For me, scheduling a lab of my choice at an Advent Conference has been an elusive goal. I have gone to a number of Advent conferences since 1993, five years after I started using Advent products. Though I have been interested in attending one, I had never managed to go to a lab at an Advent conference.
I signed up for the conference the week before, and immediately started reviewing the sessions and labs I might attend. There were a wide variety of general sessions that I was interested in, so I wasn’t terribly disappointed – or surprised – to see that the labs I wanted to go to were full.
Determined that I would finally attend a lab – any lab – this year, I settled on one that I didn’t exactly have high hopes for. The name sounded dull. Other labs went by the name of “Taking Command of Axys/APX Macros” or “Building Custom SSRS Reports”, and my lab was “Pathways to Proficiency: Security-Level Performance in APX.” The lab was hosted by Advent’s Trent Berry, whose enduring eloquence could no doubt make a blow-by-blow description of paint drying interesting.
With twenty plus years of experience using, implementing, integrating, enhancing, and consulting on Advent products, I was probably not a typical lab attendee, but I was determined to learn what there is to learn in a lab session.
I was impressed by Advent’s level of preparation, which included four classrooms with 48 PCs each and two more classrooms with 24 PCs each. Every one of the systems was running Windows Server 2008 Standard and VMWare with 8GB RAM to host an insulated, fully functional copy of Advent’s primary applications. Advent provided booklets for all of the labs that detailed the lessons, and appeared to have at least three Advent employees in attendance at each lab: one to speak, one to navigate the primary lab PC, and another to assist those in the lab with any individual issues they ran into.
You never know until you try.
I also learned that attending a lab really isn’t that difficult after all. Though the hallways near thelab rooms were packed on Monday and Tuesday, it was very quiet when I headed for my 7:45am lab Wednesday. Because of this, that morning I could go to any lab I wanted to. Many extra PCs were available in each of the labs I attended. In addition, there were a couple rows of chairs in the back where you could sit and watch without following the exercises on the PCs provided. With that encouraging experience, I hopped into “Report Writer Pro in Axys and APX II: Building Upon a Foundation”, “Taking Command of Axys/APX Macros”, and “Building Custom SSRS Reports”, but what I really wanted to learn was what can they possibly teach users in an hour?
What can you learn in an hour?
The labs are so short that substantial learning is severely limited. They are focused on empowering users by acquainting them with conceptual building blocks, but users will likely need to take the next steps on their own. In my opinion, any attendant who applies him – or herself during the lab should gain a surface understanding of the fundamentals involved.
This type of basic training is a necessary starting point for many novice users, but intermediate and advanced users can see greater benefits from attending interactive sessions with panelists that share specific detailed experiences. After sitting in on a few labs, I wished the names of the labs had been preceded by the phrase “Intro to.”
I saw more value in the “Building Custom SSRS Reports” lab, because using Visual Studio to build custom SSRS reports for APX is a non-intuitive process for most. The labs on automation via macros/scripts and use of Report Writer Pro seemed less useful, because these are relatively intuitive processes that also happen to have sufficient documentation from Advent detailing how they work.
In the end, I walked away with a better understanding of Advent’s labs – they simply and effectively introduce concepts to users as they apply them firsthand. Those interested in attending these labs should register for the conference as early as possible and show up even if the lab appears to be full.
About the Author:
Kevin Shea is President of InfoSystems Integrated, Inc. (ISI); ISI provides a wide variety of outsourced IT solutions to investment advisors nationwide. For details, please visit isitc.com or contact Kevin Shea via phone at 617-720-3400 x202 or e-mail at kshea@isitc.com.