Need help to allow me to attend Insights 2019

Hello all,

Since 2015, we are using Epicor. Trying to learn everyday and thanks to this forum, being able to learn even faster…but my time is limited.

I feel I am missing a lot of information and training opprtunities, unavailable locally, and I would love to go on a faster learning track by attending the Insights 2019.

But my management is not on the same page as they do not see how the return on the investment would profit our company. I evaluate plane, hotel, meals and attendance would be at least 6000$CA.

I really want to go, my boss is not against it, but I need to provide in point form how such event would profit the company. So fellow attendees of prior years, can you help me? I need more than the marketing text from the website… :wink:

I feel it would firstly, profit me. I would attend the hands on training happening prior to the event. Those two days would be a must for me. Learning tips and tricks, more in depth of Epicor features (that I have no time to go into…or missing more steps by steps examples, especially in BAQ’s, updatable BAQ, external BAQ’s and reporting. That would profit the company as my work may be more efficient, new ways to accomplish my customizations etc…

But I need more “meat” in my request to attend…and thought of you guys to answer me on the following:

Attending Insights: what was your ROI you feel was pivotal to your work and hence, your company? What portions of the event had the most impact, and why?

Any comments would be appreciated.

Thank you all ! and hopefully we will see each other in Vegas!

Pierre

I haven’t gone either, but mostly just due to timing.
I would pitch it that 6000 bucks is a drop in the bucket when you consider any costs related to hiring a consultant to perform the work that you could potentially learn how to do.
Epicor University classes are also not unsubstantial in cost, so you could consider it a value to be able to attend multiple classes at once. I’ve taken several classes early on in my Epicor education and they were pivotal in my understanding of the system and my ability to be an asset to my company.
Networking with other Epicor professionals pays off, especially if/when you need more assistance.

Ultimately, companies who do not invest in their people will miss out on more than just the costs related to events and training like these.

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I can tell you that it’s worth every penny - if done correctly that is. I see a lot of folks show up ‘for the party’ and never really get a lot out of it. Others are just there for some specific info/training.

Personally, I WORK the event from breakfast to bedtime. I have a list of questions and human targets I need to converse with. I review and plan my session attendance right down to the last few days before hand making sure I’m covering the most important stuff. I get contact information from each session presenter and do follow up thanks-yous and emails with more questions if need be.

The networking with Epicor folks - who are simply great, friendly and helpful - is worth a goldmine. Most of them let you essentially bypass tech support if you have relevant questions to their sphere of influence or knowledge. The vendor floor is great for exploring new ideas - you can give someone your problem and most of the time come away with an answer or at least a new perspective. The lab sessions let you try things you are afraid to on your own system AND get immediate help from the Epicor folks.

I could go on an on - but I agree with @Aaron_Moreng in that the cost of attending is probably a lot less than spending it on a consultant. BUT there is a definite added benefit in talking with some of the consulting groups on the vendor floor as sort of an interview process so you can find someone you can work with. The right consultant can really save you money in the long run as well.

HTH

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I will agree with everyone else here too. The second year we went, we were about to upgrade from 10.0 to 10.1. We were thinking that we needed a consultant to help us. Our IT guy dug into some classes, and when we got back, we were able to upgrade without hiring anyone. That right there paid for our whole trip.

Other areas, between insights and here, I’ve been able to customize and automate so many things in our shop, that we were able to offload tasks that engineers previously needed to do so that now they can get 15-30% more throughput with 10% fewer people.

I wouldn’t have been able to do that without the classes that I took at insights. Also the new ideas that I came across were invaluable. Finding new perspectives and ways of thinking we get out our own little bubble can give huge gains to a company. It has for ours. It’s hard to quantify for sure (how do you count potential losses??)

$6k seems a little steep too. I think you could do it for cheaper than that…

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Direct access to Epicor support and more importantly Epicor Development staff is priceless. I have been going for 10+ years without fail.
The networking aspect and getting to know your fellow Epicoreans and learn from them. The Customer style presentations are a gold mine and give you a fresh perspective on how others are solving problems.
Extended Education though it costs extra (it is cheaper than a standard class) they can be a great thing too.

Picking the brain of the likes of @Bart_Elia over drinks or dinner is worth every penny. Also putting a face to name from the Epicor side of things helps. Not to say that Epicor doesn’t treat all the their customers equally, but establishing a relationship with them can grease some wheels for sure!

As they say squeaky wheel gets the grease, its a lot easier to remember someone you had a direct conversation and or drinks with than it is to remember one of the 300 phone calls you got last week.

I agree with @Banderson it can be cheaper than 6K, specially if you use some of the discount codes or present.

Thanks,

It it not the fact they don’t want to send me… well maybe … But any project is based on a Cost/benefit. And I need to make my case. Your info is what I need to provide, as what my “training/learning” during the event will be able to have in return… well your engineering work improvement and production time improvements due to my better knowledge of what I can do with Epicor… or even what I can learn on whats is comming up in a near future… (hello TypeScript…) that may have an impact on our upgrade process currently in developement…

I will cetainly bring that in mind…

thanks again

Pierre

The preliminary agenda is out. If you search through that, I’ll bet you can pick out a dozen or so classes/breakouts that you could say “I could do so much if I understood this better”

https://www.epicor.com/customers/insights/agenda.aspx?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiT0dVMFpXTTFNMk13WlRndyIsInQiOiJYcWUzaitxMnM3ZVNuTnRyXC9qS2hHUlR4Y3FGZFgyZzQ5SGxFWnlDa3VZdm9FMXRuTjFDWnhxXC9FaytGTzRGZkxcL0tTSGhCcTZZR1U1OG16Ujd6aDFvb2tPK2xiQ29vWUN0XC83cVJGUDlYMXFWUVA3a1wvYkl1TmFZOGY5Q2FUUWdGIn0%3D

My biggest reservation is attending the “wrong” courses/presentations.

I don’t want to sit in on something that I know fairly well, and only get a few new nuggets of info (and yes, I admit they might be very valuable ones). Or spend time in one that ends up being nothing more than a sales pitch of new features.

P.S. They’re is RR again …

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But don’t get too caught up in only going to things you know you will need. There will inevitably be a couple of time periods where there isn’t something that you know you want to go to. During that time, go sit through something outside of your normal scope. You can gain some good perspective that way. (usually anyways…)

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Yeah I’m a firm believe that everyone should sit through a few workshops that are not in their wheel house. Are you a tech guy? Go learn about GL Accounts!

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Totally agree with Brandon and Jose. There just isn’t something for every session you want to know - so branch out! I can tell you from experience, learning other parts of the system will help you work with those user groups.

Full disclosure … I’m not a full time employee. At least not anymore. I provide support as a “consultant”. I put that in quotes, as it’s really the term for my employment status with the company, rather than meaning that I am a consultant for hire.

So paying for this would be straight out of my own pocket. And it would actually be counter productive (from my point of view) to be able to solve problems faster. (i.e. fewer billable hours) :wink:

image

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Just charge more…

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We haven’t published the extended education sessions yet, but, save room for my extended education session on advanced troubleshooting that is new this year–knowing how to triage the system when something falls apart is a valuable skillet for those on the ERP/IT admin side of the house.

Beyond that, I can’t contribute anything that others haven’t already in terms of the value of the conference in general–especially buying @Bart_Elia an adult beverage (money always well spent).

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At this rate, I think @Bart_Elia is going to be on a six-day drunken binge - with drinks to spare. I wonder how many extras he can fit in 3 oz bottles in a ziploc bag?

I think that been the norm for years hasn’t it?

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The sessions we are missing because there are soo many…are they available afterwards?
videos, or powerpoints presented? so we can still grasps some knowledge… ?

Many are available multiple times, you usually can hit most everything you want.

And the slide decks are available during and afterwords. It’s hard to get much from just the slide deck though without the presentation.

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The first 2 years you go you take in a lot in your functional area. After the first 2 you might branch out into others areas (finance, purchasing, mfg, service center) that can make you far more productive in coming up with solutions and good ones at that for those other business centers. As time carries on you get less education out of the classes, but gain a lot more from the networking. You get direct access to Epicor folks that you otherwise wouldn’t have access to, as well as community members that after a few beers are more than willing to talk LOL! Every few years or so you end up back in the education seat as framework changes (eg going from 9 to 10 and now SmartClient to Kinetic) and the cycle starts over. There are too many intangibles to put a dollar value on the Insights trip. Unless your company will never implement changes in Epicor and will never update Insights will always be a winning proposition.

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Hey Everybody vote for @Hogardy to go!!

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