the OPEX section of their budgets. During the current Covid19-pandemic, that fiscal detail proved an advantage to many companies and organisations as they could increase or decrease their spending on the fly.

ERP Migration

According to industry analysts, cloud computing and SaaS have long surpassed the tipping point on the market acceptance curve and are becoming the mainstream delivery format for ERP solutions.

The hill that grows a little higher every day

Despite the attractiveness of the cloud delivery format, a few obstacles block the way to the promised land for a large group of companies.

The names of these obstacles are customisations and partner solutions, and the path around or over them is called migration.

In this context, the popular industry and customised ERP-solution delivered by the Microsoft Dynamics value-added resellers may now sound like an alliance with the devil. Still, they were done for very good reasons. Dynamics NAV Business Central (on-premises) was and is, in many cases, the perfect platform for the SME (small and medium enterprise) with industry-specific or unique individual needs. Not all organisations fit the plain vanilla standard that characterised the SaaS delivery format’s first ERP-solutions.

There will always be organisations with industry-specific or special individual needs to which ISVs and VARs must cater. To enjoy the benefits of the innovations and advances in the information technology and software industry, such companies must move to a cloud-based ERP-platform that supports their business processes.

ERP Migration

The first in line to offer such platforms are you, the Microsoft Dynamics partner that provided the on-premises solutions in the first place. You have the domain insight and are familiar with the customers’ requirements.

Making a replica of your on-premises solutions on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central SaaS requires investments. New skills must be acquired for the development work, and partners must convince the customers to migrate and pay for the customisations. It’s a complicated puzzle for which you need a business case.

Unfortunately, time is not on your side. The longer you wait to migrate your industry solutions and the longer the customers defer their customisation, the more difficult and expensive the jobs may become. The more significant the gap between the versions, the more expensive it is to upgrade. However, SaaS products evolve very fast and technical limitations to upgrades diminish over time as well.

What is a pleasant hill today may grow to become a hostile mountain in the future when Microsoft stops the support for your on-premises software.

Getting started today is much better than waiting.

Any journey consists of one step at a time

The first step you should take is joining the Cloud Solution Provider Program (CSP). It will allow you to offer your customers a series of services and benefits.

As a Cloud Solution Provider partner, you can create and deliver differentiated offers to customers, selling the Microsoft cloud portfolio and third-party solutions from the Microsoft commercial marketplace alongside your own value-added solutions and services. You can manage the entire customer engagement lifecycle and establish your credibility with customers as a trusted advisor.

With perpetual software licenses for on-premises use now available in the CSP program, partners can provide a simplified experience for customers who need licenses and managed services to support their hybrid environments and prefer to transact with a single partner.

[This video explains CSP well: ]

Perpetual software in CSP helps partners provide a one-stop-shop for their customers, selling software licenses and cloud services together. For example, you can offer customers to pay their Business Ready Enhancement Plan (BREP) monthly and give them free access to a Business Central SaaS tenant.

Develop your migration plan and the business case.

Taking time out of your busy schedule to take a helicopter perspective on your situation may seem daunting, especially when you lack experience with the details of what lies ahead of you. You have many questions for which you do not have the answers. What will it take in terms of money, time and skills to reimplement the software? Which type of people and training do you need? Will the new SaaS-solution be fully compatible with your current on-premises version? How soon will the customer buy-in to your new offering, and will they be prepared to co-sponsor the effort? Can you win new customers, and how do you do that?

Microsoft Dynamics value-added resellers are very fortunate because they can tap into the expertise of the QBS group and 1ClickFactory.

As a value-added distributor, the number one priority of the QBS group is to help the Microsoft Dynamics resellers map the road to the cloud. That is Microsoft’s key strategic objective, and QBS is the executive branch driving the effort with the partners.

QBS will help you put together the business case. 1ClickFactory, a specialist in upgrading and migrating NAV and Business Central solutions, can tell you precisely what is technically possible, what it will take, what it will cost, and how soon it can be done. If you lack the resources, they can even do the migration for you.

Time is running out

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central version 14 is the last version that supports the C/AL Add-ons AND can be hosted on Azure. Version 14 is only available to existing NAV customers, and that option ends on 31 October 2021.

If you cannot get your NAV customers to a more recent Business Central version now, you should get them to version 14 and offer them hosting on Azure.

However, Microsoft ISV’s ultimate goal is to migrate their industry solution based on C/AL to Extensions and make these available on AppSource. This is the way forward, and with time many of the individual customisations’ VARs have done over the years will be available as extensions on AppSource.

There may be technical issues around the current version of Business Central SaaS (such as database limitations) that prohibits a full migration now. But as support for old versions of NAV Business Central will eventually terminate, reimplementing C/AL code to Extensions becomes more urgent.

Each situation is different, but the end goal is the same. 1ClickFactory, a dedicated Microsoft Dynamics upgrade and migration company, has performed hundreds of such projects and can assist you. Give them a call.

The era of the dinosaur also came to an end

I guess that 80 per cent of NAV-based industry solutions and customisations have not yet been migrated to Extensions. That is a large number, but experience shows that the tipping point is around 20 per cent, which means that the remaining customers will now adapt much faster.

ERP Migration Cloud

In the not-so-distant future, all organisations will have migrated to the cloud, and most of them will be running on SaaS solutions. The open question is how many of these customers will stay with their current partner and how many will move to someone who can better cater to their needs?

Although the migration challenge indeed represents a heavy anchor to the past, the train of innovation will eventually overtake old software. The vendors, such as Microsoft and their partners, invest heavily in making their cloud offerings capable of also embracing industry and individual requirement and are scouting for new market opportunities. Someday someone will open a tunnel offering your customers a bypass through the stony mountain and getting to their destination even during a snowstorm. It will require a new vehicle, which they may accept.

QBS Bernhard migration cloud

What is Microsoft Cloud Business Applications SMB Option?

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If you were not already aware, Microsoft has created the new Cloud Business Applications SMB Option as part of the Small and Midmarket Cloud Solutions competency.

The new Cloud Business Applications SMB option caters for Silver and Gold partner status. A maximum Partner Contribution Indicator (PCI) score of 100 points can be achieved, with the PCI score divided into the three areas of Performance, Customer Success and Capability (max. 35 points).

Achieving competency status seems tough at first glance. However, as a QBS partner, we will support you in all required PCI areas to help you achieve your desired certification goal. Below you will find a breakdown by PCI area of initial support services that you can take advantage of as part of your QBS partnership.

There are also two important items of news around the ERP Competency (for on-premise NAV/Business Central):

– Due to COVID Microsoft has extended the grace period around renewal dates. The competency can still be extended until 30/06/2022 if a partner’s renewal is due between now and 30/06/2021.
– No retirement date for the ERP Competency has been announced

Read the latest news from our Partner care team on Yammer

 

Cloud Business Applications SMB Option

If you have any questions about the Cloud Business Applications SMB option or specific questions about support options, please do not hesitate to contact our QBS Partner Care team!

The new Cloud Business Applications SMB Option

The new Cloud Business Applications SMB option caters for Silver and Gold partner status. Partners seeking certification must demonstrate a Partner Contribution Indicator (PCI) of at least 60+ points for Silver status and 80+ points for Gold status. A maximum PCI score of 100 points can be achieved, with the PCI divided into three areas: Performance (max. 20 points), Customer Success (max. 45 points) and Capability (max. 35 points). More information on the Microsoft website

QBS Webcast: SMB Cloud Solutions Competency

Maitane Muñoz de los Santos, Power Platform Partner Marketing Manager at Microsoft gave some insights in a webcast in January. She provides a detailed explanation and more background information on the new Cloud Business Applications SMB competency options. Watch here on our QBS Group YouTube Channel

Factsheet: Cloud Business Applications SMB Competency

The factsheet in Partner Portal summarizes all relevant information on the Cloud Business Applications SMB competence option and a step by step through the specific requirements.

PCI: PERFORMANCE

The Performance area revolves around the acquisition of new cloud customers and the generation of new cloud revenue. A maximum of 20 points can be scored in this area: 10 points for new cloud customers (1 point per new customer) and 10 points for newly generated cloud revenue.

For new customer acquisition in the area of SaaS deployment option, we can support you with the following service:

Take The Lead Program
With the Take The Lead program, which you can obtain through your QBS service funds, we generate new cloud prospects for you each month that fit exactly into your portfolio.

PCI: CUSTOMER SUCCESS

Within the PCI Customer Success section, you will receive a maximum of 25 points for a growing number of users (baseline of 50+ active users per month and additional 35 percent growth) and 20 points for ten new deployments in the past 12 months.

It is not mandatory that the cloud users have to come from a single offering, i.e. only Business Central or only Finance & Operations. All users from the Cloud Business Applications SMB Option area are added together. This means that if you add more Dynamics 365 Sales users to your Business Central users, for example, you will also increase your active user base.

In the PCI area Customer Success you can access the following services and offers within your QBS membership:

  1. Learning Path for Business Central SaaS Getting customers to the cloud requires, as a first step, getting your own team cloud-ready. At QBS Academy, you will find a multi-part learning path for Business Central that summarizes all the details on all deployment options – including SaaS. This on-demand learning path is available free of charge as part of your QBS membership.
  2. Service: QBS Upgrade Services for Dynamics NAV / Business Central Migrations of existing customers to SaaS can be a challenge for partners who do not handle this on a regular basis for various reasons. The QBS Upgrade Services provided by 1ClickFactory supports you competently and professionally in the technical execution of SaaS migrations.

PCI: CAPABILITY

The QBS Academy currently offers the following online courses to prepare you for the respective certification:

  • MB-800 Certification Preparation: Dynamics 365 Business Central
    This online course optimally prepares your consultants for the certification exam, which is also conducted in English. Essentially, the course was developed by our course partner Plataan, who also played a key role in the development of the MB-800 certification exam. Training overview
  • MB-210 Certification Preparation: Dynamics 365 Sales
    The two-day online course optimally prepares you and your employees for the certification exam for Dynamics 365 Sales. The already proven course is suitable for consultants and sales employees. Training overview

Why is Application Insights so important with Dynamics 365 Business Central?

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I can understand why some people would still refrain from recommending Business Central SaaS to their prospects or customers simply because they feel as though they could lose the ability to service them once deployed in a Public Cloud. They feel that they are handing control to the “Dark Side”. If you compare SaaS with on-premise, from a “want to be in control” standpoint, I would regrettably agree with some people’s concerns: as soon as your customer is deployed into the “unknown”, you may start to feel an element of immediate loss. You can no longer nurture that deployment as if it was “yours”! Well, I disagree! I am equally aware of the lack of knowledge regarding new tooling available to partners to effectively monitor the wellbeing of customers’ deployments, either in SaaS, hybrid cloud, or completely on-premise. Application Insights is there to support Business Central, regardless of which deployment option is recommended to customers!

What does Application Insights do?

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is a solution that in ever-larger numbers is deployed in the cloud. Whilst having the advantage of less systems administration, it also has the disadvantage of less easily available server performance metrics. Microsoft delivers application performance metrics of cloud Business Central environments to Application Insights.

More regarding Application Insights

Dynamics 365 Business Central emits telemetry data for various activities and operations on tenants and extensions. Whether running Business Central Online or On-premises, you can set up your tenants to send telemetry to Application Insights. Application Insights is a service hosted within Azure that gathers telemetry data for analysis and presentation.

What is the advantage here, then?

Application Insights can be enabled on two different levels: tenant and extension. When enabled on the tenant, either for a Business Central online tenant or on-premises Business Central Server instance, telemetry is emitted to a single Application Insights resource for gathering data on tenant-wide operations.

With Business Central 2020 release wave 2 and later, Application Insights can also be enabled on a per-extension basis. An Application Insights key is set in the extension’s manifest (app.json file). At runtime, certain events related to the extension are emitted to the Application Insights resource. This feature targets publishers of per-tenant extensions to give them insight into issues in their extension before partners and customers report them.

Where do I learn more about Application Insights Storage for Business Central and does QBS Group run any courses on this?

Of course, we do! We have our in-house expert, Jan Veenendaal, who is delivering this course uniquely to QBS Group Partners. Here you can find the full details of the course:

Application Insights for Business Central
In this workshop, you will learn how to find these metrics, and how you can add new metrics from your own apps.
Also, Application Insights is not only limited to cloud deployments. You will learn how you can use it for monitoring your customer’s on-premises environment.
Cost: €450 or 1 QBS Training Voucher.

More info or sign up, click on QBS Group Training course overview

How to boost lead generation, nurture and retention in times of uncertainty

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Is your marketing delivering or is it time to adapt your marketing strategy?

Given the world we live in today has your audience changed, are you communicating effectively, how do you know?

What’s important, customers, prospects, potential prospects, they all are!

Join our marketing webinar to hear from other marketing professionals about how they are adapting their approach to marketing given the times of uncertainty.

Dynamics 365 Update Webcast 10 December 2020

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This series of webcasts is intended to share the latest information on Microsoft Dynamics 365 and related ISV solutions, both from a technical, functional and business perspective.
And along the year we will keep you informed about the latest news from Microsoft biggest events like Inspire, Directions ASIA, North America and EMEA.

Topics – 10 December 2020

Part 1: InsightSoftware
InsightSoftware (20 Minutes)

Part 2: Dynamics 365 Business Central Update
Dynamics 365 Business Central Update (10 Minutes)

Part 3: PowerPlatform and CRM update
PowerPlatform and CRM update (10 Minutes)

Part 4: Gotham Technologies
Gotham (12 Minutes)

Dynamics 365 Update Webcast

Dynamics 365 Update Webcast

Dynamics 365 CRM Update Webcast 6 November 2020

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Get the latest insights from Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM

This series of webcasts is intended to share the latest information on Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM, both from a technical, functional and business perspective.

In this webcast, we present in just 45 minutes the most important updates around Customer Voice.

Dynamics 365 CRM Update Webcast

Dynamics 365 Update Webcast

Why is Azure SQL so important for Dynamics 365 Business Central?

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Let us start with a common question:

“When a customer is not considering going with Business Central SaaS, what are the options to move to the cloud?”

Dynamics 365 Business Central has a clear advantage against competitor ERP solutions that do not offer and on-premises or hybrid solution. When we talk about deployment choices, we are really referring to two elements:

  1. Business Central Service Tier(s)
  2. SQL Server database

Most non-SaaS deployments are often split into three configurations:

  1. Fully on-premises
  2. Azure VM hosted (Service Tiers) & tenanted SQL database (PaaS)
  3. Azure VM hosted (Service Tiers & SQL Server)

Each of these common configurations has its own advantages and disadvantages. There is clearly not a right or wrong configuration here. It is ultimately all down to what requirements customers have.

Whilst the three options above are the snapshot of a complete Business Central deployment, we need to pay particular attention to the database and where it is hosted!

When deciding on where the database should reside, the options are:

  1. Install SQL Server on-premises
  2. Install SQL Server on an Azure VM
  3. Use Azure SQL Database (PaaS)

When you decide to adopt options 1 and 2, there is a high level of maintenance involved. This often falls entirely or partially with the Dynamics partner, certainly with many SMB customers deployments, where they do not have a dedicated IT department.

Option 3, on the other hand, offers the capabilities of SQL Server in a PaaS configuration. This means that the maintenance (patching, security, etc.) fall entirely on the service provider, in this case, Microsoft Operations.

Contrary to general belief, SQL Server (on-premises/Azure-hosted version) and Azure SQL, differ in design. The latter is specifically architected for cloud computing, performance, and scalability. Some additional features such as geo-replication and geo-redundancy, are only available with Azure SQL.

What’s the difference between Azure SQL and SQL Server?

When comparing the performance of Azure SQL database and a SQL Server deployed to a virtual machine, we need to consider a few intrinsic “differences”:

  • Azure SQL Database is a high-availability database.
  • Azure SQL Database is a scalable and intelligent service that includes features such as high-availability, backups, automatic index tuning, security vulnerability assessment, and advanced threat detection. When choosing a pricing tier for running your production database, make sure that you compare this to a similar setup for SQL Server on a virtual machine (including the cost of administration and maintenance).
  • The performance of an Azure SQL database is correlated to the price you pay for usage, and new pricing models evolve over time. Use the scalability options within the service to change the database performance tier for your installation as your workload changes over time.

So why is it recommended for Business Central?

You can deploy a Business Central database to Azure SQL Database. Azure SQL Database is a cloud service that provides data storage as a part of the Azure Services Platform.

To optimize performance, Microsoft recommends that the Business Central Server instance that connects to the database is also deployed on a virtual machine in Azure. Additionally, the virtual machine and SQL Database must be in the same Azure region.

For development and maintenance work on Business Central applications. If the Dynamics NAV Development Environment is installed on the same virtual machine in Azure as the Business Central Server, then you can connect to the Azure SQL database from the development environment.

Does QBS Group offer any training for my technical resources on this specific topic?

Of course, we do! Our very own Jan Veenendaal, Partner Technical Strategist, has developed a unique “hands-on” workshop only available from QBS Group to educate our Partners about this topic. Here you will find the full details of the workshop: Learn more about Workshop Azure SQL on our Training page.

Dynamics 365 CRM Update Webcast 16 October 2020

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Get the latest insights from Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM

This series of webcasts is intended to share the latest information on Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM, both from a technical, functional and business perspective.

In this webcast, we present in just 45 minutes the most important updates around Dynamics 365 2020 Wave 2 Release.

Dynamics 365 CRM Update Webcast

Dynamics 365 Update Webcast