We had to sacrifice the few remaining hairs on our developers' heads but it was all worth the stress because we are so excited about the two-way traffic between Dime.Scheduler and Microsoft Exchange. Just a few months ago, we launched the one-way Exchange connector using Office 365. With this release, the circle is complete: appointments not only go back to Exchange but modifications are also synchronized back to Dime.Scheduler and the other connected systems such as Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

👉 Read all about the Exchange connector here.

Most of our time was spent on the development of the Exchange connector but we also added the following capabilities:

• Add resource pin to map and route on selection
• Fixed task times

Improvements and bug fixes

In addition to the traditional performance and stability improvements, the following bugs have been fixed:

• Double dependency tooltip in Gantt chart
• Localize clock tooltip in the planning board
• Improved display of AM/PM time formatting in the planning board
• Add validation checks to the naming conventions of Azure Virtual Machines and DNS
• Update job that has a source app that is longer than 20 characters
• Apply pivot label fields at component startup
• Run services with an account that has a user or password that contains a $ character

Upgrade guide

This is a major update 🚀. To update to Dime.Scheduler 2021.2.0, follow the steps as documented in the upgrade guide carefully.

Support update

To reduce the lead time of resolving tickets, we have further simplified the support process. The installation center has a diagnostics tool that fetches all the logs and compresses it for you so you only have to worry about raising the ticket, including the diagnostics file and providing a comprehensive explanation of the issue.

Check out the support article for the updated process 👋.

What's next

We will announce an update of our roadmap shortly. Stay tuned and keep an eye on our LinkedIn page.

On Thursday May 6th 4 PM CET, we will host a webinar to showcase the latest features of Dime.Scheduler, including the bidirectional Exchange connector and some of the new capabilities that are about to released in Dime.Scheduler 2021.3.0 which is expected to land in May.

👉 Click here to register for this free webinar.

What's new

Dime.Scheduler vNext

In this release, we have made some major advances in our journey towards the next generation of Dime.Scheduler in the cloud. Nearly all of that is behind the covers though and is yet come to fruition.

As part of this major endeavour, we have upgraded the hosting model of the Windows Services, which comes with improved performance and a simplified installation procedure. Make sure to check out the upgrade guide before updating to 2021.1.0.

Installer

We added more capabilities to the all-in-one installer as well. For example, you can now save and load installation parameters to a file so you can reuse the installation parameters for subsequent updates.

This installer has now gone out of its beta phase and is now the official installation procedure for Dime.Scheduler. Check out the revised setup manual for all the instructions.

Plugin authentication

Due to a tedious configuration process, we have suspended the authentication and authorization policy of the plugin websites and replaced it with a standard Forms authentication mechanism. Just like with the main planning application, a 

is provisioned so you can get started managing your instance.

BC Connector

This version also comes with more capabilities of the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central connector extension:

• Send company country code as fallback value
• Send link to job card with task
• Use default date sorting in the DS appointments list page
• Hide certain resources in Dime.Scheduler

New features

Improvements and bug fixes

In addition to the traditional performance and stability improvements, the following bugs have been fixed:

• Set project starting date on a future date in Gantt chart
• Whitespace in planning board
• Planning board rendering when hidden
• Delete users with (private) layouts
• Long text alignment with icon in FireFox
• Resource and user filters 'and' condition
• Delete after cut results in phantom appointment
• Race conditions in the setting pages
• Resource settings grid race condition

Supported languages

We added translations for the following languages:

• Bulgarian
• Bosnian
• Estonian
• Croatian
• Latvian
• Lithuanian
• Polish
• Russian
• Slovakian
• Slovenian
• Ukranian

That brings the total amount of supported languages to 27.

Upgrade guide

⚠️ This version includes breaking changes. To upgrade to Dime.Scheduler 2021.1.0, follow the upgrade guide before deploying the new version.

What's next

In the next quarter, we aim to create a synchronization flow between Dime.Scheduler and Exchange. In accordance with our roadmap, we will spend a considerable amount of time creating a design that enables automated and optimized workflows to be integrated with the existing planning tools.

Welcome to the team, Hendrik!

We are happy to announce that Hendrik Bulens has joined the company and will run the company with Tom Taffin. Hendrik has been with us for more than five years and knows the company and its products inside out. He will help to lift Dime to the next level with new and improved products and services.

New product page

We have a brand new website for Dime.Scheduler. If you head over to www.dimescheduler.com, you will find heaps of resources that you can share with your customers. There are links to documents, brochures, videos, etc. at your disposal that could alleviate some of your work when you want to recommend Dime.Scheduler to your customer or prospect. There's even a chat function where you can talk to one of our partner managers.

Also, you can let us do a free demo for you. Just click on the 'Request a demo' button and you can schedule a demo and invite your prospects and customers to an hour-long Teams meeting. You will receive a confirmed Teams meeting in your inbox after just a few seconds.

So definitely go check it out at 👉 www.dimescheduler.com.

What's new

The newest feature is the multi-notification severity level display on appointments in the planning board. This allows the planner to distinguish between the different types of notification for the appointments.

Read more about it here.

Business Central 2020 Release Wave 2

You may have heard the news but Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2020 Release Wave 2 (aka BC17) is available. The Dime.Scheduler connector extension fully supports this version on both on-premise and SaaS distributions.

Supported languages

We added translations for the following languages:

• Czech
• Danish
• Finnish
• Greek
• Hungarian
• Italian
• Maltese
• Norwegian
• Portugese
• Romanian
• Spanish
• Swedish
• Vietnamese

Improvements and bug fixes

In addition to the traditional performance and stability improvements, the following bugs have been fixed:

• Drop CLR functions and assembly in database pre-deployment step
• Non-working time of original recurring appointment is ignored
• Take time zone into account when calendar mode is switched on
• Group by boolean column alignment
• Graph API - based e-mail service as an alternative to Sendgrid
• Use selected URL protocol in plugin configuration
• Azure VM user validation
• Initial rendering of live locations on the map

E-mail service alert

Some of your customers have been impacted by the disrupted mail service from our e-mail provider SendGrid. It is highly unfortunate that our service shares an IP address with customers who have malicious intents. Because of this, we got blacklisted by Spamhaus. Every time this happens, it gets increasingly harder to get delisted.

As a result, we will provide backup for this public cloud service. In this version we've introduced two alternatives: good old SMTP and Office 365. To learn how to configure these, continue here.

Upgrade guide

To upgrade to Dime.Scheduler 2020.4.0, follow this guide.

What's new

In this minor release, we made the following improvements to the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central connector:

• BC 18 (2021 Release Wave 1) support
• Calculate flowfields when sending resources with custom field mapping
• Enable finish button on every FastTrack Wizard step
• Move planning mode to job and job task level
• Job budgets
• Send job planning line as task
• Report errors back to Dime.Scheduler
• Planning status on jobs
• Add new field "Planning behavior"
• Update the subject and body of appointments in Dime.Scheduler

In addition, some useful features were developed:

• Choose how to apply the capacity for appointments that last longer than a day
• 'Today' and 'Tomorrow' filter options for date fields
• Apply resource filter from appointments in the planning board
• Update appointment subject and body through the import pipeline
• New script to automate Azure AD App registration for the bidirectional Exchange connector

Improvements and bug fixes

In addition to the traditional performance and stability improvements, the following bugs have been fixed:

• US date & time format in appointment editor
• Toolbar overflow rendering
• Appointment editor text alignment
• Set scheduler fit
• Planning quantity calculation in appointment stored procedure
• Update appointment planning quantity via the real-time update mechanism
• Missing resource alerts to highlight appointments for visible planning boards
• Round up the increment on shift next/previous 
• Copy/paste of locked appointments
• Page navigation is locked in the appointment editor's resource combobox
• Rendering of the grouping bar in the planning board when zoomed out
• Time zones deserialize to UTC when retrieving appointments

Upgrade guide

To upgrade to Dime.Scheduler 2021.3.0, follow the upgrade guide dilligently before deploying the new version.

Missed the webinar?

On May 6, we hosted a webinar to demonstrate all the new features in Dime.Scheduler and make a series of announcements about what's next in Dime.Scheduler.

Watch it again here.

End of life for Internet Explorer

Microsoft has finally pulled the plug on Internet Explorer. As a result, we also announce the end of life for the SilverLight-based versions of Dime.Scheduler. Specifically, all versions prior to Dime.Scheduler 2017 will no longer be supported. We therefore recommend to upgrade to the latest version of Dime.Scheduler. Get in touch to inquire how to upgrade!

What's new

Exchange connector

The eye-catcher of this release is the brand new Exchange connector. In contrast to the one we already had, this plugin connects to Office 365 natively. Exchange is only a small part of the Office 365 suite, which gives us many more opportunities to expand the scope of the connector in the future. For this release candidate, we only support one-way communication between Dime.Scheduler and Exchange but we are hard at work to make it a full-duplex communication channel.

The old Exchange connector is still fully supported for on-premise instances of Dime.Scheduler. However, we recommend switching over to the new connector as all new investments will be done on this connector.

To learn more about the connector and how to install it, continue reading here.

AppSource

The Dime.Scheduler connector for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is now available on AppSource. It has all the features of the on-premise connector and is free of charge.

To install the extension from AppSource, check out this page.

New preview of the all-in-one installer

We made extensive improvements to the installer, which not only allows you to deploy Dime.Scheduler and its associated plugins, but also helps you to configure Dime.Scheduler itself. For example, you can activate the license and do the initial application setup without having to log in to Dime.Scheduler. As always, it is documented and can be accessed here.

In addition to these significant milestones, we added the following new features.

Export planning to PDF

In the previous version, we introduced export to Excel capabilities. While this feature is applicable to almost every component, two important components were excluded: the planning board and the Gantt chart. We decided to do this because the data representation in these components is incompatible with the way Excel visualizes data. We have addressed this gap with the export to PDF feature. In essence, Dime.Scheduler will take a snapshot of the planning in the planning board or Gantt chart and export it to a PDF file.

Agenda view

We added a few read-only pages that can be used to display in lobbies, warehouses or any other place where the planning should be shown. You can choose between a day view, week view and a list view. The data and the time stamps are refreshed automatically.

Read more about the read-only agenda view here.

Copy and paste across planning boards and pages

The copy and paste feature was limited to appointments that were visible on the planning board. We removed this impediment which allows planners to cut, copy and paste appointments across pages, date ranges and even planning boards.

Reset layout

We added a new item to the toolbar of the stateful grids. This button allows the users to restore the layout that was applied initially. Read more about it here.

Change logo

A first humble step towards white labelling Dime.Scheduler consists of overriding the default logo. Read more about it here.

Open selected cell in day view

A shortcut has been added to the planning board's context menu to quickly zoom in on a day using the day view. This is useful if the planner wishes to take a closer look at the planning on an hourly basis. Read more about it here.

Quick update appointment indicators

The categories component has been redesigned and made much more powerful. It used to be merely a list of categories, but now it also shows the list of the other indicators (time markers and pins). And the great thing is that this component is connected to the planning board(s). By dragging a record from this component and dropping it on an appointment in the planning board, the planner is able to quickly adjust the status of an appointment without having to open the appointment card. Read more about it here.

Bulk update importance

Similar to the other batch update features in the planned tasks grid, a new button has been added to allow users to set the importance indicator in bulk. Continue reading here.

Create new profile

In addition to saving a new instance of the current profile, users now have the option to start a profile from scratch.

Improvements and bug fixes

In addition to the traditional performance and stability improvements, the following bugs have been fixed:

• Phantom appointments after toggling resource in editor
• Support ISO 8601 and weeks that start on Sunday
• Skip data retrieval after removing records in import process
• Set resource when planing board's context menu is opened
• Select multiple appointments from a single resource
• Apply exact match flag at state initialization
• List of countries in application setup
• Paste appointments on a grouped planning board
• Add resource to recurring series in calendar mode
• Duplicate planning boards in the profile menu
• Maintain planning board time range when highlighting planned task
• Send selection of BC production orders at once
• SQL Timeout for the field captions
• Delete default user without e-mail
• Reset filters when switching planning board layout
• User-generated content warning icon in user admin
• Reset profile settings after loading incomplete profile
• Set source app max length to 30 in back office
• Show notifications for tasks and jobs

Legacy Exchange connector update

As mentioned in the previous release, Microsoft announced the end-of-life of basic authentication for Exchange Web Services. The original due date was October 13, 2020 but given the unique circumstances, this has been postponed to the second half of 2021.

What's next

In the next few months, you can expect to see more progress in the connectors area. We will analyze how we can ship a limited set of features for the bidirectional synchronization of the Exchange connector. And as usual, we'll work on some smaller features to make the solution easier to use.

Upgrade guide

To upgrade to Dime.Scheduler 2020.3.0, follow this guide.

For those who don’t know him, Michael Scott is a famous regional manager of a company that distributes paper products in the town of Scranton, Pennsylvania. He is well-known for his unique management style and while he is widely regarded as an incompetent manager, every now and then he’ll say something exceptionally clever or give genuinely sound advice, even though he’ll usually misquote, mispronounce, or mix up words and expressions. Whenever there's a lot going on in his mind, it may go "a mile an hour" instead of the usual "a mile a minute". Or he might go on the record and say that he’s not “superstitious but a little stitious” when it comes to explaining a possible curse in the office after he ran over a coworker with his car in the company’s parking lot. I almost forgot, he is also a fictional character from “The Office”, a popular TV sitcom that depicts the everyday work lives of the company’s office employees.

One storyline in the series involves a unilateral mentorship between Michael and his protégé Ryan Howard, to whom he eagerly shares his secrets to success in business. His second rule is quite an interesting one and should give us some food for thought:

Adapt. React. Re-adapt. Apt.

The millennials among the readers will immediately reminisce over a similar inspirational quote from Bear Grylls that became famous among meme makers, who have made some hilarious jokes around the quote “improvise, adapt, overcome”. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Michael Scott’s unorthodox second rule of business refers to flexibility, that one should not just be a bystander to changing circumstances, must take matters into their own hands proactively as well as repeat the process as often as necessary. Applied to the world of information technology, this sounds an awful lot like agile and lean methodology. The same principles that caused such a stir with the leadership and management of this industry could leave a similar mark in other areas in business as well. A different approach towards management may be advised, as some traditional methods can no longer cope with an ever-increasingly complex and changing world. Embracing uncertainty and change may turn what is usually interpreted as a threat in a SWOT analysis, into an opportunity that may pay great dividends over time.

Agility in business scheduling

Let’s use scheduling as an example. Planning in an agile organization, whatever that means, sounds like a handful, and could even be construed as contradictory. The dynamic nature of the agile mindset doesn’t seem to fit in extremely well with the traditional interpretation of planning. The good old adage that one should make a plan and stick to it conjures up the image of the waterfall project methodology, agile’s arch enemy. However, it is the waterfall methodology that comes closest to the definition of a plan, which Webster’s dictionary formulates as “an orderly arrangement of parts of an overall design or objective”. The keyword in this definition that distinguishes agile from waterfall is the ‘orderly arrangement’. In complex and volatile business environments, it has proven difficult for project managers to think of everything up front, and even if they somehow miraculously manage to do that, there will be unforeseen circumstances along the way, like customers having another change of heart, unexpected delays in delivery, key people leaving the company, etc. The fundamental concept that underscores the agile mindset is the approach towards change and the delivery of the work at hand. Plans should still be made and there still should a clear set of goals. Agile assumes an incomplete and imperfect world where things aren’t entirely clear upfront and might not remain the same. As such, one should expect change and must be nimble enough to change course without too much hassle. This sounds simple enough, but actually, this is easier said than done. Meticulous planning without the rigidity is difficult and it often ends up as a chaotic mess with vague targets that are impossible to measure, missing deadlines, scope creep, overspent budgets, and more.

On a side note, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with traditional methods like that. Advocates of agile methodologies can be quite condescending towards people who stick to more traditional methods that are no longer considered to be hip or even true. When they hit the mainstream, buzzwords like agile, digital transformation, pivoting, etc. lose all meaning. Business is not a science and there are no universal laws that define how a business should be conducted. There is no quick fix and embedding a flexible mindset as a core value in an organization is a gargantuan task and few, if any, will ever reach that state of nirvana. Not that this is necessary of course - or even possible as there is a tremendous amount of luck involved in success, which agility can do little about - because it’s okay for some things to remain static. Planning fits that bill on many occasions, but it can also be used to obtain a competitive advantage when you can adapt to changing circumstances faster and better than your rivals.

Turning uncertain circumstances to your advantage

There are few other industries in which this agility becomes more apparent than parcel delivery and courier services. During Microsoft’s Inspire 2021 Keynote, FedEx showed how they managed to swiftly ship thousands of COVID-19 vaccines through its vast network and how they were able to comply with the many requirements (like temperature) in which to store and transport those vaccines. Their highly automated infrastructure is robust enough to cope with unforeseen circumstances, like diversions, due to severe storms on flight routes, and although delayed, the vaccines will arrive in the state specified by the customer. Were it not for this, the vaccines would have been rendered unusable due to temperatures high enough to break down the genetic material mRNA.

Companies like FedEx are behemoths and advanced automation is indispensable to operate on such a vast scale, but even for smaller organizations, moving from static planning to dynamic planning can make a significant impact. This is where we at Dime, an ISV that develops and distributes software for the Microsoft Dynamics product suite, try to offer a helping hand. A graphical resource and project management solution such as Dime.Scheduler is a modest attempt to visualize operations and allow dynamic planning through an intuitive user interface.

Everybody who has ever had to submit a support ticket with a major (software) company – or called the customer support of any big company for that matter - will feel the pain when a support agent redirects you to one of their coworkers in the next line of support. After painstakingly having explained the problem to the first agent, the second agent will make you do the same thing all over again so they can jot down their notes on God knows what system, only to conclude – two weeks, a few more support agents, and a heap of e-mails later – that what you’re asking is not supported or that there’s nothing they can or will do about it. That’s a lot of wasted time and an extraordinarily expensive – but highly effective - way to make your customers like your company less.

The power of data visualization

Slow responses, poor internal alignment, lost time, and lower morale are just a few consequences of poor planning. Any attempt to improve that is a major win. The reason for developing a tool such as Dime.Scheduler, above all, was to visualize planning. Indeed, some of our customers buy the product mainly for its visuals, which makes it so much easier to gain insights on the schedules of their technicians, equipment, vehicles, production lines, and more. Visualizing data helps us to understand data, which by itself is difficult to interpret without some serious cognitive effort. Good luck detecting bottlenecks in the next production batch or intercepting double bookings in a fleet of hundreds of vehicles when you don’t have the support of some tool or technology.

While visualizing the current state of your planning is crucial, a planning tool wouldn’t be much of a planning tool if it hadn’t had at least some capabilities to do something about those bottlenecks. In the modern age of computing, software can already make a lot of suggestions to resolve those planning issues, if it is fed by accurate data to prevent GIGO or ‘Garbage In = Garbage Out’. Data silos are still paramount, and they are truly detrimental. Having a centralized system and a centralized planning tool, can prevent waste like duplicate bookings, delays, missing materials, incomplete timesheets, incorrect invoices, unfinished jobs, no-shows, high unnecessary overtime, excessive status meetings and so many other subtle annoyances that hinder your organization’s growth. This is another area where Dime.Scheduler shines: its integration with central back-office systems such as Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. A planning tool that is not integrated with the rest of the technological ecosystem is more useless than the ‘g’ in ‘lasagna’.

Supercharging your ERP with add-ons

Centralized systems such as ERP software are a great attempt to let the entire organization work with a single version of the truth, but it is practically impossible to create a ‘one size fits all’ solution. Enter companies like Dime that create specialized software as add-ons to ERP systems such as Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. Dime.Scheduler is an example of such an add-on, and it extends the capabilities of said back-office system with an advanced resource and project planning tool. Add-ons like this hook into the system and manipulate it to automate and facilitate business processes. Dime.Scheduler’s goal is to enable agility in the planning department, to maximize output and optimize customer and employee satisfaction. When a tool breaks down or colleague calls in sick, this could be a logistical and administrative nightmare, but with tools such as Dime.Scheduler, the planner can focus on customer experience and look for a solution, given the availability and ability of the other resources in the firm. Additionally, all of it is integrated, which makes it very efficient. When a planner makes a change, it will not go unnoticed in other departments that need to generate invoices or need to make purchases to fill up the warehouse’s stock.

In essence, add-ons to ERP systems are the ERP’s counterpart: they are specialized software that aim to tackle a particular business challenge, as opposed to trying to support all major business processes. With add-ons, ERP systems can be supercharged, and companies can assemble their own ecosystem that can truly support their unique way of doing business. And, because the center of gravity in the IT department remains in the ERP system, there is little need for brittle and complicated plumbing to connect the various systems. For example, in the case of Dime.Scheduler, which is very popular among service management companies, often other (mobile) add-ons are acquired that provide powerful capabilities for the agents in the field too, to end up with an end-to-end experience that supports both the planners and the agents in the field. Without this inherently integrated architecture of ERP systems and their add-ons, enforcing new or enhanced business processes and the adoption of new software would’ve been a lot riskier.

Optimizing time and resources is a very efficient way to do more with less. By treating time and people, machines, and other resources as precious (and therefore, expensive), you can get more things done without necessarily having to make risky investments that affect the entire organization. It can be as simple as acquiring an integrated planning tool such as Dime.Scheduler but more often, there are bigger fault lines beneath the surface of the company that needs addressing. Either way, any attempt to improve the planning will expose another challenge that could well go beyond the capabilities of a mere software application. That’s when the real challenge starts, and the organization will be put to the test as to whether it is as agile as it claims to be.

At Dime Software, we are privileged to have hundreds of customers all around the world in the most diverse industries who allow us to take a peek inside and scan their business processes, technology usage, and so on. And while we're involved in just a few key business areas, you would not believe how different people and organizations conduct their business. Even within the same industry, companies can have totally different approaches. What baffles us most, however, is how little technology has changed some companies. Could it be that technology hasn't been as disruptive as many claim?

For example, when we take a look at run-of-the-mill scheduling processes, we find that many organizations rely on primitive methods such as sticky notes or spreadsheets. For fundamental business practices such as scheduling, you can imagine how the other business processes and the technological landscape (or lack thereof) will look like.

The average employee tends to waste 2.09 hours in every 8-hour workday.

It gets worse when we quantify the issue of time management because it is estimated that the average American employee tends to waste 2.09 hours in every 8-hour workday, and an average amount of $39.98 is wasted per employee every day. The logical follow-up question to that staggering statistic is what non-work-related activities people like to do most during working hours.

Identifying time leaks

As is usual with matters such as this, there are several factors that ought to be considered to explain time leaks.

According to a survey that was carried out in 2014, 89% of the workers admitted to wasting time at work. Some of the most common activities and excuses include socializing with co-workers (23.4%), browsing the internet (44.7%), and zoning out (3.9%).

Even when people are actually doing the job they are supposed to do, they spend a surprising amount of time at frivolous activities. Excessive status meetings immediately spring to mind, and everybody can relate to workplace distractions such as incoming phone calls, emails, noisy and slow office equipment, chatty co-workers, and more. Being distracted for just a fraction of a second may have devastating consequences because it takes up to 15 minutes to gather your thoughts and pick up where you left off. In addition, the evidence seems to suggest that multitasking doesn't really work, which only exacerbates the issue of lost company time.

89% of the workers admitted to wasting time at work.

And not to forget, organizational flaws are also a major contributor to the problem. Millions of clicks are lost every day and countless trees had to be cut down so administrative assistants could print out emails ending with the commonly used "please consider the environment before printing this email" verse before burying it deep into the bowels of the storage room.

This isn't shocking news and nobody can be expected to be productive all the time. However, when you tot up the numbers, the amount of company time lost in a single day can be astounding. The impact is profound and as such, it is necessary to develop a plan to tackle the issue and one that goes beyond quick fixes like banning certain aspects of technology usage and adopting new company policies.

There is bound to be resistance with every attempt to address the time management issue and no single measure has a certain outcome. Therefore, one must tread lightly and be diligent with every effort to fix time leaks. For instance, it might be okay to tolerate socializing in the office to stimulate team spirit and boost morale. On the other hand, many employees have admitted to wasting office time to apply for other jobs, which is generally considered as morally objectionable.

How organizations try to deal with time leaks

Quick fixes

In order to deal with time leaks, many companies have come up with (illegal) solutions such as screen and network monitoring, banning the use of social media on the company's network, setting lunch and break times, quiet work zones, fewer meetings, and others.

However, this is a temporary strategy that does not help in eradicating the issue completely. Many employees still manage to cross boundaries that cannot be controlled. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a quick fix, and even the most elaborate programs to boost the morale and productivity of workers will never be able to use their workforce's capacity to the fullest. This is not to say that one shouldn't at least try to make their people content, and consequently, more productive.

Structural changes

On the other hand, organizations can control their business processes and policies, and for a good amount of years now, optimizing those processes is often associated with business automation. Some of the subtle time leaks can be addressed by adopting productivity software and automation tools.

For example, by providing a full but realistic work schedule and follow-up system, many employees would be able to make good - and more - use of their capabilities. Mapping and visualizing business processes can help detect flaws in their design, and it provides an opportunity to eliminate time-consuming and dreadful tasks so people can do the work they like (and do) best.

Adaptive work schedules

Another way to keep employees from wasting time is to keep them content by giving them an adaptive work schedule and a job that gives them purpose. Many - but far too few - companies have moved away from traditional 9 to 5 jobs to a more flexible work strategy. For example, it is estimated that 44% of the companies around the world (before COVID-19) do not allow remote work at all. Old habits die hard it seems because it has been reported that 89% of the companies report better retention rates because of flexible work options.

It has been reported that 89% of the companies report better retention rates because of flexible work options.

Market giants such as Apple and Google have also drifted away from conventional working hours towards the adaptive approach, and they have reported higher production rates. The time schedule of employees is designed in such a way that they do not feel burned out and can keep to the schedule. It is because of strategies such as these that they top the list as some of the world's best companies to work for.

Incentive programs

Many companies also attempt to motivate employees by offering bonuses for meeting targets and deadlines. While this may work in the short term, in the long run it is likely to lead to problematic situations like burnout and work-family life conflicts.

While measures such as adaptive work schedules and bonuses may help, a comprehensive strategy is required to have a lasting impact that will actually work for the employees. This is highly risky and it may cause embarrassment for the leadership of the company. The question then is whether it's possible to resolve these issues at all? Is there a way to design schedules and morale-boosting programs for the employees without draining the company’s revenues? When even 91% of the executives are unsatisfied with their own time management, something has to change.

Technology can help fix time leaks

As always, there is no single solution or set of solutions that can ever solve such complex and ever-evolving challenges. But one should at least try and fortunately, there are many ways to boost the morale of the workforce and optimize business processes. We already covered productivity-boosting programs and business process management. A third and equally crucial element is technology.

Many troubles related to time-wasting could be resolved with software, without breaking the bank. Even relatively small investments and measures such as a centralized calendar, a CRM system, a basic digital task list, time trackers, and perhaps even a lightweight ERP solution, can have a profound impact on any organization. Heck, even putting your phone in "Do Not Disturb" mode can do wonders.

In addition, automation tools can tie the pieces together to enforce business processes. This results in higher output, fewer mistakes, reduced throughput times, and more; all contributing to higher profits, up to 30% according to research. It gets better because the people involved in the process will need less time to do their work and as such will be able to do more of it, and they will feel less stressed and more inspired.

It is clear that technology plays a vital role in time management. It can unclog an array of issues that runs through a company. There is bound to be resistance, but it will be much less than some of the other ways to reduce time-wasting. And maybe it could even pave the way to the next phase of the (digital) transformation of the organization.

In this release, we turned most of our attention to reduce the complexity and installation time of the solution. It is our goal to minimize the involvement of a human operator when it comes to the deployment of the application. In accordance to the roadmap, we made two big steps forward with the release candidates of Dime.Scheduler on Azure and an all-in-one installer. Read more about it in the docs and the tutorial to learn all about Dime.Scheduler on Azure and the all-in-one installer.

In addition to these eye-catchers, we can also announce basic exporting and printing functions for all grid-based components. With just a few clicks, you'll be able to export nearly all grid-based components, print it and share it. Read about it here.

Exchange connector update

Microsoft announced the end-of-life of basic authentication for Exchange Web Services, on which the Dime.Scheduler Exchange Connector relies. There's still time to prepare for this change (October 13, 2020).

Simply install the latest version of the connector and read the instructions in the configuration page carefully.

What's next

In the next few months, you can expect to see progress in the connectors area. We will also be on the lookout for feedback on the installer and Azure deployment. Finally, you should also see some smaller features to make the solution easier to use.

Upgrade guide

To upgrade to Dime.Scheduler 2020.2.0, follow this guide.

What's new

In accordance with our roadmap, we worked intensively on simplifying the installation process. We also made great progress on the transition to .NET Core and the cloud. We will continue our efforts and aim to ship Dime.Scheduler on Azure and a simplified installation package by the end of the quarter.

A nice new feature that is available is the split appointment function in the planning board. Gone are the days where you would have to copy, paste and remove appointments and assignments, just to split an appointment. Three appointment split functions are available as of this version:

• Remove a resource from an appointment
• Remove a resource from an appointment and create a separate appointment
• Split an appointment in two

These functions are available in the planning board's context menu option or can be accessed with shortcut keys. Check out the docs for more information.

We also updated the Azure AD authentication mechanism in order to comply with the latest integration recommendations. If you use Azure AD, note that changes were made to the app registration, and that an extra configuration item has been added to Dime.Scheduler. Consult the guide for the modified procedure.

We also implemented a mechanism to automatically retry failed transactions in the back office website. Read more about it here.

Improvements and bug fixes

Besides the traditional performance and stability improvements, the following bugs have been fixed:

• Assign resource with shift drag for single select resource types
• Warn user when updating profile after having removed it
• Display grouping header values of associated models
• Prevent duplicate component identifiers in a profile
• Update map when toggling the select all checkbox
• Add components to blank profiles
• Create new planning boards
• 24h working day returns 0 availability in the calendars
• Retry removed appointments in back office
• Apply connector for new appointments in back office

What's next

In February, we will continue to explore our own implementation of the Exchange connector. Now is the time for you to share your requirements for a bidirectional synchronization mechanism between Dime.Scheduler and Exchange. In addition to this, we will make a first iteration of export capabilities. And finally, as mentioned earlier we will wrap up the automated installation procedure and finalize the work on Dime.Scheduler on Azure.

Upgrade guide

To upgrade to Dime.Scheduler 2020.1.0, follow this guide.

Users who are eager to check out the split appointments feature should log out and log in. After all, this is a protected feature that can be configured by the administrator. It is added by default to the planner role.

Missed our webinar?

On February 5, we unveiled our roadmap for 2020. We made a few exciting announcements along with a live demonstration that showcases some of the newest features. Watch it again here. If you prefer to read, all announcements we made during this webinar are also available in text. Read about it here.

The Dime Software partner zone is a protected area that is exclusively accessible for our certified resellers. It contains all the artifacts and documents that you need to bring our products to your customers and prospects.

➡️ The partner zone is available on dime-software.com/partnerzone.

Accessing the partner zone

When you access this page for the first time, you will find that you are redirected to the login page. If you're a reseller, you will already be pre-approved to the partner zone. The only thing you need to do is choose your e-mail address and password, and you'll be good to go.

Once you have signed in, you will find the landing page of the partner zone. This is a static page that provides navigation to the products' bits and bytes.

Signing up

New members go through roughly the same process. If you wish to sign up, you can navigate to the partner zone and click on the 'Sign up' link and enter your e-mail address and password. You will be added to the queue and our team will evaluate whether you have the right to access the partner zone. This should take no longer than a day. During business hours, this will often be done within the hour.

Once we've approved your submission, you will receive an e-mail notification to welcome you aboard the partner zone.

What you can expect

If you click through to a product, you will be redirected to its dedicated product page. Inside such a page, you will find - among others - the following files:

• Price lists
• Links to media kits
• Links to websites, public slide decks, brochures, and more.
• Links to support and documentation
• The installation files for on-premise installations

All files require authentication. If you want to share files with colleagues or clients, you need to download them locally first. Note that files may be updated, so make sure to always use the files from the partner zone in order to prevent version conflicts.

Sunsetting the Dime partner zone

The old partner zone on dimenics.com is now deprecated. New updates and uploads will only be published on this site. Consider any content from dimenics.com out of date. We will keep the lights on for a few more months before shutting down this service.

Contact

If you have any questions, need help, or have any suggestions to improve your experience with us, you can get in touch via the contact form or drop us a line at hello@dime-software.com.

Mid-2020 marked a crucial moment for Dime as we changed our strategy to focus exclusively on the development and distribution of our own products. As a result, we are seeing strong growth in our sales of Dime.Scheduler. To give you an idea, we're halfway through our fiscal year and we've surpassed the results from last year, which already was a record-breaking year.

To highlight our revised strategy, we've decided to rebrand the company. As of today, Dime becomes Dime Software! Dime has been a household name in the Microsoft Dynamics channel for the last decade and Dime Software will continue to build powerful add-ons for the Microsoft Dynamics product suite.

With the updated company name comes a new website. Check out dime-software.com and stay up to date with the latest news of the company and its products, and follow us on our social media channels:

What is the impact of this change?

Besides the name change, not much else changes. The company is still managed by the same people and our existing contracts stay in place. The update, therefore, is simply a rebranding of the company. We have a media kit with instructions on how to use our brands on your websites. Don't forget to check out the media kit for Dime.Scheduler as well.

The primary e-mail addresses of our employees will be updated to the dime-software.com domain. The new e-mail naming convention is 'firstname@dime-software.com'. Other useful e-mail addresses include:

• hello@dime-software.com for general questions.
• orders@dime-software.com to place your orders.
• finance@dime-software.com for inquiries on payments
• ⚠️ dime@dimenics.com is deprecated and will not be replaced. Redirect your questions to hello@dime-software.com.
• ⚠️ support@dimenics.com is deprecated and will not be replaced. Support for Dime.Scheduler should go through support@dimescheduler.com.

We will gradually phase out the dimenics.com domain before shutting it down entirely in a few months from now.

New partner zone

The website also comes with a new partner zone. Existing partners have been pre-approved and will be able to access the software, price lists, media kits, and more. We published an article on the website that guides you through the new partner zone. You can check it out by clicking on this link.

We will add more capabilities to the partner zone soon that will make it easier for our partners to work with us. In the following months, you can expect the following additions to the partner zone:

• Integrated and streamlined reseller onboarding process
• Pricing calculator
• Order forms

What's next for Dime Software?

New products

The company's growth and refined strategy have enabled us to increase investments in new products. We have a few products in the pipeline that you will be able to offer to your customers and prospects as part of your Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central service offerings. For instance, we aim to have a pilot ready in 2022 to automate and optimize all kinds of work schedules. This will strengthen our position in the scheduling segment of the Microsoft Dynamics ecosystem.

Dime.Scheduler

It goes without saying that we will keep on investing in Dime.Scheduler and take it to the next level so both our partners and customers can enjoy an improved experience of our planning software. In the following months, we will release a number of exciting features:

• Appointment containers
• Mobile App
• PowerApps connector
• Dime.Scheduler SDK

Further down the road, we find Dime.Scheduler as a Service, a multi-tenant and cloud-based instance of Dime.Scheduler, allowing you to instantiate a private environment in minutes. To get a complete overview of what's coming up, check out the roadmap for Dime.Scheduler here.

Expansion

It goes without saying that we are optimistic about the company's future. We have set ambitious goals that will benefit customers, partners, and the people who work with us. We will further anchor ourselves in the Microsoft Dynamics channel with new and improved products that can be launched in minutes.

Besides technological investments, we will enter new markets and expand our partner network to offer our products to more organizations. We will hire more people to speed up the go-to-market of products and projects. A brand new training academy, continued investments in the documentation, streamlined reseller processes all will contribute to a smooth and pleasant experience with our company and our products.

We can't wait to see what the future holds for us. Either way, we look forward to continuing our journey along with our inspiring partners and customers!

Real-life events can not be replaced

Technology has reshaped the world and the pandemic has galvanized governments, corporations, departments, and individuals into action to modernize the workplace. As a result, for many of our partners, the last two years have been the busiest ever. Both our partners and we are signing up heaps of new customers and are hiring people to accommodate this surge.

In the meantime, office workers have grown accustomed to virtual meetings. During the first worldwide lockdown in 2020, our social media were flooded with screenshots of people enthusiastically having Zoom and Teams meetings. However, the initial euphoria to be able to (or better still, have to) work from home has subsided and disillusioned many; it's not all sunshine and rainbows, as it turns out. Digital nomads and remote workers have known for a while that there are sacrifices to be made. For example, the line between home and work vanishes almost completely. This blurry line can cause mental health problems such as stress, depression, and anxiety.

When improperly conducted, online meetings can be a terrific energy and morale drainer. People on mute, poor internet connectivity, bad microphones, barking dogs, these are just a few examples of what you can expect in a typical online meeting. Not that meetings in real life are better, but they can be a lot less annoying; at least there are fewer things that can go wrong from a technological point of view. And for certain kinds of meetings, there's a synergy that's difficult to recreate in the digital world.

This brings me neatly to conferences such as Directions EMEA. In 2020, the organizers of Directions EMEA did a great job organizing a virtual conference. But, through no fault of their own, we did not feel the same satisfaction as with the previous editions. Few people came to 'see us' at our virtual booth and we had very few interactions with the attendees. As a sponsor, this is what we are there for: reach out and connect with existing partners and potential new partners. Especially after the 2021 edition, it is safe to conclude that real-life events are still very much needed.

We had in-depth conversations with partners to discuss pending deals, what feedback existing customers have, what we should work on next, and more. We met new partners who wanted to learn more about Dime.Scheduler, and talked to other ISVs to discuss potential joint-ventures and integrations between our products. This dynamic is something that's currently not possible in the digital world. Brainstorming and ad-hoc, informal chats are hard to replicate digitally. It's also difficult to bump into people online, which is something that brought us more than one new partnership. So for the time being, we will keep on participating in real-life events such as Directions EMEA.

However, there is one issue that remains to be addressed. Without wanting to get political, large conferences have a severe impact on the environment, and we hope that organizers of such events will make an extra effort to minimize the carbon footprint. Attendees and sponsors should also look for ways to compensate for trips such as Directions EMEA. For example, the Dime.Scheduler team has been working from home since 2016, we modified our policy to go to the customer's office for demonstrations and other meetings as little as possible, and we even reduced our office space because the team rarely, if ever, commutes anymore. And of course, with our software, we try to help our customers reduce their ecological footprint with more efficient schedules. In 2022, we will launch more initiatives to reduce our and our customers' impact on the environment even more.

Customer buying behavior has changed

We were honored to join Anveo Group on stage during Directions EMEA 2021's day three keynote. Nils Peemöller, managing director at Anveo Group, dedicated his keynote to talk about changing customer buying behavior. He invited Jan Wild, COO at Boss Info, and Tom Taffin, managing partner at Dime Software, to talk about how this has affected their business models.

One of the things we notice as an ISV is that customers come well prepared when they get in touch with us directly, which they do increasingly. They no longer exclusively rely on VARs to look for solutions in the marketplace. In a world of instant gratification and self-service, customers demand, well, just more of everything: shorter lead times, lower prices, better performance, more functionalities, plug and play solutions backed by artificial intelligence, and more.

ISVs, therefore, will not only have to consider marketing that caters to partners but also to end customers. Customers should know what value they are getting from our solutions and what challenges they can help solve. To take Dime.Scheduler as an example, we changed the product's marketing strategy to brand it as a solution that has all the whistles and bells, rather than a platform for our partners to work on. The message we can now bring is crystal clear and customers get a much better feeling of what we can and cannot provide.

Both changes have led to a surge in direct contact between us, the ISV, and the end customer. Instead of partners bringing us customers, customers are bringing partners to us. Or as our managing partner Tom mentioned on stage, we've evolved to a free lead generator for partners.

This change has had a profound impact on our business. We find that it can be easier to engage end customers than partners - excluding the top 30% of our best-selling resellers, who regularly bring us new deals. Our software has a different value proposition for customers than for partners. We have incentive programs and offer a range of free and paid services to engage our partners, which seem to be catching on with dormant resellers and smaller partners ever since we made our strategic pivot in 2020. While indirect sales is a great and extremely scalable model, direct sales can be easier: customers find us and therefore are motivated to learn more about the product. With a sales and marketing strategy that supports both models, we can reach a much bigger market than before.

The VAR business model has changed too

VARs in the Microsoft Dynamics channel have had to endure seismic changes for the last five years or so. Microsoft has been innovating at near-light speed; it began with sunsetting Microsoft Dynamics NAV, only to introduce Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central shortly after and a cloud-based version that would be integrated into the Office 365 suite. Along with PowerApps, Teams, connectivity to Azure services and whatnot, the flood gates have opened to truly astonishingly complex solutions. Data silos are being broken down and data moves around to deliver a smooth and uniform user experience.

Technological changes are only part of the reason why VARs are almost drowning in work. The pandemic made companies realize they needed to modernize the workplace to let people work from home, and it brought new business to our partners. They've been taking on so many projects that it's hard to keep up. With the talent pool dried up (it was never flooded, to begin with), we are noticing a bottleneck as project kick-offs are delayed, sometimes even more than a year.

With their packed schedule, both new and existing partners have changed their approach slightly. As far as Dime Software is concerned, we have been encouraging it and we are glad to be involved more often, and earlier in the (sales) process. Partners gladly use free services such as demonstrations and they increasingly let us do installation and upgrade projects, as well as custom development in NAV, BC, and CRM. This has several advantages because it saves the partner heaps of time and since we know the product inside out, the success rate goes up, making everybody more satisfied in the end. And a side effect is that we get a better sense of what's going on, which is something we lacked in the past.

This is just a teaser for what is to come in the future. The role of VARs and ISVs will continue to change, and with the cloud finally breaking through in the channel, the playing field will level out and competition will be fierce as there will be fewer factors to consider when the entire tech stack is in the cloud. Let's take Dime.Scheduler again as an example. We're currently working on a multi-tenant and cloud-based version of the product, which, once it's up and running, will reduce the lead time to just a few minutes rather than hours. Because we'll be in charge of the hosting, customers will just have to make a few clicks to connect our software to their back-office system. As our application is built on top of popular web technologies, we'll be able to provide seamless connections to systems other than the ones we already support, i.e. the Microsoft Dynamics product suite. But this obviously applies to other planning software companies too, who can penetrate the market much easier than just a few years ago. This forces us to keep on investing and innovating. It's a similar story for the VARs, who will have to keep finding ways to differentiate themselves from the competition.

All of the aforementioned changes will inevitably alter the relationship between ISVs and VARs. Instead of being providers of software, we'll work side by side more often to ensure the successful completion of the solution designed by the VAR. From what we've seen the last year, we are looking forward to this change because it's simply a win-win-win situation.

Dime Software has taken off

Another conclusion we can draw from the conference is that we have taken a turn for the better for the company and our products. Since April 2020, we no longer distribute products from third parties, thus focusing exclusively on the development and distribution of products that we manage ourselves. This pivot has yielded some great results for Dime.Scheduler, giving us extra room for investments.

The facts and figures, but most of all the kind words we've received from our partners during Directions EMEA 2021 have given us a boost to keep on going and make great scheduling add-ons for the Microsoft Dynamics product suite, and beyond.

We've seen heaps of sessions and many announcements during the conference, and we too have made a few announcements about what is to come in Dime.Scheduler in 2022:

• Appointment containers will allow users to bundle appointments and plan them as a group.
• The mobile app can be used to consult individual schedules, as well as the entire schedule of the organization. It will also contain resource tracking capabilities.
• The PowerApps connector will provide similar capabilities as the Dime.Scheduler connector for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central in that you will be able to send and receive data to and from Dime.Scheduler through the low-code platform.

This is to be expected in the short term, but there's more coming up and we wish we could skip to 2022 or 2023 already because we are working on Dime.Scheduler as a Service, the working title for a multi-tenant Dime.Scheduler in the cloud. And if that wasn't enough already, we are working on a brand new product: an AI-backed planning optimization solution that will serve as a stand-alone application but will also work with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and it will have a seamless connection with Dime.Scheduler. This will anchor us even further in the position as the market leader for planning software in the Microsoft Dynamics channel.

These world premieres were very well received by our partners. This confirmation makes us feel confident about the company's future. The strategic pivot has worked out and with the confidence of our partners, we will do everything in our power to speed up the development of our products and add more manpower to assist them every step of the way.

Directions EMEA 2021 was a success

Despite all these interesting insights and new developments, one emotion dominates all the others: it is good to be back. Even though the pandemic is still raging in much of the world, it almost felt like things were back to normal. Kudos to the organizers of the event for making it happen in the first place, and for initiating a few new programs. We support the Women in Dynamics initiative and applaud the organizer's efforts to minimize waste. In spite of all the technological abilities to meet, real-life events will remain irreplaceable for the foreseeable future. We should celebrate that Directions EMEA 2021 happened at all and that it, given the circumstances, was an edition to remember.

The Partner Pledge has 4 pillars:

• Digital skills
• Diversity
• Responsible and ethical AI
• Sustainability

These critical goals have been in Dime Software's DNA for years. When Microsoft spearheaded the initiative, we felt there was a good match with our vision and commitments, and we happily confirmed our pledge.

We walk the walk and have been trying to inspire others to join us on the journey to a better and sustainable future. Just to give you an idea, we have reduced our carbon footprint to the minimum by working from home full-time, buying green electricity, and using technology to the fullest extent possible to get our work done. We have had the most diverse teams who we've trained to get up to speed in our complex and demanding business climate. Because we all work remotely and because it's so difficult to find suitable candidates, our hiring policies are as inclusive as they can possibly get.

Through our innovations and software, we aim to minimize waste and streamline business processes of companies all around the world. In 2022, we will reinforce this ambition with a new product that will optimize schedules through the use of artificial intelligence.

Sadly, because we're a small software company, our voice quickly falls into oblivion. But when a behemoth such as Microsoft raises their voice, the message will be heard. We clearly support initiatives such as the Partner Pledge, but we encourage Microsoft to be bold and go even further. They're taking the rights steps already and we feel that there's an opportunity to make billions thrive while saving the planet. We will do our part to make the world a better place, however small our impact might be.

2021 has been another great year for Dime Software, and we are grateful for your unwavering support for our products and services 🥂. We released faster and more powerful versions of Dime.Scheduler, signed up new resellers, and strengthened our relationships with existing partners.

🔜 Next year promises to be an even better year with new and improved products. We're excited about what's coming up and we can't wait to share it with you.

We look forward to working with you next year. Until then, enjoy the holidays and have a healthy, happy and successful 2022!

On a practical note, please note that our offices - including support - will be closed on:

• December 24 from 1 PM CET
• December 25 & 26
• December 31 from 3 PM CET

According to a recent study, over 250 billion USD is lost annually in U.S. firms alone due to unsuccessful IT projects. When we extrapolate that number to all failed projects worldwide,
we’re looking at trillions of dollars being squandered. That’s a lot of money to be left with disappointment and disgruntlement. The real damage is significantly bigger than a considerably lighter wallet. Although every project is unique, many fail for the same reasons. But do not despair; there are ways to increase the odds of success, and some of them are quite easy to implement. Before we get to that, let’s have a look first at what we’re all doing so wrong when we manage projects.

Why projects fail

There are numerous reasons why a project may fail. Something as frail as a project plan can easily collapse like a house of cards, and even the slightest disruption in the force can be crippling to the project. It's similar to a toddler, who requires constant care and attention to succeed in this world. Fortunately for the children, projects are managed much worse for various reasons. The following are some of the most frequently cited reasons for project failure.

1. Unrealistic and unclear goals 

One of the most significant reasons for a project's failure is a lack of understanding of the intended outcome. Approximately 37% of projects fail due to a lack of defined objectives. Setting a realistic timeline and setting realistic expectations is particularly difficult because we have a natural tendency to be overly optimistic and underestimate risks. When operating in a dynamic business environment, it's not surprising that so many projects get lost in the ether and crash spectacularly. When no one truly understands the objectives, the project manager effectively becomes the captain of a sinking ship, desperately attempting to steer the vessel in the 'correct' direction, except that nobody knows where the destination is. [2]

Failure to align stakeholders is a precursor to major issues down the road. The classic tree swing story, taught in almost every introduction to project management course, is an amusing and strangely familiar tale about how individuals and departments interpret requirements differently and how large the chasm between those interpretations can be. For example, software developers do not report to senior management, and project managers do not report to the quality assurance team. Any miscommunication between stakeholders can start a wildfire that a project manager is powerless to put out.

2. Scope creep

Ambiguity can quickly become a source of contention for the project team. Scope creep is a common consequence of ambiguous project objectives and is frequently attributed to poor planning. Scope creep is particularly easy to imagine in IT projects, where customers are known to change their minds mid-project and request new features, change priorities without notice, or, in the worst-case scenario, completely alter the course of the project. When approached directly, developers abide by the customer's and project manager's wishes. No matter how well-intentioned the efforts to maintain peace are, this has a ripple effect on the budget and schedule.

Even seemingly harmless distractions like phone calls and chit-chatting to co-workers are likely to disrupt your train of thought, and studies have shown that it can take up to half an hour to get back to the original task. You don’t need to do the math to realize how big the impact would be if a customer came by every few days to push through some changes posthaste.

Scope creep is more prevalent than ever in today's world, where agile project methodologies are the norm. While change is inevitable, scope creep is a silent project killer because it reduces the amount of time available to work on the approved scope portions, jeopardizing the project's success. Agile project methodologies are often misused, and ironically, they make ambiguity (and scope creep) worse, not better.

3. Improper resource planning 

In the age of hyper-specialization, having the right people and tools available at the right time can mean the difference between success and failure on a project. Inadequate resource planning can result in project delays, while haphazard and inappropriate hiring policies and practices can jeopardize the project's quality. Burnout, for example, can happen when too many resources are used, which has a negative effect on the project's quality, while underusing resources can lead to boredom, low morale, and other negative consequences.

4. Insufficient project visibility 

Regardless of how well-planned your project is, a lack of visibility and transparency can still throw a wrench in the works. According to one fascinating study, less than 30% of businesses succeed out of 50,000 projects, and 19% fail immediately. While there are numerous reasons for their failure, the most significant reason was a lack of visibility into the project. [2]

5.   Scattered or poor communication 

When we consider additional reasons why projects fail, we discover that many fail due to a lack of communication. On the other hand, 91% use at least two messaging services, and employees spend an average of 3.1 hours per day sending and checking emails. [3]

Communication is critical in guiding a project to success. However, this is easier said than done. It's already challenging to communicate with others when they're in the same room. Remote work introduces another complication that organizations appear unable to address. The majority employ multiple communication systems, which obstruct communication between team members and paves the way for errors due to dispersed information. [4]

6. Improper budgeting 

Numerous factors contribute to projects overshooting their budgets. For example, when a project is running late a budget can be used rather quickly; for time and material projects or with contractors involved, this is almost a certainty. Estimating the budget of a complex project before it starts, isn’t easy. A few contributing factors reduce the budget more than would be deemed responsible or even sensible. 

A second reason is that people tend to be optimistic in their approach to projects. Conservative budgets with a cushion to absorb unexpected delays and costs are not always popular with those funding a project. Almost always, projects will cost more and take longer than anticipated. With the knowledge that something will almost certainly go wrong, it begs the question of: why was this not reflected in the budget?

Solutions

Wouldn't we all like to have a magic formula that points us in the right direction and solves all our project management problems? Regrettably, there are simply too many variables and too much unpredictability that can derail a project. Neither a quick fix nor complex, all-inclusive frameworks can ever ensure complete success.

Because humans create projects, their problems are also unique to humans. It may appear frivolous to attempt to improve the dismal success rate, given that no single measure or an elaborate set of well-balanced efforts can ensure success. However, with some historical lessons, common sense, best practices, and help from technology, it should be
possible to improve that poor success rate.

1. Project management software

It is no longer dogs, but rather project management software that is a man's best friend. People are surprisingly inept at estimating and planning work and managing the numerous balls constantly in the air throughout a project. Fortunately, computers never miss a beat and can assist the project manager with reminders, recommendations, business rules, alerts, and other tools that help keep a project on track.

According to studies, roughly half of organizations improved their accuracy when estimating the cost of a project when they used project management software, and companies that use proper project management practices save 28 times more money than those that do not! [5]

Additionally, a good project management tool provides visibility and transparency. A visual representation of the project's status, backed up by appropriate document management and collaboration tools, can produce outstanding results. When every project team member has a complete picture of the project's status, they can assist and adjust their tasks appropriately, resulting in increased problem-solving and proactivity. A project management solution supports 77% of high-performing projects, speaking to its overall success.  [6] 

2. Proper resource allocation

While it is true that poor resource planning can have a significant impact on a project, the opposite is also true: better (or more effective) resource planning can help produce even better results.

Having a firm grasp on the demand and supply of an organization's resources is necessary for developing a feasible and realistic plan. With modern and intelligent technology, resource planning tools can assist in interpreting and tracking resource utilization and generating intuitive reports. For example, when a deadline approaches and specialized resources are required, a project manager will be able to see the schedules in real time and be able to allocate the right resources so that there are no unnecessary delays.

Inadequate project planning can have a cascading effect on other areas, such as resource planning. Rare resources may be fully booked months in advance. When a project deviates from its intended path, it will miss the window for utilizing that resource, resulting in additional delays and sending the project down the rabbit hole toward "destination failed." This example illustrates this article's premise: having a resource planning solution may tip the scales in your favor, but it isn't very sensible if the project manager (or any other stakeholder, for that matter) ignores the numerous other factors that may affect the project.

3. Set clear, realistic goals 

Project managers are uniquely positioned to act as a bridge between stakeholders and bring them together to work toward a common goal. The project manager's primary responsibility is to educate and manage stakeholders regarding the project's processes, objectives, timeline,
and budget. Practically speaking, the team must establish protocols and practices and, of course, adhere to them.

For instance, to prevent scope creep, everyone must be aware of the potentially catastrophic consequences of seemingly innocent requests. Giving a project manager responsibility and
accountability – even superseding the chain of command, including their direct supervisor – is one way to put the project manager in charge and allow them to make decisions.

Holding someone accountable is one thing, but the team must also quantify the project's objectives and progress. Clearly defined objectives and criteria are an easy yet effective way to keep a project on track or even pivot to stay on track. This is, of course, easier said than done. Projects rarely operate in isolation and rarely take a linear, static path. Enter agile methodologies to establish a lean project approach and empower teams to pivot when unforeseen changes occur. Again, software can assist with this, but it will shine only if
the team fully embraces the agile mindset and consistently applies its practices.

4. Effective communication channels

One must ensure that the project team is entirely aware of the proper use of communication media. Maintaining a healthy balance and selecting the appropriate channels is critical. For instance, meetings, like e-mails, serve their purpose, but they are not always the best tools for the job.

Structured data, possibly backed up by software, enables easy progress tracking and can be supplemented with unstructured data such as notes, e-mails, and meeting minutes. Guidelines
should be established to ensure that the team is not constantly switching contexts and spending hours keeping up with the latest project news. There is no shortage of chat applications, document management systems, and project management tools that enable team members to communicate more effectively.

5.  Flexible and accurate budgeting 

When developing the project budget, it is prudent to include a contingency fund to cover unexpected costs and delays. Inaccurate estimates are a significant cause of project failure – 28% believe that inaccurate cost estimates contributed to the failure of their project – so
it's past time for organizations to take cost estimation and budgeting seriously, rather than focusing exclusively on increasing profit margins and reducing costs.

Conclusion

Years of research and thousands of failed projects have revealed a few common reasons for project failure. Numerous risks overlap and are interconnected. Innumerable incidents can be
traced back to poor planning. Spending more time and attention on planning is not the silver bullet we are all looking for, but it is a low-cost solution to a high-cost problem: a failed project. Adopting the appropriate policies, embracing an agile mindset, and focusing on well-defined goals are critical steps toward successfully completing projects.

References

[1] https://www.mavenlink.com/blog/article/21-shocking-project-management-statistics-that-cost-business-owners-millions-each-year
[2] https://hive.com/blog/project-management-statistics/
[3] https://www.replicon.com/blog/projects-fail-combating-project-overrun-visibility/#:~:text=Even%20more%20disturbing%20is%20their,lack%20thereof)%20into%20your%20projects
[4] https://proceso.pro/en/blog/why-do-projects-fail-because-of-a-lack-of-communication/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Project%20Management,30%20percent%20of%20the%20time
[5] https://saaslist.com/blog/project-management-statistics/ 
[6] https://hive.com/blog/project-management-statistics/

Graphic designs: courtesy of freepik.com.

What is new

Appointment containers

Appointment containers are a game-changer. Grouping tasks and planning such groups as a whole opens up a world of possibilities for the modern organization. Rather than having to manage related appointments one by one, the planner now has the tools to manage logical sets of appointments and treat such a group as a single entity.

It is a simple yet powerful concept that will be the foundation for more advanced features in future releases. Read more about appointment containers here. Or sign up for the 📡 webinar here.

Connector for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

• Support for BC19
• Additional events: "On" and "After"
• Remove "Send all" buttons on order list pages
• Support non-integer task numbers in the Gantt chart
• Store planning date in the job link table
• OAuth2 support for BC SaaS
• Send job task description with job planning line
• Send production line number with task
• Send large notifications
• Support decimal values in resource capacity
• Support infinite parameter on job task level
• Bypass regional setting on duration conversion

What's more

• Messages API
• Apply resource filters in editor
• Date navigation in agenda view
• Copy and paste multi-select
• Rebase project in Gantt chart
• Collapse and expand rows in the planning board
• Schedule remaining time for tasks
• Toggle the clock tooltip visibility

Improvements and bug fixes

In addition to the traditional performance and stability improvements, the following bugs have been fixed:

• Appointments disappear after cancelled drag operation
• SQL load balancing
• Filter value sorting in the resource filter component
• Search for resources in the Gantt chart editor
• Drag and drop permissions for indicators
• Special paste across pages
• Grouped planning board alignment on browser zoom
• Rendering of the docking panels on small screens
• Revoke all profiles
• Resource is not selected when creating new appointments

👉 Head over to the partner zone to download Dime.Scheduler 2022.1.0 💾!

Upgrade guide

This is a major update 🚀. To upgrade to Dime.Scheduler 2022.1.0, follow the upgrade guide diligently before deploying the new version.

Webinar

On April 7 at 16:00 CEST, we are hosting a demo-packed webinar 📡 that shows appointment containers, among many other features, in great detail so you're up to date on all the latest features in Dime.Scheduler, and what's next.

Secure your seat by registering here! 👈

We had great fun presenting this webinar, and we're happy with the positive feedback we've gotten from you. In every single measurable way, this has been the most successful webinar ever.

📺If you like to catch up and see many demonstrations, you can check out the webinar here. Keep on reading if you'd like to get a grasp of what's been said during the webinar.

Appointment containers

One of the most important new features in recent years has to be appointment containers. It is a lightweight meta entity that allows the planner to group appointments and schedule the group as a single entity, rather than having to plan the appointments one by one. For more info, check our docs.

This opens a world of opportunities to establish advanced planning cases, and because it is so lightweight, it is versatile and thus may have applications in a myriad of industries. In the following months, we will add standard solutions to the standard Business Central connector.

📺 The live demonstration of appointment containers starts at 6:28 in the video.

Mobile app

The response to the first live demonstration of the 📱mobile app was overwhelmingly positive. At Directions EMEA 2021 in Milan, we announced that we had started the development of the app. Months later, the mobile app is feature-complete and almost ready to be launched.

In the webinar, we showed most of the features that will be shipped in the first version, which should be released before or during the Summer. In contrast to the web application of Dime.Scheduler, which caters to the planners, the mobile app is built for the resources. In other words, the app will allow the people in the field and on the road to check their schedules through the mobile app. We also provide a mobile version of the planning board so people can check the schedule of their colleagues, and the app can also be used as a free alternative to expensive and complex location tracking devices.

📺 The first-ever demonstration of the mobile app starts at 35:00 in the video.

Power Platform connector

The functionality of appointment containers clearly demonstrates the versatility of Dime.Scheduler. It's a powerful and lean concept that can be configured and extended to create a solution that meets your customer's requirements. We adopted a very similar approach with a new connector to the ⚡Power Platform ⚡.

The Power Platform connector can potentially be as powerful (no pun intended) as the Business Central connector, as it's built on the very same technology. The only difference is that the Power Platform connector provides the building blocks to connect your apps to Dime.Scheduler. It is up to you and your customer to define the domain models, and to determine which workflows and businesses processes should be supported by the app. Thus, the Power Platform connector provides the same possibilities as the Business Central connector, but it is up to you to connect the dots.

📺 The demonstration of the Power Platform connector starts at 43:48 in the video.

Automate and optimize your planning

It would be easy to overlook but Dime Software has begun the development of a new product that will provide accessible and easy-to-use AI technology to optimize schedules. It's going to be a standalone product with connectivity to Business Central, but as you can probably imagine, we will also provide out-of-the-box capabilities for Dime.Scheduler as well.

As the product will be provided as a service, any other technology could potentially tap into the planning optimization algorithms, as long as it can provide planning variables such as skills, locations, availability, preferences, etc.

The development has just begun and we don't have anything to show yet, but there will be a world premiere of the product during the BC Tech Days in September.

📺 Watch this announcement here.

More Dime.Scheduler releases coming up

Before the Summer, we will release a new version of Dime.Scheduler with a rules engine in the Exchange connector that gives you the power to decide which appointments to send to Exchange. It will also contain preview releases of the mobile app backend.

For the remainder of the year, we will focus our attention on Dime.Scheduler as a Service. It's still too early to commit to deadlines, but we hope to ship an alpha version of the cloud-based, multi-tenant edition of Dime.Scheduler ready in the first half of 2023.

All of that is to come and we'll keep you up to date if there's any news to report. We're excited about what the future holds for Dime.Scheduler and we hope you are as well!

With brochures, banners, flyers, giveaways, and monitors scattered across three European offices, it takes us weeks to curate them and ensure that all of our materials arrive on time. Then there’s the issue of securing rooms in nearby hotels, which, more often than not, are located on the outskirts of each city. Beyond the individual stressors, these events strain the environment and stress our wallets – with the soaring prices of petrol.

In retrospect, I can’t help but wonder why we keep going back for more. Since our business is conducted entirely online, it seems redundant to have to meet in person – particularly against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. But time and again, after we debrief at the end of each conference, we arrive at the same conclusion. Online meetings don’t allow for organic, spontaneous conversations or the kind of chance encounters that can lead to incredible connections and synergies. When you network virtually, you can’t accidentally bump into a person at a coffee table who will end up bringing you a new lead.

More importantly, in-person events are the perfect opportunity to test the water, gain a deeper understanding of our users’ pain points, and hear what real-life problems our partners and their customers are struggling with. This type of information is crucial for us so that we can pivot and stay relevant with up-to-date software.

Bearing that in mind, Days of Knowledge Nordic 2022 was a complete success. We took advantage of the opportunity to speak to many of our partners, completed an on-stage demo, and had strategic and insightful conversations about our planning tool, Dime.Scheduler. Above all, we gained a clearer window into the Nordic market and came away with a deeper appreciation of their business culture. Considering this was our first time attending the event, we can only assume that next year’s edition will be even more successful.

We’re now over halfway through our conference tour and are grateful to be part of such a vibrant community. The next two events, BC TechDays and Directions EMEA, are the two most important events of the year for our team. They have consistently brought us a stream of new contacts that we’ve converted into partners and that expanded our revenue streams. As intense and exhausting as conferences can be, they certainly have their place in our business, and we’ll keep offering our support and tapping into the unexpected opportunities they present.

While any mistake can cost a business dearly, custom software projects are especially risky. We need look no further than Lidl to see how a common scenario plays out. This major discount retailer operates over 11,000 stores across Europe and the United States, yet, despite its size, stability, and staffing, it experienced a spectacular failure. On top of its enterprise resource planning software (SAP), the company spent €500 million on a new inventory management system that never saw the light of day. 

To be clear, IT projects don’t have to be expensive or complicated to make things go belly-up. In fact, a professional basketball team was once relegated to a lower league because a Windows update took too long to complete. 

Bearing that in mind, a responsible CIO should operate as though failure is always just around the corner, and have a contingency plan and meticulously-thought-out execution strategy for any scenario. After all, digitalizing a company is a complex undertaking, one that involves far more than just software and databases. Many job titles have been invented to map out business processes, improve efficiencies, and create virtual counterparts. More likely than not, Lidl did all of this, concluded that there were too many gaps in SAP's software, and decided that the best approach was to step away from the standard solution and build a bespoke one to suit their needs. This behavior is not unique to Lidl. I see it daily from my clients at Dime Software. 

During the early phase of my career, I jumped on that bandwagon as well, creating tailored solutions to close the gaps in my customer’s technological landscape. Fast-forward a few years, and many thousands of hours and euros later, and those same customers ended up scrapping everything and starting from scratch again. 

It doesn’t help matters that IT companies use their impressive array of tools and procedures to uncover their client’s gaps and requirements, and then draft an extensive and enticing proposal for them to sign off on. Rarely do they ask questions about the way the customer conducts business, though. The mere mention of reengineering their business processes would run the risk of antagonizing their prospects, and that is a risk that they are unwilling to take. An unfortunate side-effect is that companies resort to customization way too quickly and far too frequently, only to be disappointed in the long term.

Customizing enterprise resource planning systems is a dicey game. Because everything is connected, even a minor modification can wreak havoc on the entire system. (Remember the Log4j vulnerability a little while back? One tiny hitch in an open-source library caused the world to panic for a few days.) Even if, by some miracle, the customization is justified and implemented correctly, the code still needs to be maintained and the features will eventually need to be expanded upon. The bottom line: customizations are never cheap, almost always take longer to build than anticipated, and they often have a shorter lifespan than their off-the-shelf counterparts.

Customizations are never cheap, almost always take longer to build than anticipated, and they often have a shorter lifespan than their off-the-shelf counterparts.

Don’t get me wrong, custom software certainly has its place in a business. Having full control over your software allows you to create exactly what you need. You don't have to worry about the vendor dropping their support. And you don't have to wait days for assistance or pay for changes to their standard product. 

The issue is that all of this comes at a hefty price, so it’s best to proceed with caution – ideally surrounded by a team of highly qualified people.  

Overall, software development is an unregulated mess. Neither qualifications nor credentials are required to get started, and there are no institutions with the authority to prevent anyone from deploying their solution. It is difficult to keep up in such a volatile and fast-paced industry. Yet, rather than proceed with caution, the marketing teams of consulting and software companies continue to tout customization as the holy grail.

What can be done?

As I see it, low-code platforms are a great supplement to custom software development. The available tools and platforms are improving daily, and they offer a cheap and low-risk solution that connects the entire ecosystem in a user-friendly way. Within a matter of clicks, users can create and connect their apps without having to write a single line of code.

Instead of customizing ERP systems, the industry should seek to enrich them with off-the-shelf solutions that can talk to one another. In this scenario, it is up to the partners to solve the puzzle and make the pieces fit together for their customers. Since this type of architecture is flexible and allows for expanded functionality, customizations can be used to close any gaps that arise.  

All things considered, a good IT partner will only turn to customization as a last resort. First, they will look for standard solutions that can provide at least 75% of the required functionality, and then use their resources and ingenuity to come up with the remaining 25%. When it comes to the latter, the partner should follow the rule of configuration, composition, and customization, preferably in that order.

At the end of the day, customers need a reliable partner who can guide them along their journey, educate them, and challenge them to evaluate their business processes before resorting to quick fixes and dysfunctional software solutions. Even though I’m convinced that this is a matter of common sense, it has yet to factor into mainstream discussions and is costing companies millions. The entire industry has to step up their game to reduce the enormous amount of money that is lost on failed projects.

Dime.Scheduler was purpose-built to work for solutions in the Microsoft Dynamics suite. With recent efforts made by Microsoft, the ecosystem reaches well beyond the traditional tools and business processes, and customers rely on technology more than ever to get their work done. We all want nothing but the best to be able to complete in an ever-increasingly complex world.

We've talked to hundreds and even thousands of people over the last few years, and there's no longer denying: customers want intelligent solutions with all batteries included, that allows for extensive customization at the same time. 

In order to stay relevant and competitive as a company, we needed to face this challenge and kick our efforts up a notch.

Why should you vote for us?

Check out this video to learn why you should vote for us.

Used solutions

• Business Central (on-prem, SaaS)
• Dime.Scheduler
• Power Platform / Dataverse / and everything in the ecosystem
• AI to optimize schedules

Outcome

Dime.Scheduler was built with integration in mind. As it's effectively a planning layer on top of systems such as Business Central, we already had the platform at our disposal to expand our horizon. 

The first step in the journey is a significant one: the Power Platform. By connecting our software to the Power Platform, citizen developers can easily create their bespoke solutions. Within mere seconds, a power user may be able to provide a tailored experience to their customers. They're able to send text messages or send emails to customers when an appointment has been scheduled or when the technician is on his way to their house. By linking Dime.Scheduler to the Power Platform, there is no way of telling where the internal administration ends and the customer experience starts. And all of it can be done by the customer themself at a fraction of the cost.

Secondly, and just as important, is to add intelligence to the mix. With our new scheduling optimization product, we are bringing advanced artificial intelligence to SMEs to help them optimize their schedules, which helps them maximize their output, minimize time wastage, increase employee satisfaction, reduce expenses on fuel, and many other factors. All of that is within the customer's reach just by improving their scheduling processes and embracing the help of a number of clever algorithms.

A third pillar is connectivity. We've developed a mobile app specifically for the people in the field and on the road, so they will never miss an appointment ever again, while the planner in the office knows exactly where his people are so he's able to squeeze in a last-minute urgent intervention.

Value for the community

Standard, intelligent and cloud-native solutions are powerful tools for our partners and their customers. When all batteries are included, while at the same time there's room for extensive configuration and customization, we provide our network with the solutions and tools to make tailored solutions that are just right for them. And that at the fraction of the cost if they had to build those solutions themselves.

With the Power Platform connector, the scheduling optimization product, and the mobile app, we have three killer features that make it easier than ever to establish advanced scheduling business processes that could help customers give a competitive edge. Reduced OPEX expenditures, fewer mistakes, higher output, and increased customer and employee satisfaction: these are just a few of the consequences of better planning processes backed by our integrated planning software.

Vote for us

Download the Directions EMEA conference app and vote for Dime Software!

What's new

Mobile app

During Directions EMEA 2021 in Milan, we announced that we started proceedings of a mobile application for Dime.Scheduler. In contrast to the main application, which caters to the planner, the mobile app primarily targets the resources that the planner manages in Dime.Scheduler.

The app allows you to:

• Consult your schedule
• Check the schedule of your team members
• Get directions to the location of the next job
• Share your location automatically with the dispatcher
• And more!

👉 To learn all about the mobile app, continue here!

Check out the announcement video here.

Exchange connector rule engine

Due to popular demand, we have developed a rules engine that allows you to determine which appointments should be sent to Exchange (and back).

👉 Continue reading here to learn how to use and configure the rule engine.

Docs

We're so proud that partners celebrate our documentation time and time again. To keep supporting the growth and scope of the product, we've made a number of changes to the documentation:

• We completely redesigned the welcoming experience. If you go to the getting started page, you'll find that we've trimmed down the content and point the reader to the right chapter in the documentation.
• The plugins page has been rebuilt from scratch and makes it easy to navigate to the plugin (or integration) of interest.
• Furthermore, the setup docs of the plugins are now contained inside the documentation of the plugins.
• The documentation for Business Central has been consolidated and simplified.
• The links have been simplified and shortened.

What's more

• Trakm8 connector to send the coordinates of tracking devices directly to Dime.Scheduler
• The connector for Business Central now supports BC20 and BC21.
• Performance improvements
• Minor UX enhancements

Improvements and bug fixes

In addition to the traditional performance and stability improvements, the following bugs have been fixed:

• Export to PDF with SSL-backed Dime.Scheduler websites
• Icons in PDF export
• Pasting appointments in a grouped planning board
• Loss of real-time connection on inactive Chromium browsers/tabs

👉 Head over to the partner zone to download Dime.Scheduler 2022.2.0 💾!

Upgrade guide

To upgrade to Dime.Scheduler 2022.2.0, follow the upgrade guide diligently before deploying the new version.

What's next

There are many exciting new features coming up. We are extremely excited to announce preview versions of:

• Power Platform connector
• Webhook connector
• Zapier connector
• SDKs and CLIs
• Dime.Scheduler Connect

👉 We have updated our roadmap with an up to date schedule of what's coming up, so go check it out!

Join our webinar on the mobile app for Dime.Scheduler (and more)

On December 1 at 16:00 CET, we are hosting a webinar that shows how to get started with the mobile app. Secure your seat by registering here! 👈

It is our mission to help organizations to stop wasting time and money through technology. Dime.Scheduler has played an important role for the last decade, but it is time to take it to the next level. An advanced scheduling optimization engine will help tremendously in our customers’ day-to-day operations, while connectors for low-code platforms such as Power Platform and Zapier make Dime.Scheduler accessible to consultants and power users who want to add functionality by simply clicking and dragging their applications together.

Directions EMEA is the largest event of its kind and brings the Dynamics community together to learn and share knowledge. Almost 3000 people attended the three-day event this year, which took place in the Congress Center in Hamburg, Germany. It is one of the few events where consultants, developers, salespeople, managers, and business leaders convene to connect and grow their businesses together.

The event is organized by the community, for the community. With this community-driven spirit, the organization also wants to honor partners who've done something extraordinary. Despite fierce competition from 4PS and ALOps, the second and third winners of the awards, we can proudly leave the conference with the Technology Community Award.

Thanks to Directions 4 Partners for organizing the awards, and congratulations to the winners of the Commercial Community Award, Plataan!

It is hard to describe how great it was to catch up with old friends and make new ones. It was great to see so many new faces and people from all walks of life. Directions EMEA creates a unique point in space and time where consultants, developers, project managers, salespeople, and business owners from all over the world convene to grow their businesses together. Even the fiercest competitors lay down their arms and get together for a friendly chat or two.

With a thriving community that is eager to exchange knowledge and experiences on a wide variety of topics, most – if not all - people have gone back home with new insights and new ideas to explore.

To the skies!

As chairman James Crowter recently hinted in a tweet, the days are gone when our community seemed to live on a little island far away from the other things that Microsoft was doing. It’s not just about Business Central anymore, but also about the Power Platform, Azure, Microsoft 365, and everything else in the ecosystem.

This is good news because such an interconnected ecosystem unlocks new ways to build powerful solutions. It might take ISVs and VARs some time to adjust to this new reality, but it will be beneficial to all of us in the long run. Consultants and power users may create their own solutions by simply clicking and dragging their apps together. Instead of dragging scarce resources like developers into meetings to talk about the positioning and color of a button, they can work on meaningful (and complex) projects that require their expertise.

We experience this first-hand. With a backlog that can keep us occupied for decades, we have released a preview of the Power Platform and Zapier connectors for Dime.Scheduler. From now on, our default answer to customization requests should be to explore the possibilities of the Power Platform first before considering adding functionality to the standard product. With such a powerful ecosystem as a fallback, we can put our resources on mission-critical projects such as our AI-backed scheduling optimization engine and Dime.Scheduler as a Service.

In the years to come, we should see many new innovations and creative solutions coming our way in the Microsoft Dynamics 365 space. Good job we won this year’s Technology Community Award because competition will be fierce!

And now a word from our sponsors

From a sponsor’s point of view, we noticed the organizers have made great strides in making the onboarding process as easy as possible. It just took us a few emails to get the entire process done and dusted. With the new community portal that’s now gone live, it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to use the platform for next year’s onboarding too. As busy as everybody is in the channel, emails easily get lost and forgotten.

By far the biggest improvement was this year’s venue layout. We had no idea what to expect when we first saw the congress center, but we were blown away by how it turned out. They hit the sweet spot by spreading out the sponsor booths across the entire building, and more importantly, in between the presentation halls. This resulted in many more interactions with the attendees compared to previous years. Of course, it all depends on the floor plan, but I believe this is the way forward for sponsors to get a good return on investment.

Fond memories

For Dime Software, this was the most successful edition ever. We’ve been sponsoring the event since 2012, and in every measurable way, we did better than in previous years.

First, the interactions at our booth. It was all hands on deck pretty much all the time. While we are a known authority for our scheduling software, we were amazed at how many people came to ask about our applications. New and existing partners came to see us and gave insightful feedback. What pleases us most of all, however, is how our partners appreciate that we listen to them and build the features that their customers need.

This year we’ve also been given a time slot for a presentation. More than 200 people joined our session on next-generation scheduling in Business Central to see what can be achieved today to help customers save time and money. We appreciate the many kind words after the session. Although most of the presentation consists of demonstrations, you can find the slide deck on the Directions 4 Partners Community Portal.

This year, we also participated in the Directions EMEA 2022 Technology Community Awards, and we are so proud that we won! We have to thank all the voters because we couldn’t have done it without them. The biggest prize of them all is the support that we get from the community, which means we are doing many things right. We are more motivated than ever to keep on going and build the best scheduling software for Microsoft Dynamics and Microsoft 365 there can be.

What now?

The long conference season is over, and now we will get back to work on our top priority: getting Dime.Scheduler up in the cloud as a service. We are making great progress and we hope to keep the momentum and make an announcement during Directions EMEA 2023.

We will be back on the road in 2023 for Directions North America, DYNAfair, BC TechDays, and Directions EMEA 2023. We hope to see you at one of these events!

As we mentioned in our last webinar, 2023 will be another year of significant investments, with Dime.Scheduler as a Service as the headliner. We've already made excellent progress, and we will come up with an update soon.

But before that, we are happy to announce a major revision of the Dime.Scheduler website and the documentation platform. On the website, you will find lots of content, examples, testimonials, news, and links to other resources. The docs, on the other hand, because they were so extensive, have been revised and simplified to make it easier to navigate and search for the right content. The search engine has received a significant update that makes searching easier and faster than ever. Go check out our website www.dimescheduler.com and our documentation platform docs.dimescheduler.com!

In the meantime, we wish you happy holidays and a wonderful New Year!

The old ways of ERP systems involved custom-built software that was designed to meet the specific needs of each business. This software was typically installed on-premises, which required significant hardware investments and maintenance costs. These systems were often inflexible, difficult to customize, and required extensive training to use effectively.

In addition, the implementation process for these systems was often complex and time-consuming. Businesses had to work closely with software vendors to customize the software to meet their specific needs, which could take several months or even years. The cost of implementation was also significant, with businesses having to pay for software licenses, hardware, and IT staff to manage the system. You almost had to sell your left kidney if you merely wanted to change the background color of a button.

Finally, these systems often lacked integration with other software applications, which meant that businesses had to manually enter data into multiple systems, which inevitably would lead to errors, duplication of effort, and a lack of visibility into business operations. Sounds familiar, right?

And when things did go wrong, it might have gone so quite spectacularly. Remember the case study of Lidl and its €500 million catastrophe that I wrote about in the last edition of this magazine? Projects always carry risks, but ERP projects somehow reside in the collective consciousness as particularly risky. Regardless of whether this is true or not, the modern ERP system takes away a few hurdles that any IT project is confronted with, and massively improves the odds of a successful ERP implementation project.

The contemporary ERP

Today's ERP systems are typically cloud-based, which means that they are hosted by a vendor and accessed over the internet. This eliminates the need for businesses to invest in hardware or maintain software on-premises. In addition, cloud-based ERP systems have become more flexible and easier to customize than on-premises systems.

The implementation process for cloud-based ERP systems is also usually faster and less complex. Businesses can choose from a range of pre-built modules that are designed to meet the needs of specific industries, which can significantly reduce the time and cost of implementation. In addition, cloud-based ERP systems are typically designed to integrate with other software applications, which means that businesses can avoid the classic data silo problem.

Finally, modern ERP systems are designed to provide real-time visibility into business operations. This means that businesses can access up-to-date data on inventory levels, production schedules, customer orders, and other critical business processes. This real-time visibility can help businesses make better-informed decisions, improve operational efficiency, and reduce costs.

We’ve even come so far that people other than software engineers can create their own solutions, simply by clicking and dragging their applications and workflows together.

A child of the time

ERP systems have come a long way since their inception, from custom-built on-premises software to modern cloud-based systems that are more flexible, easier to customize, and provide real-time visibility into business operations. With the ongoing advancements in technology, it is fairly clear that ERP systems will continue to evolve, providing businesses with new and innovative ways to manage their operations and drive growth.

I have found that the overall perception of ERP has changed as well. SAP has always been the top dog, and arguably will continue to be, but other kids on the block have made ERP more accessible than ever. There’s plenty of choice with reputable vendors, while new startups try to disrupt the market and get their foot in the door with new innovations and business models. ERP in the cloud was unimaginable for a long time, while we now expect it to be cloud-first. And with AI gone mainstream, we are at the cusp of yet another digital revolution where AI takes over large chunks of work in our daily lives.

For us at Dime Software, this sounds very familiar indeed, because we feel our business is headed in the same direction. Our partners and customers are urging us to move our software to the cloud, bring some intelligence to the table, and provide a streamlined and intuitive user experience to get started immediately. It’s almost uncanny that the current trends in the ERP world happen to be the same as ours:

• Cloud-based ERP according to the SaaS model
• AI-powered insights and automation
• Customization through configuration
• Easy to use APIs to get data in and out
• User-friendly interfaces
• Mobile compatibility

If we, a modest-sized ISV, share the same challenges as behemoths such as Microsoft, SAP and Oracle, we can only conclude that their ERP products are no longer living on their private island in the tech world. Instead, they have secured - once again - their place front and center for the years to come. Heck, dare I even say that ERP is becoming cool again? From my personal experience, I’m inclined to say yes.

My very first project as a consultant in the early 2010s was to migrate a multinational’s legacy ERP to Dynamics NAV 2009. Months of preparation and dry runs of tedious ETL procedures preceded a nerve-racking migration weekend to get the company working on a piece of software that already looked outdated. After years of actively trying to avoid ERP, I couldn’t believe my eyes at how much had changed when I started working with Dime Software a few years later, and how easy it had become to hook into systems such as Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. And now that Business Central is completely merged into the ecosystem, it has been an absolute joy to work with.

This is not to say that the fundamentals of ERP have altered. The pros and cons to weigh in on when considering ERP for your organization remain unchanged, however. There are many options that ought to be considered when deciding on the best approach to backing your business with technology. Even so, with the latest developments, ERP has become more accessible than ever, which makes it a solid contender for many more companies that need to step up their game and reap the benefits of a modern business application suite.

👉 Head over to the changelogs for a complete overview of this release.

Meanwhile, we have improved our partner zone with more content and a price calculator that has an order form attached to it. We have also published two posts on the partner zone that we advise you to read. Both announcements contain information that affects our resellers directly, and as such, we want to have a conversation with those who have questions or doubts about our proposition to take Dime.Scheduler to the next level.

If you have any concerns, questions, or suggestions, get in touch with your contact at Dime Software and we'll be happy to elaborate.

Choosing which trends to follow can be like navigating a maze. It's difficult to differentiate between what's here to stay and what's merely a passing fad. One that seems to be here to stay is the adoption of low-code and no-code development platforms (hereafter referred to as low code). These platforms have triggered a significant shift in how we approach software development, and one standout player is the Power Platform.

However, not everyone in the community is welcoming this revolution with open arms. In this article, we will explore why some might be hesitant to embrace the Power Platform and why we believe it is a valuable addition to any company's toolkit.

Resistance to the rise of low code

Many software and consulting firms have traditionally thrived by providing highly customized software solutions tailored to their clients' unique needs. The Power Platform, which empowers users to create their solutions with minimal coding skills, may appear to challenge this business model. This concern is understandable, given the sophistication and power engineered into the Power Platform. It offers functionality for creating web apps, integrations, chatbots, websites, and more. 

However, asserting that low code will replace high-code solutions may be an overstatement. The software industry is evolving and will continue to do so, but for now, low code is not a replacement for custom and off-the-shelf software. Instead, it complements existing tools, filling gaps and streamlining processes. Once people understand this, low code becomes a strategic asset that can fuel business growth. 

Our take on low code

At Dime Software, we enthusiastically embrace the rise of low-code platforms, especially the Power Platform. We see it as an additional tool in our toolkit, enabling us to focus on what we do best while allowing users and partners to handle individual customizations and requests.

With a backlog that can keep us busy for years, it may take a while before the desired functionalities are delivered, if ever. Our product management policies prioritize functionality that adds the most value to the majority of our customers. The reality is that many requests won’t make the cut. Fortunately, our software is designed to be flexible, offering lots of wiggle room for customizations that our resellers can use. However, coding these customizations can be time-consuming, and our partners may lack the time or resources to do so. If only there was a way to let customers and end users make – and maintain - their own apps and tools.

One of the most significant investments that we've made in the past year, is connecting our software, such as Dime.Scheduler, to the Power Platform. This integration enables us to pull and push information seamlessly, creating a cost-effective and time-saving experience for our clients.

Consider these questions that we get from time to time during demonstrations:

• Send a text message to the customer when a technician is en route
• Establish an approval workflow to confirm an appointment
• Digitalize the technician’s work sheets and daily planning
• Integrate the public-facing customer portal with the internal resource planning system
• Allow customers to interact with a chat bot for scheduling equipment maintenance

These are fantastic ideas, but developing them into our products would take time. The Power Platform makes it easy to create custom solutions and tackle complex integration work efficiently. It is such a powerful ecosystem that we have decided to embrace it and make it a first-class citizen for our software.

Sparking innovation

For instance, our scheduling application Dime.Scheduler already has built-in integration for Business Central, and can be enhanced with native Power Platform capabilities. In less than a minute, you can set up a workflow like the one depicted below: we receive notifications of newly scheduled appointments in Dime.Scheduler and can then assign an available vehicle (which can be provided by a fleet management system also connected to the Power Platform) alongside the technician you've just scheduled.

What's left to do is to use standard functionality, such as dragging and dropping a task onto the planning board. Almost immediately, you'll receive an updated version of the appointment with the additional resource assigned to the job.

Every modification made on the planning board may trigger a cascade of events that can have significant consequences. In this example, if vehicles are also managed in Business Central, resource allocations will also be generated for the newly assigned vehicle. This, in turn, can trigger other workflows, potentially leading to a series of events that execute highly powerful (and complex) workflows.

This capability opens doors to a wealth of new functionalities, and what's exciting is that power users and consultants take ownership of their own compositions and solutions. They can leverage the capabilities of standard solutions like ours and customize them to their needs. This offers a fantastic way to create truly personalized experiences without delving into the pitfalls of custom software development. (I discussed this in detail in the Fall edition of this magazine in 2022.)

The transition of control is beneficial not just for our customers but also for us as an ISV. It allows us to allocate our resources to create more features and building blocks, further unlocking the potential of low-code solutions. It's a self-reinforcing cycle, and it holds significant promise.

A bright future ahead

Change is inevitable, and as ISVs, we must stay ahead of the curve. Low-code platforms like the Power Platform are here to stay, and we applaud this shift towards flexibility and adaptability. Every company, ISV or otherwise, should take a moment to reflect on their software development strategies.

The Power Platform offers lower risk, reduced development time, and cost savings. It empowers users across organizations to tailor solutions to their specific needs, while allowing ISVs to focus on broader, more complex challenges. It's a win-win situation.

In conclusion, the community should embrace the Power Platform as a valuable addition to their toolkit. By doing so, they can leverage its capabilities to offer more efficient, cost-effective solutions to their clients while staying competitive in an ever-changing industry. It's time to welcome the future (and present) of software development wholeheartedly.

Starting from January 2024, Dime.Scheduler will be available as a service to new customers. What follows is an overview of what this means for our partners and customers. Certified partners can read more about all the upcoming changes on our partner zone.

📺 Read all about this major milestone, or join us for a webinar on February 22nd at 16:00 CET, where we'll showcase all the new features and changes in Dime.Scheduler cloud. Register for this webinar by clicking on this link.

What will change

The decision to offer Dime.Scheduler as a service was not taken lightly, although it was a rather easy one to make.

Until now, each customer had to allocate resources to deploy Dime.Scheduler on their infrastructure, and their ERP partner (i.e. our reseller) had to be trained to successfully implement it. Hosting, maintenance, software licenses, electricity, security, and more were all the customer's responsibility with the on-premises model. This proved to be time-consuming and error-prone. Too many external factors could compromise the proper functioning of Dime.Scheduler.

That is all about to change. We will take care of nearly everything, so partners and customers can focus on connecting their back-office system to Dime.Scheduler (and vice versa). Partners simply need to place an order on the customer's behalf on our partner zone, and a new Dime.Scheduler instance will be provisioned imminently.

This drastically reduces the lead time and effort required to get a solution up and running. It is also much more efficient since we can consolidate resources and scale up and out whenever necessary. All of it is monitored by automated tools and supervised by our specialized staff. The total cost of ownership, as a result, goes down dramatically compared to the on-premises hosting model.

What I have described to you is a textbook definition of SaaS. And that's the point: it should not feel or be any different than what you're used to with other cloud-based applications.

Licensing

Our licensing model is still based on the number of resources that the customer would like to manage. We offer different editions, each with a specific pack of resources. For instance, our ‘Starter’ pack allows the customer to plan up to 10 resources, while the ‘Team’ edition lets them manage up to 50 resources. Thus, the principles behind the licensing model have remained the same.

However, we have made a few adjustments to the licensing model. The most notable change is the incorporation of hosting and maintenance costs into the pricing, and we made the geographical map an optional module. This makes the base license more accessible for those who don't derive any added value from the geographical map.

Consult your ERP partner or contact our sales staff for the price list. Certified resellers can download the price list or use the price calculator on the partner zone.

Free trials

Free, 90-day trials will remain available, enabling the customer to experience the product's benefits firsthand.

There's one caveat. Free trials are issued only to customers and prospects of certified resellers who know how to connect the trial version to the back-office system. ERP partners that are not certified will have to participate in a partner certification program before they can benefit from this perk.

Alternatively, Dime Software can help to set up a trial. With a day's work, we should have just enough time to connect Dime.Scheduler to your back-office system, set it up to the required specifications, and get the people trained up.

Dime.Scheduler is plug and play, but only for those who know the product. It is especially important to have a trained person consult with the customer since we're dealing with the backbone of their IT landscape here.

Compatibility

I hope it is abundantly clear that it is only the hosting model that will change. A frequently asked question is whether Dime.Scheduler SaaS supports on-premises versions of Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. The answer to that is yes. We support all versions of BC, and NAV is supported until NAV 2009 R2.

However, new investments in our standard connectors for MS Dynamics NAV/BC are done for BC alone.

What about on-prem Dime.Scheduler?

We have come to a fork in the road. Hundreds of customers are using Dime.Scheduler today, and we want them to be rest assured that the on-prem version of Dime.Scheduler will remain supported for the time being. Support is limited to security patches and bug fixes to keep the lights running. New investments will be made to the cloud version only.

We are determined to encourage our existing customers to transition to the cloud. For those on perpetual licenses, we have taken inspiration from the successful approach of Microsoft and will offer our own 'bridge to the cloud'. The terms and conditions are documented in our partner zone. Customers on subscription licenses will smoothly transition to the cloud, with billing continuing under the new plan.

Later in the year, when our tooling and migration processes are ready, we will migrate the first batch of existing customers to the cloud.

New customers will be admitted to the cloud version. We will not issue new licenses for on-premises versions anymore—except for existing customers who want to upgrade to the latest version.

New reseller program

The time and effort required to get Dime.Scheduler hooked up to an ERP system have been noticeably reduced with Dime.Scheduler cloud. Consultants no longer need to acquire new (system administration) skills to implement Dime.Scheduler, which should lower the threshold to become a certified partner.

For those ERP partners that are not interested in spending time becoming acquainted with the software, there is an alternative: the non-certified or offering reseller. This lightweight program allows you to offer Dime.Scheduler to your customers, leaving the heavy lifting such as implementation and support to Dime Software or a certified reseller or trusted associate.

Upwards and onwards

A year of extremely hard work is about to come to fruition. We take great pride in what we've accomplished, and we can't wait to finally launch Dime.Scheduler 'as a service'.

On behalf of Dime Software, I want to express our sincere thanks to all of our partners for their constructive feedback. They've had a significant impact on this cloud offering, and we couldn't have done it without them.

Here's to a successful 2024!

We have rolled back the maintenance updates that were implemented this morning and have postponed them to the forthcoming weekend to allow resellers the time to take action today. Failure to do so will result in a session timeout message for all users in Dime.Scheduler's planning view.

Why we had to take action

Over the past few months, our team has been diligently collaborating with our map provider to address the issue of high peaks in their infrastructure.

Despite concerted efforts, it has become evident that further action was necessary. Consequently, we decided to suspend our demo token, as it has been identified that consumers of this token contributed significantly to the strain on the infrastructure.

We did not anticipate that customers would have been impacted and it is important to note that our intention was never to disrupt production services. Each customer is allocated their own token upon order confirmation, a measure intended to ensure seamless operation.

Moving forward

Henceforth, certified resellers can use the token displayed on the partner zone's root page. This token is provided free of charge to our resellers, is to be used solely for demonstration purposes, and should not be distributed to customers. We have free rotating tokens that resellers can use for proof of concepts, trials, etc.

In the next version of Dime.Scheduler on-prem, we will improve the user experience when an incorrect or invalid map token is provided. The prompt message will no longer be shown, and instead, the map will be disabled until a correct map token has been entered in the application.

What's new

Since our soft launch earlier this year, we've been working diligently to onboard new customers smoothly. We're thankful for the insightful feedback from our early adopters, which has been instrumental in refining our product. During this period, we've also received numerous requests from resellers to explore the capabilities of Dime.Scheduler on the sandbox. Taking into account their valuable input, we've deployed an update that includes the following enhancements:

• Enhanced API: the connector entity is now supported in the API.

• In-app links: we added links to our documentation in the application, making it easier for users to access resources and maximize their utilization of Dime.Scheduler's features.

• Improved tenant provisioning: With the ability to create Microsoft Entra ID users during tenant provisioning, managing multiple customers has become significantly simpler for our resellers.

• Enhanced Exchange synchronization: A new flag has been added to retain Dime.Scheduler appointments even when users in Outlook update the busy status or sensitivity to a value that deviates from the configured Exchange preference settings. This ensures that appointments created in Dime.Scheduler are preserved under such circumstances.

• Optimized performance and stability: Internal enhancements have been made to our tooling, improved resiliency for background jobs, monitoring, and more.

• Bug fixes: We've addressed various bugs, including issues with processing incoming tasks in the open task list with multiple sorters and groupers, as well as filters on date-only fields, and other minor issues.

Although this is a significant milestone, there are no major changes accompanying this new state. With GA status, we are delighted to welcome customers without any restrictions.

Partner zone update

In line with our ongoing commitment to provide the best possible support to our resellers, we have developed several demo scripts for initial demonstrations of Dime.Scheduler to prospects. Drawing from years of experience demonstrating Dime.Scheduler, we have identified a particular pattern that yields a fast-paced, lightweight, and easily understandable demo that prospects appreciate. These scripts are now available on the partner zone's main page under the new section titled 'Demo scripts'.

We also introduced a chat feature on the partner zone to offer you more accessible and efficient sales support. You can chat with us directly between 9 AM and 5 PM in the Central European Summer Time (CEST) timezone. Whether you have questions about Dime.Scheduler, need assistance with an order, or want to explore new opportunities, our team is here to help.

What's next

The next round of updates is already in progress, and we aim to release a new version before the European summer begins. 

In the meantime, we'll resume the work outlined in our roadmap. Additionally, we are finalizing the first release candidate of our data migration toolkit to assist on-premises customers in transitioning to the cloud.

We're incredibly grateful for the support and feedback from our community thus far, and we're committed to delivering innovative solutions that empower businesses to optimize their scheduling processes and drive success.

Thank you for being part of the Dime.Scheduler journey. Stay tuned for more exciting updates and enhancements!

Want to be notified of new releases? Sign up for our newsletter!

Through its versatile graphical planning components, Dime.Scheduler can be seamlessly integrated into any organization across various industries. No two projects are identical, which fuels our commitment to maximizing the value of every implementation and continually inspiring our roadmap with new ideas.

Achieving this level of adaptability inherently requires a certain level of abstraction, which might contribute to a steeper learning curve than necessary. Dime.Scheduler is plug and play for those who have been trained, is how we often describe our scheduling solution. We are aware of this threshold and are actively working to simplify the onboarding process. Introducing Dime.Scheduler 'as a service' marks a significant milestone, and more is on the way.

To provide users and resellers with practical insights into Dime.Scheduler's integration capabilities, we're launching a series of short videos titled "Dime.Scheduler in under 10 minutes". These videos demonstrate how Dime.Scheduler can seamlessly integrate with various systems, processes and modules such as:

• Service orders in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
• Jobs: ad-hoc and long-term planning in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
• Assembly and production orders in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
• Sales orders in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
• Absences in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
• Microsoft To Do lists
• Microsoft Bookings
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service
• Microsoft Planner
• Microsoft Power Platform
• ...and more

📺 Explore the entire series of videos here!

Among the 33 items included in this release, the most noteworthy are:

• Styling tweaks to maximize the space for using the planning components.
• Additional API endpoints such as the creation of new users.
• New API capabilities:
  • Calendars and pins assigned to resources are reset to the default value when administrators remove the parent entities.
  • The site address coordinates of jobs are reset when any site address fields have changed.
  • The 'Request Type' parameter has been added to the Action URI API.
  • Additional checks for empty date and datetime fields.
  • Manual appointments can now be created.
  • The 'Resource No' field is optional for appointment updates.
  • The 'Planning Quantity' field can be set to 0 when the 'UseFixPlanningQty' field is used.
  • The capacity for a resource can be set to 0.
• Our OpenAPI specification is now publicly available and can be viewed at https://api.dimescheduler.com/docs.
• HTTPS binding support for on-prem BC and NAV instances.
• Quick start PowerShell scripts to deploy:
  • BC containers on Docker
  • The extension for Dime.Scheduler in BC.
  • The app registration for the Exchange connector

No action is required from our partners; the update has been deployed and is available on both the sandbox and production environments.

A new version is already on the way and updates will be made available to the sandbox environment soon, so stay tuned for more!

We're thrilled to share that a new version of Dime.Scheduler is now live! This update is packed with new features, performance boosts, and some bug fixes. We've worked hard to make scheduling even smoother and more efficient for you. Be sure to check out the latest version and see how it can help you get even more done!

 Among the 22 items included in this release, the most noteworthy are:

• Added a new global administration page with the possibility to remove transactional data such as jobs, tasks, appointments, filters, and resources.
• Navigate the planning board by 1 day up or down.
• Preview feature to render alternating row styles.
• Added the job's read-only column to the data grids.
• Set the appointment's field values via the API.
• Minor bug fixes and enhancements.
• A new installation experience for on-prem BC deployments.

No action is required from our partners; the update has been deployed and is available on both the sandbox and production environments.

A new version is already on the way and updates will be made available to the sandbox environment soon, so stay tuned for more!

What a great month has September was for us. We released a new version of Dime.Scheduler, we hosted several webinars and we had many go-lives. In the meantime, we prepared another release of Dime.Scheduler, which I'm glad to report has been live for about a week now!

The October update is similar to the September edition with a number of new features, performance boosts, and some bug fixes.

 Among the 19 items included in this release, the most noteworthy are:

• Update the visual indicators of appointments from the mobile app.
• Clickable hyperlinks parsed from the appointment's body.
• Select the Dime.Scheduler environment in the mobile app's login screen.
• An experimental feature that renders the background color of rows in data grids based on the category of the job, task, or appointment.
• Links section in the context menu in the Gantt chart.

No action is required from our partners; the update has been deployed and is available on both the sandbox and production environments.

A new version is already on the way and updates will be made available to the sandbox environment soon, so stay tuned for more!

I am excited to announce that a new update of Dime.Scheduler has been published. The eye-catcher of this release has to be the complete overhaul of the calendar-based recalculation of the duration of appointments.

We've also added a 'Quick Actions' menu item to the context menu in the planning board, allowing the planner to move the selected appointments by a day, week, or month.

No action is required from our partners; the update has been deployed and is available on both the sandbox and production environments.

Partner zone

Partners with several instances on the sandbox and live environment will appreciate the new customers table on the partner zone. Here they can see all the instances that have been linked to the reseller's domain:

For those who find this useful, may also be interested in signing up to our inner circle program and get more information about upcoming releases.

Migration toolkit

We have begun migrating customers from their on-prem Dime.Scheduler instances to Dime.Scheduler cloud.

👉 Check out the migration runbook for more information on the process.

May your holidays be filled with joy, warmth, and cherished moments with loved ones. From all of us at Dime Software, we wish you a festive season and a prosperous New Year! 🎄✨

Dime Software began its journey in 2010. Born out of a few colleagues working in an in-house NAV team for a well-known Bavarian car manufacturer, they decided to set up their own business and become a NAV consulting firm. Over the next fifteen years, Dime Software reinvented itself three times to stay aligned with the market or even stay ahead of the curve.

The first pivot came rather quickly after the startup. The team moved away from traditional NAV consulting and focused on the development and distribution of software specifically for NAV and Business Central (BC). For instance, in 2012, the popular planning solution Dime.Scheduler was launched.

^{Natural habitat: Dime Software at work during Directions EMEA}

The pandemic in 2020 was also a turning point. The company stopped distributing other companies’ products and focused exclusively on their own software. Not long after that, the company transitioned into a SaaS company and ceased the development of on-premises software altogether.

As you can see, a lot has changed, but in the grand scheme, our company has always centered around the Dynamics ecosystem, and in particular, the partner channel. However, there are changes on the horizon, and some of them are already taking shape today.

For instance, we are doing much more business directly with customers, instead of primarily working with ERP partners. And even when working with our resellers, they are increasingly delegating implementation projects of our software to us. Now that we’re a SaaS company, I initially thought we could disband the consulting unit, but I was proven wrong last year. It’s not a bad change per se, because we handle these kinds of implementations daily, while it may be just a one-time deal for some resellers.

If I was wrong about something happening right under my nose, who knows what else I might be wrong about in the future?

The ironic circle of life

Fifteen years ago, I was a young man in college, unsure of what I wanted to do with my life. Of all the degrees I could have chosen, a master’s in business administration with a major in business & IT seemed like one that would keep many doors open. This led to an internship at a local firm specializing in SAP Business One consulting. The internship was underwhelming, and as a result, I decided I didn’t want anything to do with ERP. At the time, cloud computing was the buzzword, so I decided to head in that direction instead.

Meanwhile, my fellow students seemed to have it all figured out. They would get a job at a major consulting firm, forsake their social lives to jumpstart their careers, job-hop for a few years, work their way up the ladder, and eventually land a C-level position at one of their clients until retirement. I knew this wasn’t the life I wanted, but, drawing a blank on better ideas upon graduating, I followed the same path — at least initially. After a short two-year career as a business consultant, I became a freelancer. Of all the companies I could have worked for, I chose Dime Software to work on a commercial product called Dime.Scheduler and take it to the next level.

^{This is what I spent the last 10 years of my life on professionally: Dime.Scheduler}

Fast forward 10 years, and the fact that I'm still here is proof that my return to ERP hasn’t been all that bad. ERP and cloud are no longer strangers to each other, so everything has come together nicely. The symmetry might tempt me to develop some convoluted theory about destiny or a bigger picture, but in truth, it’s been a series of random events that led me to where I am today.

What I do know is that Dime Software has done many things right to still be around — and having me around! — and thriving after fifteen years in the Dynamics world, which has also dramatically changed since the turn of the century.

A glimpse into the future

The changes Dime Software has gone through are reflective of the times, and I’m sure that other ISVs and VARs will relate. The classic, general NAV/BC consulting firm is a thing of the past. Software and consulting firms are increasingly focusing on specific industries or niches, and long, risky implementation projects are being replaced by standardized, out-of-the-box (cloud) solutions.

The trend is clear, and so far, we’ve been fortunate to make the right calls just in time. I’ve seen some partners miss the Business Central (cloud) shift, and they’ve been struggling to keep up ever since. While staying on top of new trends, discerning the fads from real shifts, and adjusting course accordingly can be frustrating, it’s essential for any leader to remain open to change and be willing to pivot the direction of their department, business unit, or company.

For example, low code and the Power Platform, especially within this channel, was one of the latest hypes. Now that the dust has settled, it has secured a place in the modern business application suite. It's become a competitor for any ISV or VAR offering standard software. Instead of seeing it as a threat, we embraced it and built connectors for our software. This has paid off as we’ve onboarded customers outside the traditional NAV/BC channel. While we’ve lost deals to customers who chose to build something from scratch using the Power Platform, I’m confident we’ll benefit more in the long run by tapping into this new wave of software development rather than ignoring it.

As I write this, we may be on the brink of another pivotal moment in business and technology, perhaps even humanity, with the rapid advancements in artificial intelligence. We’ve been experimenting with AI ourselves to optimize and automate parts of the planning processes in Dime.Scheduler. While we aren’t losing customers yet due to a lack of AI capabilities, it may become a requirement in the near future. Time will only tell if we’ve made a mistake by investing time and money — or not enough — in developing this capability.

Situations like this will continue to arise, and we can only hope to spot the right trends and act swiftly. As a relatively small company, we must be decisive in our choices, given the limited manpower available to work on innovative solutions alongside our daily tasks of supporting partners and customers.

Dime Software & ERP living in perfect harmony

Running a software company and developing complex commercial software products like Dime.Scheduler requires expertise that goes far beyond just ERP and Business Central. While distributing software through a partner channel is highly scalable, what many may not realize is how intensively we need to nurture our partners to ensure their success with implementation projects. They have a lot on their plate, which is why we prioritize hiring top talent with extensive experience in partner and project management, as well as technical and functional expertise in both our products and Business Central.

It can be challenging and exhausting to stay on top of everything, but fortunately, we can rely on the vast ecosystem created by Microsoft and its ever-growing partner channel, where we can offer our products and services. When they succeed, the likelihood of our success increases too. And while it’s on a much, much smaller scale, the same holds true in reverse.

^{Once a phobia, now in my comfort zone: public speaking}

We design our software to be ERP-agnostic, but we’ve found a sweet spot in the Dynamics ecosystem where our products truly thrive. As a result, we’re not in a rush to explore other markets with our products and services. Given the rapid growth of Business Central, it's currently one of the best places to be within the ERP space.

Another month, another release! We're excited to bring you the latest update of Dime.Scheduler, packed with new features and improvements to make your scheduling even smoother.

What is new

Connector for Dime.Scheduler in BC

A new version of the extension for Dime.Scheduler in Business Central has been released:

• Support for release wave 25
• A choice field to select the Dime.Scheduler environment
• Seed an initial entry in the Dime.Scheduler connector setup when establishing a connection in the FastTrack wizard
• Choice fields to hide machine and work center cards in the planning board
• New menu item action to delete cause of absences
• Choice field to automatically sync new, updated, or removed resource allocation lines from a service order with Dime.Scheduler

Next week, we will deploy the new version to AppSource. A preview version is already available here.

Fixed IP address for outbound traffic

By popular request, we have made a modification to our infrastructure to be able to use a single static IP address for all outbound communication from Dime.Scheduler to the backoffice systems. By default, outbound communication is not proxied. It is an optional feature that your customers can opt into; drop us a line if you want us to switch on this feature.

Exclude resources from budget recalculation

By adding a flag on the resource entity, you can now exclude specific resources from budget recalculations, which significantly improves the accuracy and efficiency of planning, especially in scenarios where virtual resources such as teams or departments are involved. This enhancement ensures that budget calculations remain precise and relevant, even when dealing with complex resource structures.

Bridge to the cloud

The first customers have successfully been migrated to Dime.Scheduler cloud. We are going to phase out the waiting list and will admit all customers whenever they would like to switch to Dime.Scheduler cloud. For more information, check out this article on our partner zone.

What's next?

We are going to ramp up development for our connectors. We will add new authentication methods to the bidirectional message flow to stay on par with the roadmap of Business Central and to further strengthen the integration capabilities of Dime.Scheduler with BC, as well as any other ERP, CRM, or LoB system that customers might want to use.

For more information, I'd like to cordially invite you to join our inner circle program. We'll bring an update soon with more details about the upcoming release(s).

During the event, we will showcase Dime.Scheduler, our powerful scheduling solution for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. Join us at our ISV session, where we’ll demonstrate how Dime.Scheduler enhances planning and resource management for businesses worldwide.

Are you attending Directions ASIA 2025? Let’s meet up! Stay tuned for more details on our session and where to find us at the event.

See you in Bangkok!

I am delighted to announce that a new release of Dime.Scheduler has been deployed to the production environment. The main focus of this release is aligning with Business Central's roadmap. Additional authentication methods for integrating with Business Central are now available, along with a brand-new API page in BC for publishing Dime.Scheduler appointments.

What is new

Connector setup

We have overhauled the connector setup in Dime.Scheduler, making it more flexible and future-proof. By adding support for the OAuth2 protocol in the message flow from Dime.Scheduler to Business Central—and virtually any other system—we have expanded its integration capabilities.

To expose this new capability to administrators, we updated the interfaces - both user and programmatic interfaces. In the connector setup, you'll find that the typical row editor has been replaced with a modal form and provides more guidance how to set up the connection with systems such as Business Central.

We automatically updated the settings. No action is required from your end.

Connector for Dime.Scheduler in BC

As part of this release, a new version of the Business Central connector has been published, featuring the following key enhancements:

• Authenticate against Dime.Scheduler using API keys
• Add API page as an alternative to the SOAP service
• Namespaces
• Added support for BC26

The extension is available here on the partner zone, and our installation scripts can also be used to deploy the extension to BC. The update to AppSource will follow next week.

SDK for .NET

A new version of the Dime.Scheduler SDK for .NET has also been published on NuGet. All it takes is an API key and a few lines of code to interact with Dime.Scheduler.

Docs

We made a few enhancements to the documentation to make it easier to navigate to frequently accessed articles: http://docs.dimescheduler.com/

Videos

A couple of new videos were recorded in the last few months for our series "Dime.Scheduler Feature Focus" on our Youtube channel.

Deprecated features

With the advancement in integration possibilities, we can phase out older capabilities that are no longer recommended by the industry. For future development, we suggest the following:

• Business Central to Dime.Scheduler:

  • Authentication: API key

• Dime.Scheduler to Business Central:

  • Architectural style / protocol: API pages

  • Authentication/Authorization: MS Entra ID or all-purpose OAuth2

Notwithstanding the deprecation of authentication methods such as basic authentication and protocols like SOAP, no action is required for your current customers, although you are certainly free to do so.

Learn more

For more information, partners can check out this detailed post on the partner zone, and the documentation has been updated as well.

What's next

Dime.Scheduler cloud has exceeded our projected adoption rates. To handle the increased workload, we have accelerated our performance enhancement efforts. Development is underway, and a first batch of performance improvements has already been deployed to the sandbox. The production update is scheduled for late May or early June.

Simultaneously, we are developing a new route optimization capability to address the common traveling salesman problem. This feature aims to enhance efficiency by identifying the best possible routes for people on the road to visit multiple locations. To obtain extensive feedback at an early stage, we will release this as a preview feature, allowing users to test and provide valuable insights for further improvement.

For more details on upcoming releases, I invite you to join our inner circle.

We recently wrote an article in the online SPOTSi-Schlau magazine to celebrate their 15th birthday. We shared our story as well, which you can read here: https://www.dime-software.com/posts/chronicles-of-15-years-as-isv

Thanks to our partners and customers for all these years of their continued support. Here's to many more years of success and innovation!

In our latest video, we guide you through this smart, scalable integration that supports your service management processes from end to end. Whether you're a service company, maintenance provider, or handle complex installations across multiple sites, this composition is designed to automate, simplify, and improve service planning and delivery.

🔧 What you’ll learn

In this walkthrough, you’ll discover how to:

• Set up a seamless integration between Business Central, Sigmax Connect, and Dime.Scheduler.
• Automatically synchronize work orders and match them with the right resources.
• Enable real-time scheduling for field technicians
• Integrate inventory and parts management directly into your service calls.
• Sync customer data across platforms, ensuring everyone has access to the latest information.
• Configure custom workflows tailored to your specific processes and business rules.

⚡ Why it matters

Field service is about more than just getting the job done, it's about getting the right person to the right place, at the right time, with the right information. This integration makes that possible, and more.

Key benefits include:

✅Eliminate scheduling conflicts
✅ Improve technician utilization
✅ Enhance customer satisfaction
✅ Automate time-consuming processes
✅ Optimize travel routes to reduce costs
✅ Track job progress in real-time
✅ Boost your overall operational efficiency

Whether you're dealing with complex installations or routine maintenance, this integrated solution brings clarity and control to your field service operations.

👉 Watch it now on YouTube!

What is new in Dime.Scheduler 📺

On September 18 at 16:00 CEST, join us for our annual update webinar! We’ll showcase all the exciting new features added to Dime.Scheduler over the past year, plus give you an exclusive sneak peek at what’s coming next.

👉 Sign up for this webinar now!

Field service management in Business Central, with Servotion and Dime.Scheduler 📺

And on September 23 at 16:00 CEST, we’re teaming up with our friends at Multisoft Ltd., the developer of Servotion, an outstanding field service solution that integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

This introductory-level webinar will walk you through the end-to-end field service process, featuring live demos of Dime.Scheduler and Servotion. Discover how these two powerful add-ons work hand-in-hand to deliver field service excellence.

👉 Sign up for this webinar now!

We hope to see you there!

Zapier is a no-code platform that connects thousands of apps, making it easy to automate repetitive tasks without writing a single line of code. With this integration, you can seamlessly link Dime.Scheduler to your favorite apps, sync data across platforms, and automate scheduling workflows — all in a few clicks.

Whether you want to automatically update calendars, notify staff of new bookings, or connect your scheduling system to your CRM, the possibilities are endless. This integration helps your team save time, reduce errors, and focus on what matters most: running your business efficiently.

Getting started is simple. With just a few steps, you can unlock powerful automation options and take your scheduling workflows to the next level.

👉 Learn more here to get started with Dime.Scheduler’s official Zapier integration.