In any community, the balance between tradition and innovation is delicate. The interplay between nostalgia and progress often sparks debate. Sooo let me tell you what happened recently. The controversial decision was made: old school quiz form was refused to get the retro badge:
Having in mind that the judges are seasoned and wise tech veterans, we decided to come up with something more retro! We’re all familiar with the power of nostalgia, but sometimes, it takes a little extra magic to prove that something truly embodies the spirit of the past. So have a look into our /too much retro/ client:
There’s something inherently nostalgic about the old-school online quizzes we used to take. You remember the ones—basic designs, pixelated images, and simple blue buttons for starting the quiz. These quizzes might seem outdated by today’s standards of sleek, interactive experiences, but there’s a unique charm to them. They evoke a sense of simpler times when the internet felt more like a fun mystery than an overwhelming flood of information.
There’s something instantly recognizable about those early online quiz interfaces. From the bright, bold colors to the blocky text, they had a distinct, almost childlike quality that made them feel personal and welcoming. These designs weren’t trying to be high-tech or glossy; they were focused on functionality and fun.
This simplicity might seem outdated today, but it holds a certain charm—especially when we remember that the point wasn’t to create a perfect digital experience; it was to create something fun, something to immerse you in a world of magic and possibilities.
Bellow you can see our sweet page for choosing how you want to be sorted:
Admit that you got blast from the past! So remember: sometimes, the most magical experiences don’t require cutting-edge technology—just a little imagination and a lot of heart.
As we are using different main characters in our retro maze game, we figured out that it would be fun to design these characters using the retro graphic editor, paint. And to make it even more nostalgic, we used both the older version and the newer one.
First we found a photo of Scott on LinkedIn.
2. Secondly, we used the erase function in paint so we only have Scott’s face left. Then we put his face on top of a 2D Super Mario game body.
3. Thirdly, we had to use the newer version of Paint in order to get a transparent background, which we use in our game.
This is how the character Scott will look like in the game:
Based on the following article: https://synoptek.com/insights/it-blogs/evolution-of-microsoft-dynamics-ax/ X++ can be dated all the way back to 1998 (and maybe even earlier)!
With help from our own wise wizard – AKA Grandfather/Frank – we have been able to create our own magic in FinOps. The screenshot below shows a customized screen of item number and item related information, in addition to purchase and sales order and project links:
With the help from X++ and Power Automate we are able to send order quantity to FinOps which automatically creates a purchase and sales order. And it does not stop here – it also creates a link between the purchase and sales orders, which is critical to understand what actually triggered the purchase order in the first place. Additionally, we link the orders to project as that would gain a lot of business value for industries such as the construction business. The code below ends with returning the quantity that is going through the order process, which triggers email to the Hololens-user with an order confirmation.
With this blog post we are aiming for the Glossy Pixels badge
We will also argue that to have a consistent visual identity across all the games will create a good user experience, so this blog post should also be considered to count towards the Excellent User Experience category.
Logo
We created the logo first, to set the tone, find the colors and use this as a baseline in the visual identity.
Why do we bother creating this from scratch? Because it’s fun! 😀 And a bit retro to not use AI to generate everything?
We found a good picture of Princess Peach where she is in her battle gear. In our “Peaches Mini Games” world she is saving Mario – so we wanted her to look badass..
Implement the visual identity across the apps
The Power BI Scoreboard
The Hangman Game
Peaches Flight App
We will also make sure to implement this visual identity across the other websites and apps that we make as the solution progresses to make sure that the user feels that they are playing games in the same universe.
Our main goal with this years ACDC was to make the workday a lot easier for both the Pirate Planners and the Pirates itself. We had identified that the use of Finance and Operations standard functionality for both planning and Employee Self-Service is far from easy and user friendly to use. Therefor we decided to use these days to create this:
A Model driven app for the Pirate Planners to use when they plan for what raid what pirate should be on, based on the skills that pirate has. This Planner app receives all the data it needs regarding the raids/projects and the pirates with skill profile directly from F&O, so that they always have the up to date data to work with as this is crucial to be able to do the correct planning.
A Canvas app for the Pirates to use on their mobiles, where they can see and update their personal information while the app talks directly with F&O, accsess other information that is relevant for them that we have integrated into the app like your calendar and meeting, let you see where the Planners has booked you, an AI chat that can give you answers for whatever you want and more.
PowerBI reports showing what the Planners have planned for in the different raids and other relevant information.
And, to make it easier for you judges, here are the reasons why we think we deserve a lot of points in the different categories:
Excellent User Experience:
Our entire idea before the ACDC was that we wanted to create something that gives everyone that struggles with the user experience in F&O a better workday, every day! The solution we now have created will give all the Planners out there a new, innovative and very user friendly way to plan their pirates and other resources with the data that is already in place in F&O. And, for every pirate and other employee in the company, their experience with the brand-new mobile app for Self-Service, they difference from what they experience now in F&O is almost impossible to describe! This is so much more user friendly, cool and awesome that they will be amazed!
Most Extreme Business Value:
As we have said before, this work is not easy for companies using it today. We know that for example with planning, many companies have a excel sheet that they update manually with data from F&O to do raid/project planning. All of these companies will be thankful that we created this Model driven app these days, as it really will both save them time, make sure they always have the correct data to work with, and give the company a much better up-to-date overview over how their pirates and employees are booked the next weeks.
And if that wasn’t good enough (to be honest, we first only planned to create the solution over, but we also wanted to do something very good for all the pirates, not just the planner), the Canvas app will give a huge business advantage to all companies using F&O! Even if they don’t do Planning for their resources, they can of course still use the Pirate app for all their employees, where they can show and give the employees the possibilities to do everything they do in F&O as Self-Service today, and we can include whatever other data or solutions they use directly in the mobile app so that the employee gets all the information and possibilities they need in one place instead of having to go several places! And, the app will of course be teamed with the companies logo and colors, so that for the Employee, the experience will be that this is an app only for them!
Rock Solid Geekness:
When we are three low-code and two no-code pirates going to a Hackaton, then something we really wants to learn more about is code and Geekness. We have learned a lot and used react and Node.js as you will see in the solution under, and all the time we have spent drilling into how to use the data from F&O correctly in POwerPlatform… Phu, we now know a lot more about many more tables and data coming out from F&O and how we can use it than what we did before. And, that ladies and gentlemen, is rock solid geekiness in the ERP world!
Killer App:
The way all components in this solution is tied together, really is what makes it a Killer App! We have connected F&O to a Model driven app and to a Canvas app, and the canvas app updates data back in F&O. In addition to this, PowerBI collects data both from F&O and the Model driven app, to show the reports we want. We have also extended the Canvas app to have so much more information that is relevant for the Pirate (and remember, the canvas app also shows information from the Model driven app regarding how they are planned!). When all of this is connected in a solution we now only have used 3 days to build, yeah, this deserves a lot of point! If you haven’t worked with F&O data in PowerPlatform before, then it’s hard to know, but this not straight forward.
Screenshoots of the Pirate Planner app and the technology used to fill it with data (with explenations under the pictures):
For the captain to check the various available project raidsOnce the project/raid is selected, you set what assignement you want to rederve hours forAnd then you reserve the piratePowerBI report that shows the info needed from the model driven Planner appTo save time without a datalake when gathering data from F&O we use the old and lovely tool PowerQuery inside Dataflows
Screenshots of the Pirate app and the technology used for that app (with explenations under the pictures):
Frontpage of the appView your calendar and meetingsView your bookings coming from what the planners has done in the new Planner appView your information from F&O and directly update the infor in F&O when you submit changesOpenAI embedded chat for the Pirate to use to whatever!PCF code used to integrate a PowerApps Custom Control to run the Node.js (shown under)React and Node.js web app on Azure used for the OpenAI chatbotCustom connector for Microsoft Graph API we have built to get picture and other data for the logged in user of the Canvas app.Custom connector codePowerAutomate to give you the greating of the dayPowerAutomate to find jokes/insults
And what has this even given us?
Why we have clamied the badges we have in this post: ACDC Craftsman: For the entire solution, how it all is connected and works! Dash it out: The PowerBI report for the data fra F&O and model driven app Client side salsa: For the OpenAI embedded chat using react and node.js Retro: For using PowerQuery to collect data from F&O Feature bombing: For this fun screen in a canvas app that gives you a lot of features at the same time:
Thank you all for an amazing event!! This has been so much fun and we will definetly be back next year!
Every pirate ship has to have a cat to ensure rodents are effectively ridden off the ship. Our trusty old LEGO EV3 seems to the job with sensors to ensure he paws around where suitable.
Then again, he likely cannot kill the rodents as the batteries ran out, and his trusted running mate, Marius Bluetooth, had to walk the plank, so we cannot seem to make him spin much 🙁
Badges
Embedding numbnut – Any ship cat is an integrated member of the ship
Retro – EV3 is a decade old, almost a lifetime in tech
The Orange Bandits’ operation center is need for a mechanism to track vehicles to get more insights about ongoing looting operations. A raspberry pi with a tracking device is the first solution that comes in mind!
Yes, it is mobile! With a power bank it is!
Though, this is not a straightforward solution. Some Python code is due at this point. Unfortunately, The Orange Bandits owns an old Raspberry pi with an old SD card that doesn’t tolerate new updates; not retro enough! Well, we had to use an old version of Python to get this to work!
Hipster and retro 😉 😉Oh yeah! That’s retro
Embedding a device that flip bytes is not an easy ride. We need to come with innovative ways to to keep it online and to keep the GPS tracker in the “Chinese” satellite signal range!
Here is proposed solution to keep the device connectedHere it is spitting location data (longitude and latitude)
These engines turn at the whopping speed of 0.000001 m/s. Not only is the engine slow, the technology is old. The transistors that make the coquetry and the coils that make the engine revolve are the most retro data component of them all. Unfortunately we already claimed the retro badge, but would like to show you what we do with physical component and how we do small hacks to make things work.
Captain Mats working on why the motor is not revolving at sufficient speed for what we require. Look at that focus! He is a legende! Girls and boys, he is unfortunately taken 💔
Unfortunately we had to hack our solution in the end, even with stellar help from Marius and @bastards we could not get the engine revolving any faster enough for our needs. The voltage output and ossilating is stuck making it perform suboptimal. We think the motor or voltage output needs to be adjusted but lack the tools and time, so the hack we ended doing was to swap the Arduino with the laptop and running a virtual Arduino instead of the real deal. Simulating something easy with something complex to make stuff work. We feel this is a hack in the spirit of making up lost time.
Meme about using expensive power computers to perform mundane tasks meant for matchbox computers
10 years ago, the year is 2013. Barack Obama is president, Donald Trump is a reality TV star, no one has heard about Covid-19 or Microsoft 365, and jQuery 1.10.0 gets released to much fanfare! With so many improvements from the previous versions, this is clearly the future of web development and leaves heads spinning in excitement everywhere.
Speaking of spinning heads…
This little easter egg brings us back to a simpler time when we were allowed to enjoy the little things in web development.
We have used the oldest (and stable) jQuery version available from Microsoft’s Ajax CDN (jQuery 1.10.0), and embedded it to the Power Page HTMLpage.
A super simple function adds a class to div containing the profile picture on click, and CSS makes the image spin. Just like our heads.
