Dynamics 365 in Madison, Wisconsin

I’m Jake Roder, and I live in Madison, Wisconsin. I have spent most of my career in the Microsoft Dynamics ecosystem: I co-founded a Dynamics consultancy, sold it to sa.global in 2022, and spent a stretch after that as their US CTO. These days I run the Dynamics User Group along with a few other businesses in the ecosystem.

Which is a long way of saying: if you are in south central Wisconsin and you need something to do with Dynamics 365, I probably know who to call. Here is how I would use this page depending on why you landed on it.

If you are looking for a partner

A few things worth knowing before you sign anything, whether or not you end up talking to me:

• The product matters more than the logo. Business Central, Finance & Supply Chain, and Customer Engagement are genuinely different products with different specialists. A firm that is excellent at one is not automatically good at the next.
• Ask who is actually doing the work. The people in the sales meeting are frequently not the people on your project.
• Ask what happens after go-live. This is where most implementations quietly fall apart. I wrote about the run-up in an easy approach to a Business Central go-live.
• Licensing and delivery are separable. You do not have to buy your licenses from whoever implements.

On my side of things: Bond Consulting Services handles Dynamics 365 licensing and support, and Horse Peaks works across Business Central and Customer Engagement. If neither is the right fit, I am happy to point you somewhere else. I would rather make a good introduction than a bad sale.

If you are already live and stuck

A good chunk of this blog is the answer to something that cost me an afternoon. Sorted by product:

• Business Central, including consolidating companies and multiple currencies.
• Finance and Supply Chain, including a series on master planning and MRP.
• Project Operations, mostly timesheets and the errors that come with them.
• Power BI, for when the reporting on top of Dynamics is the actual problem.

If you want the community

The DUG Meetup for Wisconsin gets together around the state, and it is free. Statewide, the ecosystem here is smaller than you would think and worth being known in.

Nationally, I run the Dynamics User Group, the largest independent community for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform people, and the Convergence conference. If you want to speak, sponsor, or just show up, ask me.

If you are hiring, or looking

The DYN Collective is a curated group of independent advisors and builders in this ecosystem. If you need senior Dynamics help that is not a full implementation partner, or you are one of those people and want to be in the room, that is the place.

Either way, I am easy to find.