Visit Fargo for Four Weeks and Get on the Fast TrAX with Microsoft Dynamics AX

“Welcome to the team”, the new Microsoft Dynamics consultant was told by his manager the first day on the job. “This week you’ll go through an onboarding process with various individuals within the organization, and next week you are off to Fargo, North Dakota to attend a four-week training course,” the manager continued. “What?! Fargo for four weeks? Really?!” exclaimed the consultant. “Yes. Fargo. They have a great thing happening up there with the Microsoft Dynamics AX Fast TrAX training. I’m confident you’ll find it extremely valuable and rewarding to your career development,” explained the manager.

Yes, this is reality folks. But don’t take my words lightly. The Microsoft Dynamics Fast TrAX training held its inaugural classes in the second half of calendar 2011, and there are dozens of Fast TrAX graduates already sharing tremendous feedback…

Taking the Fast TrAX course sets aside a portion of your life, you learn Microsoft Dynamics AX. When else are you going to have four weeks of your life set aside for this purpose? Not all teachers are from Microsoft but they bring in, in this course, both Microsoft and non-Microsoft teachers who are fluent with the product. They bring in Microsoft people who have been involved in the development of the product and development of the documentation as well as people who have worked with the product since the early beta versions or even earlier. Our class received both overviews and substantial details of Microsoft Dynamics AX. We saw it from an overview point of view and significant details on finance and supply chain. We also learned support material related to Sure Step, SharePoint and Enterprise Portal intelligence. Every person on the planet is unique. We learned in different ways, so there’s different ways to take notes, and do your homework during evenings and weekends. The class time, make full use of the immersion experience and time. – October 2011 Graduate

I think a lot of the professors or instructors that we’ve had here have worked in the industry for a number of years so they provided some good life lessons, some good experiences that they’ve run into with partners or clients. You are just completely immersed in it, so there’s no way around it. You are going to learn Microsoft Dynamics AX. And that is what we’re all here to do and I just think it’s a very, very good opportunity for people to try and take advantage of. – August 2011 Graduate

I think one advantage is that it’s a technology platform and a skillset that’s transferable. It’s not just geared towards one industry. When you learn it, every company, every organization, public or private, is going to have transactions, is going to have sales, is going to be hiring people. So it’s definitely a skillset that can transfer across industries. It’s really the wide variety of individuals and peers that we have in there. We’ve got individuals you have been in the ERP world, not necessarily within Microsoft systems, but in the ERP world for a while then we’ve got fresh out of college and a lot of people right in the middle who have just been working for a while. Hearing their experiences and their sort of viewpoint on what they think they will be able to do with this system has been beneficial. We always hear that the Microsoft Dynamics community is really small so being able to build that camaraderie is a plus. From having no previous experience whatsoever, I think the immersion concept is good. I keep sitting back after going to the hotel room and thinking would I have read all eight of these manuals on my free time in addition to my job, on the weekends, 10 hours, whatever. And I would, I would be committed to it. But you’re not going to get the experiences of seeing the trainer troubleshoot the system and how they would go about troubleshooting. I think is a positive facet to this sort of training program, especially for those without any experience. – August 2011 Graduate

The class has been very different from what I thought it was going to be. I was really worried about coming up to Fargo and Microsoft being this huge entity. It’s really just felt warm and everybody was so welcoming. We’ve met about 15 different instructors from Microsoft and they’ve all been very open to our questions. The technology, it was a fast pace, but you’re able to learn it. There’s enough written material I can go back and study. I’m definitely preparing for my exams and getting ready to be certified but I know that when I go out into the field after I’ve had this class that I can confidently present to my clients here’s the Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 product and here’s what it can do for your business. – September 2011 Graduate

If you are interested in Microsoft Dynamics Fast TrAX training, we’ve recently published our FY12 H2 training schedule for partners based in the United States. And since you are visiting the place where I reside (Fargo), I’ll definitely take the opportunity to pop into your class to say hello!

--Kevin