I will second what Todd said below, though I came from a few hours north of
Detroit.
As far as I am aware, most of the advertisement for that meeting was right
here on this list.
There was a heavy Midwest User Group organization and attendance, though
certainly not exclusive with members from as far away as CA in attendance.
I might add, I presented and am not a member of the Midwest group either.
Either way, I would expect Vista users to be welcome to the next event. Not
sure when the plan was, but I thought I remember it was aimed at a
springtime event for next year.
I can't thank enough Calvin and Kathrine and the others who were the main
organizers, not to mention the Midwest User Group for fronting the money to
assure this conference would take place. Maybe this event could be a roving
event depending on who wants to put the major planning into it.
$.02
Aaron Hoyt
Vantage Plastics
-----Original Message-----
From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf
Of Todd Caughey
Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2005 11:31 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Vantage] Re: Vantage User-4-User Conference Recap
The User-4-User Conference was organized by the Vantage Midwest User Group
(VMUG) and mostly a bunch or hard work by Calvin Decker and Kathrine Barry.
It was not an EUG event and was not "sanctioned" by Epicor. Vantage has had
strong regional user groups which makes it more difficult to justify
coordination with EUG but with the "merging" of the product technology they
should probably incorporate Vista now.
You can probably contact Calvin about future User-4-User efforts at:
calvin@...
The thing about the Chicago-O'Hare location was that if you did not drive
(as I did from Twin Cities) it was very convenient for flyers. The drive to
Chicago was not bad either ($70/gas though but still cheaper than airfare).
As for Perspectives....the two conference formats are complementary with
very little overlap - both valuable.
-Todd C.
-----Original Message-----
From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of
beckyvtsi
Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2005 9:58 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Vantage] Re: Vantage User-4-User Conference Recap
Now as a member of this group, although a more robust Vista user of
6.1 (Contact Mgmt, Quotes, Orders, S/R, Jobs, Scheduling, Data
Collection, Adv BOM (Eng), Inv, Purch, Adv Inv (serial#), AR, AP, GL,
Payroll) with many custom crystal reports since purchased in July
2004, Live Sept 2004 (Jan 05 with Pyrl) -- I would like to know how
to get the Vista users invited to such events. I am a member of the
Epicor User Group, but have not heard of this event.
Advise of any other similar conferences, or possible ways to leverage
other individuals in Illinois & Minnesota to possibly meet in Iowa,
where I am, to do such an event, as I have organized conferences in
the past, and would be willing to pursue doing something to assist,
even possibly a "virtual conference", to promote this type of event.
The biggest item is cost of conference and travel expenses impacting
the attendance at Perspectives for us.
Installing Vista 8 on Friday, with intention to go Live on it by
January 2006.
- Becky Venneman, CMA, SPHR
Technical Services, Inc.
Ames, IA 50010
beckyv@...
Virtual Bizniz
www.virtualbizniz.com
(watch www.vistabytes.com for attempted Iowa User Group & Enhancement
Request Database, as well as tips/tricks in the coming months)
info@...
Detroit.
As far as I am aware, most of the advertisement for that meeting was right
here on this list.
There was a heavy Midwest User Group organization and attendance, though
certainly not exclusive with members from as far away as CA in attendance.
I might add, I presented and am not a member of the Midwest group either.
Either way, I would expect Vista users to be welcome to the next event. Not
sure when the plan was, but I thought I remember it was aimed at a
springtime event for next year.
I can't thank enough Calvin and Kathrine and the others who were the main
organizers, not to mention the Midwest User Group for fronting the money to
assure this conference would take place. Maybe this event could be a roving
event depending on who wants to put the major planning into it.
$.02
Aaron Hoyt
Vantage Plastics
-----Original Message-----
From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf
Of Todd Caughey
Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2005 11:31 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Vantage] Re: Vantage User-4-User Conference Recap
The User-4-User Conference was organized by the Vantage Midwest User Group
(VMUG) and mostly a bunch or hard work by Calvin Decker and Kathrine Barry.
It was not an EUG event and was not "sanctioned" by Epicor. Vantage has had
strong regional user groups which makes it more difficult to justify
coordination with EUG but with the "merging" of the product technology they
should probably incorporate Vista now.
You can probably contact Calvin about future User-4-User efforts at:
calvin@...
The thing about the Chicago-O'Hare location was that if you did not drive
(as I did from Twin Cities) it was very convenient for flyers. The drive to
Chicago was not bad either ($70/gas though but still cheaper than airfare).
As for Perspectives....the two conference formats are complementary with
very little overlap - both valuable.
-Todd C.
-----Original Message-----
From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of
beckyvtsi
Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2005 9:58 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Vantage] Re: Vantage User-4-User Conference Recap
Now as a member of this group, although a more robust Vista user of
6.1 (Contact Mgmt, Quotes, Orders, S/R, Jobs, Scheduling, Data
Collection, Adv BOM (Eng), Inv, Purch, Adv Inv (serial#), AR, AP, GL,
Payroll) with many custom crystal reports since purchased in July
2004, Live Sept 2004 (Jan 05 with Pyrl) -- I would like to know how
to get the Vista users invited to such events. I am a member of the
Epicor User Group, but have not heard of this event.
Advise of any other similar conferences, or possible ways to leverage
other individuals in Illinois & Minnesota to possibly meet in Iowa,
where I am, to do such an event, as I have organized conferences in
the past, and would be willing to pursue doing something to assist,
even possibly a "virtual conference", to promote this type of event.
The biggest item is cost of conference and travel expenses impacting
the attendance at Perspectives for us.
Installing Vista 8 on Friday, with intention to go Live on it by
January 2006.
- Becky Venneman, CMA, SPHR
Technical Services, Inc.
Ames, IA 50010
beckyv@...
Virtual Bizniz
www.virtualbizniz.com
(watch www.vistabytes.com for attempted Iowa User Group & Enhancement
Request Database, as well as tips/tricks in the coming months)
info@...
--- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, "Todd Caughey" <caugheyt@h...> wrote:
> I was tempted to start this with "for those of you who didn't get
to the User-4-User Conference you missed a great educational
opportunity" but have re-thunk it because I know getting approval to
attend such things is not always easy or possible. So....I'll
rephrase it as "I think those who did attend got a real bargain in
education for day-to-day life with Vantage". It was really great
to "hear it from real users" without any sales pitches or not so
subtle promotion of Epicor (or anyone's) services. Just the facts
that users need for their jobs.
>
> The conference, organized by the Vantage Midwest Users Group (VMUG)
in Chicago, was two days of sessions on several topic tracks
presented BY users FOR users and was oriented mostly towards Vantage
6.x (with a little forward looking to 8.0). For me, personally,
Aaron Hoyt's back to back sessions on BAM/BAQ and his amazing .p
routines totally justified attending. Katharine Barry had a really
nice session on converting RB reports to Crystal that will be very
handy for gradually preparing for Vantage 8.0. But on top of it all
was a really decent chance to meet outside sessions with an ALL
Vantage crowd (no orange tablecloths needed!). There was about 45-50
attendees, many of whom are active in this email group but a few who
had never heard of it but will probably be joining soon. I was great
to be able put faces to the names for people who don't attend
Perspectives.
>
> VMUG - and in particular Calvin Dekker, Katharine Barry and Marty
Kuphall - are to be congratulated for a very successful event. There
was a LOT of work that went into organizing this. Yes, there were a
few glitches to chalk up to "learning curve" but they were very minor
and did not affect the overall value of attending at all. An amazing
statistic too was the number of non-VMUG or even Midwest people who
attended.
>
> Without getting into the whole "Epicor versus consultants" acrimony
I think it was really unfortunate that there was not at least a token
Epicor representation to be there to "listen" to the issues that
really matter most to Vantage users on a day to day basis. Just
because the Vantage user groups are not associated with EUG (and
probably don't need to be) and thus the conference was
not "sanctioned" does not mean Epicor can afford to turn a blind eye
to user concerns. Besides, there really was not that much Epicor
bashing anyway and what little there was would have been very
informative to them.
>
> It is sounding like the conference may be repeated next May in
order to provide more separation from Perspectives. A show of hands
revealed very little negative effect on Perspectives attendance from
this sort of meeting. People were either going to attend
Perspectives anyway or would not be attending regardless of the User-
4-User conference. To me the wealth of Vantage 6.x info (right now -
tactical) nicely complements the Vantage 8.0 info (future -
strategic) at Perspectives. There is definitely room for both. It
would be terrific to see 100 (or more) people next time.
>
> Again, hat's off to the VMUG people and my thanks for a great
learning experience.
>
> Todd Caughey
> Harvey Vogel Mfg. Co.
> Woodbury, MN
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Useful links for the Yahoo!Groups Vantage Board are: ( Note: You must have
already linked your email address to a yahoo id to enable access. )
(1) To access the Files Section of our Yahoo!Group for Report Builder and
Crystal Reports and other 'goodies', please goto:
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(2) To search through old msg's goto:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/messages
(3) To view links to Vendors that provide Vantage services goto:
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Useful links for the Yahoo!Groups Vantage Board are: ( Note: You must have
already linked your email address to a yahoo id to enable access. )
(1) To access the Files Section of our Yahoo!Group for Report Builder and
Crystal Reports and other 'goodies', please goto:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/files/.
(2) To search through old msg's goto:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/messages
(3) To view links to Vendors that provide Vantage services goto:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/links
Yahoo! Groups Links