Let me start by saying how passionate I am about AR and the D365 Mixed Reality platform in particular. You’re on the cusp of something fantastic. With that said, the process for setting up even a preview instance of Product Visualize is terrible. Help me, help you so we can all prosper.
I’m hybrid tech guy (I can code) who works in a Marketing Department. This means in my organization I sit close to the sales organization and the sales people who would run with Product Visualize. In this case, the Sales VPs love the concept of Product Visualize but need working demo’s to show to the C-Suite. This means the VP's are high enough to authorize experiments/tests into using Product Visualize but you can't just battle IT into doing something. Thus we need to develop something for the whole C-Suite to experience and contemplate.
But in order to do that, I have to dive deep into IT to get this stuff setup. And I’m not talking about loading the models. You have a D365 Sales license – setup AAD – setup sharepoint -setup PV instance
Luckily I talk tech and have an sympathetic IT director. But I’m also testing the other D365 AR modules so I only have so much time.
I can’t stress enough that you have a product meant for end users…let alone sales type end users... but then you have to go through this huge process to setup.
Here is an even better idea – rent me a profile.
Charge me $40 a month to be given a quasi – admin level so I can load my own test models and data. I call Microsoft up and you create & run everything and simply provide me with a login and passwords. Microsoft protects itself from the “shadow IT” argument by limiting the number of test profiles I get to rent say 2 Product Visualize profiles. However by paying I'm not worrying running afoul of 30 or 90 trial period and i'm skipping setup. Which by the way IT doesn't exactly know to begin with after still working through setup of Guides. But if on a rental basis it goes as it should I have already created demos for VP's quickly because I can just get started with the product. Versus burning 2 weeks of trial period with a back and forth between IT.
- Your 30 or 90 day test trial is to short and I have authority to test but not the time because I still have other duties. AR in many enterprises is still new you don’t have many full time people.
Now if Microsoft is smart, they would be able to roll over the rental profiles to my company when we buy it full time. You should roll this concept out to the whole D365 AR line.
This is a serious issue relate to Prod Visual and selling internally ...to have a great product that requires the setup process it does, is just terrible.
"Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope."
