Some of you may have heard that a few of our team members are currently journeying through the African safari. (Not the “I’m in Africa on safari” excuse to avoid emails, they really are there!) Martin and one of our SmartConnect developers, Ruaan, decided to eliminate another item from their “bucket lists” and dirt bike through South Africa, with the hopes to see the “Big 5” on the way. While they are away, the rest of us at eOne are holding down the fort and hoping they won’t get EATEN by something they come across. (I mean, we do have to release SmartConnect 2013 in just a few short months!) Although they may be excited about their journey, they are missing out on some exciting things back at eOne. So, while they’re missing out – you don’t need to at all. Here is our “Big 5” list for the next few weeks:

1.     eXtremeCRM2012: We are beyond excited to participate in the CRM partner-focused event in Las Vegas next week. This is our first year as a sponsor of the event and we look forward to connecting with both familiar and new faces in the CRM world. We’ll be showing SmartConnect at our booth (T9), but if you’re attending and you’d like a private, sit down meeting with the team just let me know. We’ll have a SmartConnect developer (Kevin Jones), consultant (Chris Hanson), and yours truly there and we’d love to grab a meal, a coffee, or just move away from the expo hall and help answer your integration questions. Drop me a line (abbey.cooper@eonesolutions.com) and let’s get something on the schedule!
 
2.     GPUG Summit – In mid-October we’ll be heading to Seattle, WA to sponsor one of our favorite events – the GP User Group Summit. This event brings together GP customers and partners and provides them with sessions to dive deep into the GP product, learn from other users, and find out the best solutions available from multiple vendors in the channel. We have the privilege of presenting a number of sessions at the event, so please join us:

·         Wednesday, October 17th at 10 am: Enhancing Your Use of SmartList with Microsoft GP
·         Wednesday, October 17th at 11:15 am: Make GP Do Things You Have Never Dreamed of Without Writing Code
·         Wednesday, October 17th at 2 pm: Eliminating IM, Enhancing SmartList, and Making GP Hassle-Free
·         Wednesday, October 17th at 3:30 pm: Excel Report Builder – How2
·         Thursday, October 18th at 8 am: SmartList Builder Deep Dive Insights
·         Friday, October 19th at 11 am: Make Microsoft Dynamics GP Fit Your Business with the Extender Challenge
 
3.     CRMUG Summit – The CRM User Group Summit is being held in mid-October in Seattle, as well. We will be available to discuss SmartConnect in the expo hall or during the sessions and would love to take time to meet you at the event. Let me know if you’d like to sit down with the team and talk about all things CRM integrations!

4.     Excel Template Improvements: Previously all of our Excel templates have required a SOAP toolkit download in order to call the SmartConnect web service. That toolkit is no longer supported through Microsoft, so we have redesigned the VBA behind it to call our web service without needing any additional files. We will release the first fix on our GL Journal Entry template shortly and will roll out the fix on the remaining templates this fall. Watch for the Tech Tuesday article next week for more information! If you have questions, reach out to chris.dew@eonesolutions.com.

5.      WEBSITE: In just a few short weeks we will be rolling out a brand new website. Not only will it be “aesthetically pleasing,” but highly functional. I’ll post another article when we release the site, but in the meantime here are some of the new things I know you’ll love:

·        Support: Simply submit your support issue online and you’ll instantly be added to our support queue. Not only that, but we’ve added a Support Forum and Support Blog where you can join in on product discussions and learn from fellow users.
 
·       Knowledge Base: We’ve updated the knowledge base section so you’ll be able to do a quick word search to access the thousands of tech articles we have designed to help you, our customers and partners.
 
·       Payment Options: This is one of my favorite updates as it allows partners to login, easily process an order, prorate the renewal date, purchase discounted maintenance plans and more.
 
·       Renewals: When viewing your renewals you will have the option to sort by customer, by expiration date, send yourself a quote or make the payment right there on the spot.
 
·       Reg Keys: As usual, reg keys will be available as soon as the order it placed, but you now have the option to send the keys out to an email address of your choice, as well. You can also send multiple versions of the keys.
 
·       Videos, Screenshots, Visuals: The website has a ton of video demos embedded, screenshots of key products, and visuals to help you understand the products further.

Watch for the website to be released by the end of October!
Do you have a “Big 5” list for the next few weeks or months? Any thoughts on our “Big 5”? Drop me a line at abbey.cooper@eonesolutions.com to share! I’d love to hear from you.