Dynamics Corner

Episode 340: In the Dynamics Corner Chair: A Journey into the Cosmos

• Cosmos Data Technology • Season 3 • Episode 340

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Cosmos is a fully cloud-based reporting and analytics platform designed for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. With Cosmos, you can make data-driven decisions at the speed of business. It is the only true cloud reporting and analytics solution for Business Central, built for accurate data, rapid insights, and everyday users.
 
In this episode, Anthony and Brian unveil the latest enhancements to the Cosmos solution, revolutionizing how businesses report with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. Listen as they discuss the powerful yet simple design, providing a comprehensive view of reporting and analysis. They also discuss the "BC Bash" event at the upcoming SummitNA Conference in October 2024.
Connect with Anthony Bonaduce on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-bonaduce-88211154/)
Connect with Brian Petersen on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/thebrianpetersen/)
Learn more about Cosmos (https://www.cosmosdatatech.com)

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#MSDyn365BC #BusinessCentral #BC #DynamicsCorner

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Speaker 1:

Welcome everyone to another episode of Dynamics Corner, the podcast where we dive deep into all things Microsoft Dynamics. Whether you're a seasoned expert or just starting your journey into the world of Dynamics 365, this is your place to gain insights, learn new tricks and understand what a good reporting and analytics tool should be. Simple, I'm your co-host, Chris.

Speaker 2:

And this is Brad. This episode was recorded on September 6th 2024. Chris, chris, chris, simple. I like simple, me too. I like data and I like analysis and I like it to be simple and I also like big news. And with us today, we had the opportunity to speak with two longtime friends of the podcast, brian peterson and anthony bonaduce of cosmos, to learn all about cosmos and the new features that they've added to the product welcome welcome we do this.

Speaker 1:

We do this routine before this whole thing starts. Okay, we do like that. You know, when you're uh, when you're a singer, right Like you got to go through that throat exercise.

Speaker 2:

So it's just. I had a little funny throat exercise this afternoon and just sometimes we just come in and we want to do it.

Speaker 4:

Mr.

Speaker 2:

Bonaduce, did I say something that you didn't agree with?

Speaker 4:

No, can you hear me, okay now.

Speaker 2:

I can hear you perfectly fine.

Speaker 4:

I did the test, I tested everything. Of course, it all worked, your mic's working. And then I of course had to go back to old, reliable, my little desktop speaker. So there we go.

Speaker 2:

It's just like when you're doing a presentation you can spend a month preparing it, walk through it 300 times and then, the one time you have to go, do it live.

Speaker 4:

Something always goes wrong. Something goes wrong. What's up, guys?

Speaker 2:

Nothing, nothing Been looking forward to speaking with you. I haven't had the opportunity to speak with you on the podcast in a long time, so thank you for taking the time to speak with us this afternoon. I'm looking forward to hearing a lot of great things from the two of you. I've been seeing a lot of great things from the two of you. I've been seeing a lot of great things, and now to have the opportunity to discuss them with you is exciting. But before we jump into that and talk about all these great things, do you mind telling everyone a little bit about yourselves and Cosmos? We start with Mr Brian this time. I think we did you last time, anthony.

Speaker 3:

So, brian Peterson, I'm the coo here at cosmos data technologies that's it that's it, anticlimactic I know exactly

Speaker 2:

wait, do we need to like let's? Let's do the elevator pitch of who you are yeah, have anthony do that.

Speaker 3:

That's his job. That's funny okay okay, mr.

Speaker 2:

Mr bon sir.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I guess I'll start and Brian, you can, you know, take notes here. No, my name is Anthony Bonaduce, so I'm I kind of act as our CRO, but I'm one of the founders here at Cosmos. I've been in the Microsoft channel for I don't know, 13, 14 years, something like that, but primarily focused on all things reporting and analytics and those kind of hot button items, and so, yeah, it's a little bit about my background.

Speaker 2:

Great and Chris informed me yesterday because we were talking about how long we've been in the space and we were talking with someone who's been in the space for 20 years and I've been in it for a lot longer than 20 years. You're supposed to say decades, so you've been in the space for 20 years and I've been in it for a lot longer than 20 years, you're supposed to say decades, yeah, so you've been in the channel for a decade and a half yeah, it's like, um, you know it's like when people have a baby and they're not sure.

Speaker 4:

When you switch from like months, you know people are like yeah, they're. You know my daughter's 38 months. You know there's a cutoff somewhere in there but yeah, 164. Months.

Speaker 1:

I felt like I had two decades before I went there, but I got it. Yeah, no, no Under two decades sounds better, right yeah.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, oh, just under two decades. Yes, yeah, you can say a long time. That is a good point, though it's when do you transition? I like that. When do you transition from, like, having an 18 month old to a year and a half old, or 24 month old, or a two year old? Yeah, like when. When do you, uh, when do you cut over? Yeah, it's tough. You didn't know that we were going to talk about that today, did you?

Speaker 4:

I mean it's an important topic so I'm sure the community's interested, so that's good.

Speaker 2:

I think they're interested in one's take. We'll have to throw up a poll. One of these days we'll have to do a live podcast and we can throw up polls and everything, but no, thank you for joining us Now, cosmos what is Cosmos?

Speaker 4:

What does Cosmos do? Yeah, I would let Brian go, but after that performance, I think I'll handle this one. So Cosmos, simply put. Yeah, I didn't know you were feeling short and sweet today, brian, but simply put, Cosmos is. You know the way I describe it to people. It's the first and only fully cloud-based reporting and analytics platform that's born in the cloud and then built specifically for Business Central Cloud. So, obviously, to answer your question in a succinct manner, brad, I mean it's reporting analytics for Business Central, but I think it's, you know, unique in that it really is kind of the first of its kind.

Speaker 4:

There's been a lot of, as we know, household names for reporting and third-party solutions in the Microsoft space, but those were all designed for on-prem, they were built for nav or GP, and when you work in the cloud and you work with Business Central Cloud, it's a real delicate way you have to approach the reporting side to make sure things are performant and you're able to get all the data you need. And so you know, we saw that gap, as I mentioned. You know, brian and myself have been doing reporting analytics for I don't know 35 years combined or something like that 30, 35 years, over three decades. Over three decades, 35 months. But you know, we saw that gap in functionality and just thought you know what? Someone needs to do something about it, and we're probably the people to do it.

Speaker 1:

So so you're born. Everyone merely adopted cloud. You were born in the cloud.

Speaker 4:

Yes, just like Bane. I got where you're going with that, by the way. Yeah, so that's I mean. So that's kind of the gist of it, but obviously there's a whole lot more to it.

Speaker 2:

No, it's great and I've seen some great things with Cosmos in the cloud reporting and we did have an opportunity to speak with you in a previous episode a little bit more in detail about that and I'd like to talk about how it works and repeat some of that, but I'm impatient, yeah, and I want to get down to the latest and greatest and what's new with Cosmos.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. So I mean, if people saw our first episode I know you guys, and congratulations, by the way the podcast has blown up, it seems like and you've had some amazing, you know heavy hitters on here. A lot of people were, I like, like I said, I wasn't even sure if we were cool enough to be on the podcast anymore. So I'm honored to be here as part of this. But, um, yeah, I mean you guys had said, hey, when you have something you know interesting, let us know. We'd love to have you back. That was shocking, obviously, for you guys to invite us back.

Speaker 4:

But what you know, what's exciting that we wanted to get on and obviously talk about is that there's been a huge need in general around reporting functionality, which is where Cosmos was born. And as the needs of the channel have matured and moved into a more modern approach to reporting, people need something to get holistic views of data. So Cosmos was born for BC. But then, you know, we started working with customers and obviously there were needs for third-party data sets. Right, we have historical data in NAV. We want to bring that along with us, or we have some data that lives in, you know, some payroll system or whatever.

Speaker 4:

It is right, external data sets, and there's been a big demand. We've been pushing as quick as we could to release this, and so now Cosmos can accommodate those data sets as well alongside the customer's business central data, so they can truly have that holistic, comprehensive single data repository that harnesses and kind of mashes together all of their data across the organization and then obviously expose that comprehensive view into reports, excel-based reports, power BI dashboards, analytical views, whatever you want to do. And so that's the really, I think, exciting stuff. We announced that last week and it's been busy, we'll put it that way. So I know that's validated needs right there, I guess.

Speaker 2:

There is a huge need for that. But before I get into it, I do want to say you both always have vip access to the podcast so you don't even have to wonder if you're cool enough your og you have that vip card until you don't yeah just remember that you have every card, but it can be revoked yes, no, see you again on monday, anytime you want to, you can just slide right in.

Speaker 2:

We make time, just like we did today for you. Uh, it's, it's. Not many have that status, but the two of you do the. That is more significant than it may sound to someone that's listening, because reporting on business center, which is cloud-based application, is it's important and what you had put together is easy and it's almost turnkey right, so somebody can set it up and get it running in a short period of time. I won't say the statistics you may have some more information on that. But now to bring in other data sources to report alongside of that is significant because Business Central is a fully functional ERP software application that can satisfy a complete business right, all the areas for that business.

Speaker 2:

But I work with many businesses that have other separate systems that perform another function or a need that has data and they often struggle with okay, how do we take this data and put this together so that you can report in one, as you had mentioned one place? So I think that is such a need for that I had a loss of words there within the space, so that somebody can report off many different systems. And, to your point, with space being I don't want to say it's a premium, but this space for Business Central or having data when you're doing a migration from one system to a new system or even an old version of Navision, nav whichever version you want to say, depending on how long you've been working with it to not have to worry about bringing that with you or bringing that forward, but still be able to look at that. Historical access is significant. Access is significant when doing this, with Cosmos being a cloud-based reporting engine I guess you could call it or reporting system, and now we're talking about bringing third-party data into it.

Speaker 2:

Are there any limitations? Business Central is cloud-based, so you're pulling off a cloud-based repository. Are there any limitations to the data that can be read within Cosmos? If it's an on-premise system, do they have to move it to the cloud? Can they read it directly from their SQL service sitting in their back room somewhere, or how does that work?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I think, since Brian has been super talkative, I'm going to defer this to you, brian, so you can actually chime in on today's podcast.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, of course. So there's a few different ways we can pull in data now you know one of them is Excel files. We have some folks that have used that. If it's not a ton of data and it's something that's static, right, we can just dump everything into Excel from wherever they want, ingest it into Cosmos. Nice and easy.

Speaker 3:

For folks that have data in like a SQL database or something that's on-premise, all we would ask them to do is just shift it up to Azure SQL. That way we can pull it in. I mean, with Management Studio nowadays and SQL, you can do a few clicks and it'll just send all the data up. So it's not a big lift to do that, and once it's in Azure SQL, we can grab it and it's super fast for us to pull all the information in right. A lot of organizations nowadays have more advanced firewalls, so us trying to, you know, find a way to get through their firewall and access to their SQL server from outside. Most good IT folks are not going to want to allow that to begin with, and so having everything in Azure SQL makes it, puts it in the cloud and makes it nice and easy for us to get to and easy for the customers to maintain as well.

Speaker 2:

So the customer would need someone who's looking to take advantage of this new functionality that's been introduced within Cosmos over the last week, which I can't say enough. It is a need for this and I'm happy to see that it's there. They would put it in Azure SQL. Now, on that Azure SQL. Is that? See that it's there. They would put it in Azure SQL. Now, on that Azure SQL. Is that something that would be their Azure SQL? Like how, again, where would they store that? Would they store that with Cosmos? Would they store that within their own Azure SQL server? That?

Speaker 3:

would be within their own Azure SQL. Yeah, that's a great question.

Speaker 2:

Within their own Azure SQL and then you can link the two together. Yep, I have some questions on the data construct or the data sets there. But is it intended or could it be someone who may have another system, that's another transactional system? Is it intended to be a static database or is it something that if they could update it regularly with transactional data, that that would work for them as well?

Speaker 3:

Either. Or, as far as we're concerned, if it's static data, we have a little checkbox when they're setting up the configuration to connect to that Azure SQL database. It's just called static data and that means it'll pull it in once and then it doesn't need to pull it every single night, since the data is never changing. Otherwise, if it is something that's kind of, you know, replicated from a transactional system, then every time that we go and pull the data we'll just pull that fresh data from Azure SQL.

Speaker 2:

So it's intended for either one. Okay, that's a wonderful feature to have With now. There being so, Business Central extensions aside, Business Central is a pretty standard data set. We know it's a known data set. Now you're talking about bringing in an additional third-party data set in essence for the sake of the conversation.

Speaker 4:

How do they map or manage or tell Cosmos this is what the data is that I have? Yep, yeah, I'll speak to that a little bit, brian, then I'll let you fill in some of the color on that. But yeah, one of the really cool things about our engineering team is they have a lot of experience, a lot right, and so when they build things in the product, they build them with a future thinking view in mind. Like if we solve a problem that's immediate, they usually take the opportunity to say what else are we going to need to do? Are people going to want our, you know is going to be important down the road, and how can we put the foundation in to solve for that? And so this is a good example to your point, brad.

Speaker 4:

So inside of Cosmos, basically from day one, there's been a cloud-based ETL platform. We call it the Cosmos Data Engine, and what it really is is a way to take data out of a system, whether it's business central or something else immediately see all those tables, all the fields, and then, basically in a point-click interface, be able to say hey, you know, we had our business central data over here. Now we have this new system and we just want to check the boxes for these 12 tables or these 20 tables that we want and then within those tables we have, you know, these specific fields that we want for reporting and basically those just get dropped into their existing data set, or a new data set can be created and then you just publish, literally click a publish button and the application actually writes everything behind the scenes. So it cleans the data, moves, it builds out all the procedures, everything. So you know the way I describe it is like it's a no code ETL platform on the back end and, brian, anything you'd add on that.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, no, I mean, that's what I was going to say. There's a lot of tooling, for you know, if there are things that are different. Like we're working with a customer right now, they're bringing in some legacy data from their previous system, which wasn't nav, it wasn't anything in the dynamic space. And you know they said well, our GL account numbers are different though. So they already have a mapping file they put together as part of their migration to Business Central. But we can bring in their historical data. It's really easy for us to just use that mapping file and say, hey, it was this old GL account number in Traverse, which is the system they're using, and the new GL account is now. You know this is the one from Business Central, right? So by the time that it comes, you know Cosmos can handle all of that easily. So when it comes into Business Central, they have all of their old transactions but with their new BC account numbers. So everything's pretty seamless from a reporting perspective.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so it's designed for quick user adoption, yeah Right, so does this also help? Now we're talking about moving legacy data to Cosmos. Have this been used for data migration as well, or is it? Oh okay, so can you give me an example of how that turned out for them, what the average time it took that client? Because that's something that we had a conversation recently, as of yesterday, about what are the different paths of data migration, what are the tools, and so there's so many different tools out there, so it is good to hear that you know Cosmos can do something like that.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, yeah, brian, do you want to talk to like what you've seen hooking that up and how it gets married up and the level of complexity and kind of all that stuff?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, exactly Well, and it's one of those things where I mean, as far as the data migration is concerned, we talk to, you know, we'll talk to customers that are in the process of moving from, say, like we talked to someone recently who's on an older on-prem NAV 2016 system, they're in the process of moving to Business Central and one of the concerns that they have is, well, what a lot of reports that you know that go back, you know, several years to do kind of year over year comparisons for, like you know, item sales by customer, things like that, and so you know, and they'd received a somewhat hefty estimate to move all of that transactional data directly into Business Central, and the thing is they don't even really care if it's in Business Central, they just want to report on right.

Speaker 3:

So, as part of this, you know, moving all of this data into Cosmos, right, we can just easily get the information out of the old system, like I mentioned, either a direct connection to the SQL database we can do any of the data cleansing or mapping if needed and then, when they just run a report in Cosmos even though let's say that they just went live January 1st of this year they can run a year over year comparison of this, you know, this August versus last August, and everything just works. The users don't know, or, honestly, really even care, that the data is from the old system. They just want to know what were the numbers last year and what are the numbers this year. And are, you know, things up and down, up or down for this customer right and it's like, like, like I mentioned, it's a very, it's a very fast and easy process on our side. It's not a heavy, you know, it's not what I consider like a large services engagement or anything like that. Usually a couple hours and everything's done, imported and ready to go.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I think a lot of what we've been focusing on because, to your point, chris, like there are other solutions out there, right. So it has to not just do what those things do, it has to, like, provide more value, right. And where we've really been focusing on is just, you know, cutting costs and effort, reducing, like you know, the time it takes, all those questions you're probably asking about for that exact reason. But, like it's, it's the same thing with the data modeling, like to Brian's point, you can bring it into BC in theory, unless it's some insane volume of data, but you can bring it into BC. But it's going to have a hefty price tag.

Speaker 4:

And I've talked to so many partners that are like we hate doing that, like it's the worst part of the deployments is dealing with the historical data migration, right.

Speaker 4:

So you know, okay, let's make that easier, let's make that cheaper, let's make that faster, let's make it repeatable. And it's kind of the same idea on, like, the reporting side of the platform, right, like people can kind of get the data they want, they would want in the cosmos report currently, I suppose, not always, but, like you know, brian and I always talk about, like this one customer that we just always kind of felt horrible for and luckily we solved their problems. But like you know, they just wanted to get this one report and it just took them 47 steps. And when I say that like that's not an exaggeration. They had a word document, a Word document that every time they needed the report there was 47 steps. So it was like okay, export this, run it for these companies, export each one individually. Those go in a file, take that file, use the mapping file, reference all that. You know what I mean. Like so can you do it.

Speaker 3:

Can it be done better?

Speaker 4:

Like that's what we try and solve for here right at Cosmos.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think people forget, when you're looking at some of those reporting tools or even in the process of implementing Business Central, is that the last thing you really care for is all the tedious work that you'd have to do just to bring historical data, be able to report on legacy information, and so it sounds like you've really built this amazing product that allows that to be easier, or make it easy, not only from a client's perspective, but also from a partner's perspective. Right, because sometimes you don't have the, maybe the skillset within your staff that can do all of that, and you got to figure it out when set within your staff that can do all of that, and you got to figure it out when, hey, I can just reach out to Anthony and Brian and say, hey, can you help us with this one?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's important to remember. I think with this you hit on a couple of points, because bringing the data forward can be a costly event as part of an implementation, not only for the time it takes to take the data and put it into a specific box and try to map it and put it together or you can create an extension to store it and then you're still going to have to report on it but there's also a cost for the storage, for the business central access as well, which I think often gets overlooked, and a lot of times I hear the same questions we just want to bring it forward, we just need the information. So it's important. Yes, there are many tools available. I think there are many tools available for everything in this world. There's not only going to be one option. It's to make sure you have the option that's best for you.

Speaker 2:

In a case like this, it's important for someone to say, hey, there are tools such as Cosmos or something where, okay, if you're just looking to report on the data, you don't have to have it within Business Central any longer. Now we can report on the data from a separate system that we can upload the information into. It will be your footprint and then we'll just map it, using the wonderful tools to put it together, to have one homogeneous view of your data and, like you had mentioned, brian, nobody will be the wiser of it. One homogeneous view of your data and, like you had mentioned, brian, nobody will be the wiser of it With the use of this and, I think, with Cosmos in general. So now you have the features and the functionality that you built into it.

Speaker 2:

One question will be okay, it sounds great, it sounds wonderful, but how do I pay for it? How is it licensed? Is it licensed by the data volume? Is it licensed by the number of users licensed, by the number of tables licensed, by the number of reports? For this additional feature, what can a customer expect to have added to their implementation or their cost of the application?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, like everything, we try to make it simple and you brought up a good point earlier, brad. Like benefits to partners and customers. We try to keep both of those in mind, right? So I can tell you, having worked on the partner side, there's nothing more obnoxious than when an ISV is. Pricing is like you need a secret decoder, ring Right, and there's like 200 line items and there's the if.

Speaker 4:

If you check this, add this, like there's a connector charge. So we do it by data source. If they want to add another, you know they want a data source for their historical data they buy one connector. They don't have to pay for the Azure storage, they don't have to get a, you know, variable bill, it's just a flat price that gets added to their monthly or annual subscription. So we keep it very simple. I think even with these new features, there's a total of let's see one, two, I think four line items on the quote form that you can literally interact with. So the goal is to make it so that partners can easily understand it. Customers can look at it and not need a whole explanation or have to have a pricing call. They can look at this and say I need two of these users two of these users and I need an additional data source right, so it's very simple.

Speaker 2:

These users two of these users and. I need an additional data source, right. So it's very simple. I laugh because all the stuff that you're talking about are challenges that many face. I've been in many conversations where, honestly, we were going through a quote and the customer said this is too complicated.

Speaker 3:

I'm not interested.

Speaker 2:

And they just drop it. So I laugh because I appreciate the simplicity, and often that gets overlooked as well is you have to keep it simple because, from an implementation or a customer point of view, sometimes they just want access to the data. How much is it going to cost me? I don't need you know, it's the whole Baskin-Robbins, you know. Experiment with the ice cream. So one data source charge and then again, if they bring it into the azure sql, then whatever cost would be for the azure data storage is uh, in addition to that as well correct.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, if they want, if they're going to pull and like, if they're not doing static exports into excel or something and they want to have a dedicated azure sql, we would let their you know it team and their infrastructure team deal with with piece.

Speaker 2:

Okay, great, great. That's exciting news. Now, is that something now to bringing it all the same. We talked about how it can be done. Is that something that a customer could do on their own, or would they need you to set all this up for initially, or a partner to do it?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I'll let you answer that.

Speaker 3:

I mean, I know what I'd say, but yeah, I was going to say I mean, it's something that a customer or a partner could definitely do on their own. There's nothing with that where we, you know, we lock people out and like it's all stuff we have to do behind the scenes, it's all available right there in their Cosmos portal so they can do it as they see fit. We do see a lot of customers that are like you know what if people will just help them out a little bit or get the connection set up and, you know, show them how to pull in some of the tables and fields and stuff like that. But, um, I mean, it's all you know. The whole, the whole platform is meant to be um focused on business users, so it's not something where it's like you're telling an accountant like well, yeah, if you just write this sql statement to move the data over, like no one wants to do that, you check the boxes, you click, you click a button, cosmos handles the rest and it just moves everything over.

Speaker 4:

Yeah that's the biggest thing there's no coding in the whole platform. You can't find it. It doesn't exist.

Speaker 2:

No, that's good. Simple is good, and just because something's simple doesn't mean it's not effective. Sometimes, individuals put stuff together and they feel they need to make it complicated because that means it's something To me, it's something successful. I can just you know, it's like a light switch. I turn it on and turn it off. I really don't need to worry about the generation of the electricity or where it comes from or how to make a light bulb. I just turn the switch on and I get what I need, and I can move on With this. I always get a little excited, so I'm going to kind of jump a little bit and we'll transition there as I jump. If someone's interested in learning more about this, how can they see it or how can they experience it? Is there an online video, a demonstration, a trial version? Do you have webinars? How can someone learn more about this?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I mean all of the above and, as you guys know, we'll be at, you know, upcoming summit conference, right? So folks are attending that, but you know we're at all the major events so we're pretty easy to find. You know, obviously we do do webinars, we do record all this functionality and post videos about it on the website. We're really well known for our knowledge base. I'm sure you guys have seen that. But there's, you know, over 350 articles, right, about pretty much any piece of the product you'd want to know something about. They all have, you know, step-by-step walkthroughs and screenshots, video walkthroughs, and then, obviously, it's just like I made this announcement last week you can always just email us at hello at Cosmos data techcom, so we'll get back to you if you want to see it or talk about your specific organization and what the data sets are and how you want to integrate them.

Speaker 2:

Who came up with that? I like that Hello.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, it's funny, Brian came up with that one Apparently. It's a thing I was not privy to it.

Speaker 3:

It is after I came up with it, Anthony.

Speaker 4:

Well, it is now. But the famous Mike Lumo, who we all know in the channel he commented on the LinkedIn post immediately referencing. Adele and her song Hello, so that derailed the entire LinkedIn thread. So always appreciate Mike for that valuable input.

Speaker 2:

That's excellent. I will say, the first thing that came to mind with me and Chris may appreciate it was when you get a new Mac, when you set up a new Mac or a new device or iPhone, ipad Mac says hello, yeah, and then you pick your language and you go through it.

Speaker 2:

So you will be at Summit in October, and that's October 13th through the 17th, I believe, with the pre-conference workshops two days prior to. I would like to talk about your booth and all that you have, but I also heard there's something else going on. That's going to be like the first annual yeah.

Speaker 4:

so you know, there's not enough parties. That was the feedback, you know, about all the microsoft events, right, there's just not enough stuff to do. And so, uh, no, uh, the lovely, wonderful shannon mullins actually reached out to us, uh I don't know, maybe four or five months ago, and said, hey, I've got this cool idea that I'm thinking about doing for Summit this year and that's having a true dedicated, you know, bc bash. So obviously, in years past there's been the PowerGP online party and Chris and the team at Ingevity, that kind of you know, are the title sponsor for that. Right, they've always been great about letting you know the NAV folks and BC folks and things attend that as well, but it always has been, you know, very GP focused, for obvious reasons, because that's what it's about. And so Shannon thought it'd be great to have more of a BC version and Chris over at Ingevity thought it was a great idea as well. So now we've kind of got a couple different events. You can obviously go to both, but you know, if you're focused on one or the other, it might make sense to network more with those specific folks that want to talk about that platform and things like that.

Speaker 4:

So, uh, so, yeah, we're really excited. She asked if we wanted to sponsor and be a part of it. There's us and four or five other sponsors and, um, I believe the way it works is you need to come by one of the booths and basically register or get scanned, um, and then you can also find the registration link on social media and all that, and then, once you're there, you can get uh admitted at the door, um, if you're registered, and then we'll have some drink tickets at our booths as sponsors. So if people want to have, uh, some adult beverages, there are ways to get those for free, which are always good just show up and just say I know anthony yeah let me in listen.

Speaker 4:

It'll probably kill me if that happens, but try it I tried.

Speaker 2:

I tried and I even said do I really need to register? And everyone's like yes, you need to register. And I asked anthony. I said can I just have some drink coupons? He said no, you have to come by the booth and get some. So everybody seems to be following the rules on this one, which is good. I do. You know there's a little fun with that, with that little conversation. But anybody who is going to summit, I do promote stopping by the booth to take a look at the product and, while you're there, pick up a drink coupon for later to talk with you guys a little bit more about the product while you have a beverage in hand. If you don't have a beverage in hand at the booth, because sometimes the expo hours they do have a cocktail or two available, which is good.

Speaker 2:

So can I reserve some of those drink coupons.

Speaker 4:

I think you're you're. You're on the, you're on the VIP list as well, so we'll reciprocate VIP lists. You guys let us on the podcast list, you're on the drink ticket list, but yeah, and I haven't. I haven't been to the venue. Shannon and some other folks checked it out, said it was awesome. So I don't know if there's a back door. I don't know if I can get you guys in. You know around the back. We'll figure that out when we get there we'll have to do it, get it.

Speaker 2:

So the bc bash that, uh, your partner sponsor is just for a bunch of business. Again, it's a business central focused uh guess celebration. That's part of the conference, because the conference covers several different tracks. It covers Power Platform, d365, finance and Operations Supply Chain, whatever they call it today. There is a GP contingent there as well, so there's a good, I think, five tracks there as well. So this is a good place to go where you're at an event that's focused on Business Central, if you're a Business Central partner or a Business Central user, so you can talk with people with similar interests and maybe learn a little bit more about the application, as well as the Cosmos reporting solution, again, and data analytics, which is good. Data analytics, which is good.

Speaker 4:

And I'm trying to pull up real quick just to see to confirm the start time and the date, as I just moved this to another monitor. Um, so that is third. Uh, tuesday, october 15th, and it starts at 8 and goes to 11 30 central.

Speaker 2:

So wait eight, so that's nine, so that's 2100 to 11 it's an hour behind you, man yes, minus one. That's past my bedtime. Yeah, I go to bed at 10, so I think I'll be there for about an hour there you go.

Speaker 1:

That's plenty. Maybe that's all you need man. Maybe that's all you need man. Yeah, that's all you need.

Speaker 2:

No, I'm looking forward to it. I did register. Hopefully I'm on the list, if you guys can look at the list and confirm it. Just don't delete me please.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I won't it should be a good event. I want to say they said as week ago there were over 200 people registered. We're not even at the conference yet, so I think this caps out at 750 people, but I would be shocked if we don't hit that.

Speaker 2:

So seven. I was going to ask 750 people capacity. Where is this? That has to be a big place 1174 east commerce street.

Speaker 1:

It's a secret yes, that place the 1902.

Speaker 2:

The 1902 is the name of the venue yeah, I'll have to look that up and see. I did register and I I was, you know. I figured I'd get the date and the time when I was there it'd be like a speakeasy.

Speaker 1:

You just like show up at this building and like I don't know what's in here.

Speaker 4:

Let's go through it, yeah, just a random like barber shop or something you walk through the back yeah, we'll have to give chris a different address.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's funny. So. So with back to going back to cosmos, I'm thinking of these things and we're talking about the some of the other applications or other products, and just to throw it out there, have you ever considered doing it for d365? Uh, fno or what's the snsem that's now, I don't know fnsem yeah, you know we've talked about it.

Speaker 4:

I think there's so much more that we want to do for bc, like there's so much untapped potential still and like I mean we had a call with a customer this morning about a couple items. They wanted to see what we're working on and like brian will just start talking right and it's like the amount of plans that him and the engineering team have put together around different functionality. I mean I'm going to let Brian talk more about that because he gets really mad if I say what the engineering team is planning that's not on our formal roadmap, because then everyone hears it and thinks it's going to be out next week. But we'll talk about that. But I mean, to your point, like there's a lot more we want to do for BC Cloud and for just the general SMB space.

Speaker 4:

And then when you talk about FNSCM or you know, getting into the bigger, you know enterprise level customers like everything has to change right. Pricing has to change significantly, data volumes and the you know the way the platform handles the data has to change. Like there's just so much shakeup that we don't think it makes sense right now, I guess is the way to put it. But what would you say on that, brian?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, no, and I think that you know, in my experience in working with more of the you know the FNSCM customers too like it ends up being a lot more about customization, which equates to services, than it does about the software, if that makes sense. Like everything that we've built so far is like quick, fast, easy deployments. Customers are up and running in 30 minutes. We have they have all of these prebuilt reports and you know, and in the VC space, I think that we, that we have a real sweet spot as far as that's concerned. Right, I mean so many I've heard it from partners too we go into an onboarding and they'll tell me afterwards.

Speaker 3:

When you said 30 minutes, like I knew that that wasn't going to be a thing. Nothing, just it deploys in 30 minutes and afterwards we'll wrap up in 25, and they're like I don't know why, why more isvs don't follow your deployment model, even with our extension in bc. Like we go and we create, and you know there's an intro application that's used to facilitate data moving around, etc. Etc. Like most isvs we work with, like I have to go and like type in all of these codes and guids and all of these things and yours. You just click a button and everything just populates. You know like we don't want customers and partners having to set all that stuff. You know having to go and set all that stuff up. So we've just focused on making it super easy. And you know I commend that.

Speaker 1:

I commend staying focused, you know, because it allowed the product to just tailor to the, you know, business central. There's a lot of opportunities that you got to make it easy, so it allowed you to create a product to make it easy for everybody. So to reach that, you know, less than 30 minutes, right, less than half an hour of implementation. And, by the way, I do love the fact that you know your website allows people to just go look at all your knowledge base without having to log in or a paywall or I have to like already have the product to even just to see, because people don't realize that sometimes I do this myself to look at your knowledge base to even see how the product works, right before even deciding of like, oh, maybe I want to see a demo, I can take a look at that knowledge base to see, okay, are these people, are these legit? Right, can I do this myself?

Speaker 2:

It lets the product sell itself which it does. I've talked with several partners as well as a few users several users as well and everyone is like Brian said. It's the simplicity of it is golden, and everyone is like Brian said the simplicity of it is golden, and it is good to focus and specialize and do something well instead of trying to be everything to everybody. Pick something and do it well is what someone told me when I was younger. I still haven't figured that out, but I'm trying to find something to do.

Speaker 4:

Well, You're going to find it. You know what. You're only what. Let's see here, like 337 months old or whatever it is. I don't know the month equivalent, right, but you know you've got plenty of months left.

Speaker 2:

I have to do my math 337 divided by 12.

Speaker 4:

Did he just say that I was 15, or something?

Speaker 2:

I don't know, I don't know I don't know it's.

Speaker 1:

That's funny, that's only 28.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's only 28. I had to do that quickly, do you the the?

Speaker 2:

the interesting story, it's not that age is important, because everybody, at any age, can do things Well, you know. It's just a matter of your passion, your drive and exposure and how much you put into it. But I was talking with someone the other day and we were talking about Business Central. Chris, I think you were on the call I don't know if you were or not and we were.

Speaker 2:

Just, I was talking about how long you've been working with Business Central and I think they had told me like a year or two and they asked me how long I've been into it and I said well, I started working with it in 1998 and they said to me that's right, I wasn't even born and that's when I said you know, it's just like now, when you go to the doctor and the doctors, you know, if you think when you're grown up, like you go to the doctor, the doctor, someone older, and you respect them because you think of that, you know age thing a little bit differently, but now, like all the doctors are younger than you and all this other stuff. So it's just like you know, it's just an adjustment to get used to and, like I said, age doesn't mean you know competence or you know someone's ability to do something, it's just you know, just the conversation that you know.

Speaker 4:

I've been doing this longer than some of the the newer talent has been alive so no, 100 percent and well, and it's, it's funny, like you mentioned, you know, like, find something, be good at it, keep it simple, like all that stuff, and you know that's.

Speaker 4:

That's one thing, brian, and I just talk about constantly, right, like reporting, like I kind of alluded to earlier. Like you know, bc has reporting functionality and it does satisfy, for you know, a lot of the, I guess I'd say, like more basic reports, like you, you can kind of get that right. But what, what kills us is like the hodgepodge of everything, like I think you guys were in my, uh, my directions presentation this year, right, and it was like absolutely my scenario or my like analogy was like and this is happening tonight, by the way, because I can't watch the football game because it's on peacock, which I don't have. But my analogy was like and this is happening tonight, by the way, because I can't watch the football game because it's on Peacock, which I don't have. But my analogy was reporting has become watching TV has become or watching your shows. Your one goal is to watch anything you want to watch when it's on TV, but to do that you have to have Peacock and YouTube TV and Comcast and 14 other streaming services.

Speaker 4:

And it's almost like the blindfold. People just don't realize what's happening. Right? If I went and added all those, it would be so much more expensive than my old cable bill if I had to have 15 of them. Right? And I feel like reporting has gotten so complicated in general for people that that's what really has made us catch on fire. Like people have to use Power BI for these certain things. They've got analysis views for these certain things. They've got formerly account schedules. Now they've got financial reports. They can't do any of them. They have to have the partner, you know, develop everything and code it all and you know it's just like that's the whole mantra behind this. Is simplicity, like just keep it simple, enable the users and I mean I think you know to your point that's really that is our focus is simplicity like ease of use, simplicity.

Speaker 2:

I like it, for I could tell you a number of reasons why I like it just because I like to talk and it's Friday afternoon, but no, the simplicity. Simplicity is key and, like you said, the hodgepodge of having all of these things. If I am someone who needs to be a data analyst, I don't want to have to be a data collector, right? I don't want to have to spend all of my time and become an expert in as Brian had mentioned understanding SQL so I can transform the data and bring it over. Or I have to call up Chris and say Chris, can you create me a SQL query to give me the data? I want to call up Chris and say Chris, can you create me a SQL query to give me the data? I want to just sit down, hit a power button, the TV comes on and I'm watching the football game.

Speaker 2:

And it's the same thing with the reporting, because if you have to spend all that time learning how to get the data out of a system and this is one of the things I always say Business Central collects so much data.

Speaker 2:

It collects a lot more data than what people may think or what people may know, and being able to get it out sometimes has been a challenge. Now there is a lot being done to change the ways and then some of the options that you have to get it out. But to have one place that you can go to make it simple gives someone also the added value of okay, I'm spending the money on this application. I'm spending the money on this application. I'm spending the money for the implementation, changing and running my business on this. To be able to get out with simplicity is important and I can't say enough how a product can sell itself by just having exposure right, the whole paywalls and everything's a secret and all this stuff. It always gets me because I feel like saying make it easy for people to find you, make it easy for people to understand, and then people will want to use it.

Speaker 3:

The more complicated.

Speaker 2:

You make things you know, the less likely someone is to be successful. So I commend you guys on the simplicity of it all.

Speaker 1:

And I think there's a difference too right, like for for Cosmos, for your product you have the analytics component, which is different than just reporting. I mean, you can get reporting out of Business Central but you still have to analyze. But if you have a product that helps you put that report together, be able to quickly analyze and make decisions based on data. That is time that you get back, versus having to wait until a day until you get something from your analyst and at that point in time you've already missed the boat possibly when you're making those decisions.

Speaker 2:

Going down the road of analysts. It's the year of 2024. And I couldn't go a day without saying this, as much as I don't want to because I dislike saying it, but I have to ask do you have any co-pilot or ai options built within cosmos, or is there any plans to bring it in for help with some of that analysis?

Speaker 4:

so funny and I'm gonna let brian talk to this. But funny story on that. We've had uh components of ai and cosmos for how long, Brian?

Speaker 3:

Like two years or something like that.

Speaker 4:

Two years, yeah, and it's funny it's not like a massive feature, but like as soon as Microsoft was coming out with AI technology and, you know, working on all the open AI stuff and all that, we were like, hey, they have a really cool way that this, you know, knowledge base and training videos, all that stuff you mentioned right Like we can just use AI to surface that to the users when they're building reports. So a couple of years ago we made a feature where if you're building a Cosmos report, maybe it's your first report and you're stuck. You're like I don't know how to do this thing. How do I add filters? You can open an AI bot. You can type in how do I filter in Cosmos and it will spit out your step-by-step walkthrough on how to use filtering links to videos, articles at the bottom, things that'll help you.

Speaker 4:

So you know we're absolutely embracing that stuff. I mean I think it's fantastic. But it's also AI, as we all know, right Like it still has its quirks. Sometimes I'll ask that 95% of the time it's great and 5% of the time it's great and five percent of the time it's like I'm sorry, I couldn't help with that. And we're like you literally helped with it on the last demo. Why can't you help with it?

Speaker 2:

you know, absolutely right. I mean ai and I not to go down the road, but it's true. Ai, to me, is just a tool to help find some stuff for somebody, right, whatever that may be. And they still have to validate. If it makes it a little bit easier for me to find some information, then great. Um, and then you know to rely on it. Uh, solely is, um, you know, is a little bit questionable, but I'm happy to see that you had that in there for that. And it's like you guys were the pioneers of everything, pioneers for the cloud reporting, and now you invented ai.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and two more things I'll add to that too. I mean on to Anthony's point. The beauty of our product is it's I mean it's embedded directly in Excel, and then people also can use Cosmos very easily with Power BI, both of which have Copilot baked in.

Speaker 3:

So we see people using Cosmos to extract a bunch of data into Excel, and then they can just click the button, the copilot button, in Excel and have you know Microsoft's making tons of investments in the copilot for those two areas, and so we're able to our customers are able to take advantage of that and get all the benefits of that right by just combining Cosmos with. You know everything that Microsoft is doing with those two products and Copilot.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you got to be able to take data and create a story, right. I think that's what people are looking for and be able to help translate that. So it's awesome that you guys are that's being incorporated. At least you started way before. Well, it's awesome that you guys are uh, that's being incorporated. At least you started way before well.

Speaker 2:

It's a great for learning and, as brian said, to be able to capitalize and, with the investment that microsoft's also making to work with the product, it allows you to also focus and continue making a great product uh, and do great things well. Mr bonaduce and mr peterson, thank you very much for taking the time to speak with us this afternoon. We appreciate it. Time is valuable and, as you know, with data and analytics, time is one thing that once you spend, you can't get it back and you can be doing many other things, so we appreciate you taking time with us, super excited to hear about the new external data sources that you can link up with Cosmos on top of a great product. I'm also looking forward to catching up with you at Summit this October 13th through 17th and at the Expo Hall to come by and see your booth, do you?

Speaker 4:

know your booth number? Yes, I do. I'll report back on it at some point, but I do know it and it was on my list of things to write down.

Speaker 1:

Do people ever look at booth numbers? Can they just like I'm at this area of the conference?

Speaker 2:

I don't know, but just find a good question to ask. If people say, come visit us at booth number 1673. I just look for the Cosmos sign. So we just look for the Cosmos banner. The show guide will have it in there as well too, and I also look forward to seeing you at the Bash on October 15th from 20.00 Central Time time through uh 2330 central time, which means I'll be out of there by 2100 because bedtime set.

Speaker 3:

Yes, if you get in, brad, if you get in, yes.

Speaker 1:

You gotta find the back door man You'll find the back door.

Speaker 2:

Okay, I'll knock on the window of the uh of the venue.

Speaker 3:

Jump, jump over the window, yeah, of the venue Just peeking over.

Speaker 2:

I'll wave hi. No, but thank you again for all the great things you're doing with the product and thank you for all the great things you guys are doing for the communities. Even sponsoring an event like this is significant. I know there's some investment in it on your part to ensure that the Business Central community gets to have another level of enjoyment on top of the sessions and the expo there. So I appreciate that as well. I'm sure many others will appreciate it, and you know. Thank you for that and with that, I look forward to talking to you soon. Thank you.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, thanks, guys, thank you Take care.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, cheers, see you, ciao, ciao. Thank you, chris, for your time for another episode of In the Dynamics Corner Chair, and thank you to our guests for participating.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, brad, for your time. It is a wonderful episode of Dynamics Corner Chair. I would also like to thank our guests for joining us. Thank you for all of our listeners tuning in as well. You can find Brad at developerlifecom, that is, d-v-l-p-r-l-i-f-e dot com, and you can interact with them via Twitter D-V-L-P-R-L-I-F-E. You can also find me at matalinoio, m-a-t-a-l-i-n-o dot I-O, and my Twitter handle is Mattelino16. And see, you can see those links down below in their show notes. Again, thank you everyone. Thank you and take care you.

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