Here we are, just a few weeks out from the great Blueprint 4D conference in Dallas, TX — and as people are starting to settle back into their day-to-day lives, I thought it would be great to share what I believe to be the event’s top 5 take-aways.
1. Blueprint 4D 2023 had the largest in-person attendance since pre-COVID.
All I can say is WOW! It all started last Sunday at the Hilton Anatole, when people began streaming into the event — but it wasn’t until Monday morning that I realized the conference was going to be THAT busy! Sure, we’re used to sprawling Las Vegas convention centers, but the Anatole still surprised us with how massive it was (I checked my steps on my watch), and it was PACKED! We were also mystified by the sheer number of faithful JD Edwards’ users, who were eagerly visiting all of the booths on Monday night. I felt immense pride to see so much excitement around a product that Oracle has been trying to kill for close to 20 years.
2. JD Edwards EnterpriseOne is alive and kicking!
The crowds were one thing, but the news that Oracle is extending the life of EnterpriseOne?! An absolute win! Oracle will now provide Premier Support for E1 through 2034…That’s 10+ years! On top of that, the Oracle JD Edwards team spoke about several new point-enhancements and platform certifications with Release 23. In addition to Oracle’s planned JDE updates, their partner community has built tons of new functionality to augment both E1 and World packages. These new developments include reporting robust and feature-rich solutions, integration platforms that allow easy connectivity with other products, and big automation updates that utilize the Orchestrator Studio within E1.
3. The clouds were gathering…in a positive way.
It was cloudy and rainy the whole week, but people weren’t talking about the clouds outside: Everyone was fixated on potentially replacing their data centers, and thus their JDE installations, with cloud-based solutions. Options include going full cloud, with AWS or Connectria, or even taking a hybrid approach by using logic in the cloud and data on premises. If you have any questions about how to fly through the clouds, please reach out and let’s have a discussion!
4. JDE GPT?
Another bit of chatter in the crowds was around Chat GPT and how in the world it could be used with E1. I overheard a conversation about how a consultant asked Chat GPT to build them a basic Address Book business function that inputs the Address Number and returns all address information. From what I heard, the results were pretty spot on.
Can you imagine if the E1 interface could accept questions like, “Show me all invoices for a supplier” or “How many widgets are at the Secaucus warehouse”? This is truly the art of the possible, and partners are working on solutions that may just make this a reality.
5. JD Edwards customers are looking for help!
I spoke with numerous E1 users, and quite a few are having problems with hiring talented E1 analysts and developers. CNC is another area where people are looking for help. JDE has been around since 1977, and a lot of folks who started out with JDE are approaching retirement age — meaning, the hunt is on for replacements.
Spinnaker Support is here to help with those staff augmentations. We have expert JDE resources, who are former JDE employees and ready to help with every facet of your JDE business needs. Again, reach out if you would like to talk!
To wrap it up…
I’m so pleased to look back on Blueprint 4D 2023 as a great success — and I look forward to the coming years, during which we’ll help this passionate user base get the most out of their JD Edwards investment, regardless of product or release!
See you all in Denver for InFocus!!
