I am pleased to let you know that we are planning to run a Partner Dexterity training class in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for the week of the 13^th to 17^th August 2012.

The trainer for this five (5) day Dexterity I class will be none other than me. It has been a while since I last ran a class, so it will be great to produce a new batch of "Dexperts". The last couple of trainings I ran were in Melbourne, Australia in 2007 and Kuala Lumpur in 2004.

So before you say that Dexterity is a dying language and that learning it is not worthwhile, let me dispel some myths for you....

• Microsoft Dynamics GP core functionality is written in Dexterity. Understand how Dexterity works will help a developer, consultant or support professional understand how Dynamics GP works.
   
• While Microsoft Dynamics GP exists as a product, it will have Dexterity as its core development environment. The Statement of Direction document already discusses plans for GP "15" in 2016, so there is plenty of life in the product with no end in sight.
   
• There is a huge ecosystem of add on products, vertical applications and customisations written Dexterity by the partner and Independent Software Vendor (ISV) community. There are even a few ISVs developing products in Dexterity which do not integrate with Dynamics GP!!
   
• Dexterity, being the tool that Dynamics GP is created with, can create tighter and more seamless integrations than any of the other development tools which can be used with Dynamics GP.
   
• A Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) or Visual Studio Tools for Microsoft Dynamics GP (VSTMDGP) developer will benefit from understanding how the GP windows are constructed, how table buffers and ranges work, and how to call functions and procedures.
   
• Dexterity is what makes the Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Web Client possible. It automatically makes any product written in Dexterity by Microsoft, ISVs, Partners and Customers just work in the Web Client.
   
• At this time, the Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Web Client will not support Visual Basic code or UserForms and Visual Studio Tools WinForms. Visual Studio Tools code should work as long is it does not use WinForms. Dexterity add ons and customisations will be fully compatible with the Web Client.
   
• Finally and this should be enough by itself... you get a spend a week with me. :-)

So, now you have plenty of reasons to send a team member to join the class. This is open to all Partners, but I suspect that organisations local to the region would be most interested (Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, etc.).

The cost for the training involves two components to cover the costs of my time and the travel, accommodation & other expenses:

1. Time: 40 Partner Advisory Hours per organisation (limit of 2 attendees per organisation).
2. Expenses: RM2,485 (Malaysia Ringgit) per attendee. RM2485 comes to approximately US$780.

You should be able to check your advisory hours in the Microsoft Partner Network (MPN) Portal under Support >> My Support and Benefits. If you need to purchase advisory hours, please discuss this with your Partner Account Manager (PAM) or your Microsoft contact.

The training was requested Partners and while Microsoft is facilitating the training, the actual organisation, payments and logistics are being handled by an external agency.

If you are interested in attending, please contact Tania Budiman at tania@rhingle.com as soon as possible. We need to finalise the numbers next week by Friday 13^th July 2012. Please register early to make sure we get the numbers needed to run the course.

This course is a must for anyone wanting to get started in the Microsoft Dynamics GP development world. See point 3 in my blog posting on How to get started with Dexterity.

David

PS: The training will be using Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 and Dexterity version 11.0. The manuals are from version 9.0, but everything in them about Dexterity still applies. The agenda and summary of the course is attached to the bottom of this post.