Anatomy of an ASUG Chapter Meeting
So yesterday, for the fourth year in a row, the ASUG Virginia Chapter held its chapter meeting at Fairfax Water. This is my third year attending and first year as an ASUG Volunteer, which adds a whole new dimension to the meeting.
First I want to thank the attendees for coming, the speakers for presenting, and Chapter meeting sponsors Capriza, Intellicorp, Kern, and IBC. ASUG Chapters rely on sponsors for funding the meetings. For sure I want to thank Fairfax Water for hosting and all the work that went into this. As the host, Fairfax Water made sure the room was set up and that IT was there to help support the meeting. Our IT group also provided external wi-fi access.
SAP kicked off the day with an S/4 HANA presentation. It was a broad overview but detailed enough so attendees knew where to go to ask questions. Speaking with some of the attendees afterwards, it was their first exposure to S/4 HANA.
Then we heard from Kern about their Excel planning application. They had a nice table where attendees could see their demo. SAP provided a Transportation Management update. At lunch time, a short tour of the water plant was given by Fairfax Water. Lunch must have been a hit because there were no cookies left.
After lunch, we split into two tracks. Customer stories were given by Fairfax Water and Loudoun Water. IBC shared how SAP HANA accelerators speed work for the USDA. It was fun to see “live” how the IBC presenter could go to SE16 and see 62M record count in less than a second. Capriza explained their mobile solution; they said they cover way more controls for mobile than Fiori does.
The Chapter gave away 8 gift cards in drawings. I also want to thank Jon Reed for donating The Ultimate SAP User Guide: The Essential SAP Training Handbook.
Special thanks to Simha R. Magal for his donation of books BusinessProcess Integration with SAP ERP . One attendee said of Dr. Magal’s book “it was written by the father of HANA Jeffrey Word“.
What’s Next for The Chapter?
Following up on the Chapter survey results Announcing ASUG Virginia Chapter 2014 Survey Results the chapter is looking to collaborate with SAP Inside Track DC, now scheduled for June 26th at the Ronald Reagan Building. Register today.
Meeting in Pictures:
Above is the room setup before the meeting starts
The morning outside before the event begins. It was somewhat rainy but traffic-wise, it was a simple drive to the facility.
Of course, the ASUG table has “swag” to give away…by the end of the day this was all gone.
The above shows Adrian of Kern setting up his table and the Capriza table getting set up. Fairfax Water provided water bottles, all of which were gone by the end of the day.
The first session of the day, everyone is listening and learning about S/4 HANA.
Afternoon session provided by Jeff Smith, Fairfax Water, on EAM master data compliance
Feedback
One e-mail I received said “it was a great day, great agenda”. My thanks to all who made it happen.