For organizations investing in Microsoft technologies, the biggest challenge is often not access to tools. It is knowing how to use those tools more effectively, how they fit together, and where the next investment will create the most value.
That is what makes Community Summit North America 2026 such a valuable event.
Taking place October 11–15 at the Gaylord Opryland in Nashville, Community Summit brings together more than 5,500 Microsoft Business Applications users, 500+ expert speakers, 600+ education sessions, and 300+ Microsoft partners. The conference covers Microsoft AI, Azure, Dynamics, Copilot Studio, Fabric, Power Platform, and other technologies shaping the Microsoft ecosystem.
For attendees, it is an opportunity to move beyond product features and hear how organizations and practitioners are actually putting these technologies to work.
This year, Weidenhammer is especially excited to be part of that conversation. Chris Smith, our Director of Data & AI, will lead three Microsoft Fabric sessions designed for three different stages of the data and analytics journey, from getting started with Fabric to making architectural decisions and governing an enterprise lakehouse.
Why Attend Community Summit North America?
Technology changes quickly. Microsoft’s AI, cloud, ERP, analytics, and low-code platforms continue to evolve, which means organizations need more than occasional product announcements to keep pace.
Community Summit offers something different: direct access to practitioners, Microsoft experts, partners, and other users who are solving many of the same problems.
Whether your organization is evaluating a new platform, migrating from an existing system, training users, or trying to get more value from technology you already own, the conference is structured around those different stages of the Microsoft journey.
Learn From People Doing the Work
One of the greatest benefits of Community Summit is its practitioner-driven approach. Sessions are focused on real implementation questions, lessons learned, architecture decisions, optimization strategies, and practical applications. Instead of simply hearing what a technology can do, attendees can better understand what it takes to make it work inside an actual organization.
That distinction becomes increasingly important with technologies such as AI, Microsoft Fabric, Dynamics 365, and Power Platform, where the right architecture, governance, and implementation strategy can have as much impact as the technology itself.
Get More Value From Your Microsoft INvestments
For many organizations, the goal is not adding another technology platform. It is getting more from the platforms they already have.
Community Summit gives IT, finance, operations, data, and business leaders an opportunity to explore how different Microsoft technologies can work together, identify capabilities they may not be using today, and learn how other organizations have approached similar challenges.
Attendees also have access to Microsoft leadership, product roadmaps, training, technical experts, and hundreds of partners across the ecosystem.
Bring Better Questions Back to Your Organization
A successful conference should do more than provide information. It should help you make better decisions.
By comparing approaches, talking with peers, exploring new technologies, and hearing what has worked for other organizations, attendees can return with a clearer understanding of questions such as:
Where should we prioritize our next Microsoft investment?
Are we using our data effectively?
Is our current analytics architecture built for where the business is going?
Where could AI or automation create measurable value?
How should we approach security, governance, and data quality as our environment grows?
Those are exactly the kinds of questions Weidenhammer’s three sessions will explore through the lens of Microsoft Fabric.
Three Microsoft Fabric Sessions, Three Stages of the Journey
Microsoft Fabric brings data engineering, analytics, business intelligence, data science, and governance capabilities into a unified platform.
But organizations are approaching Fabric from very different starting points.
Some are trying to understand what it is. Others are deciding whether it should become part of their enterprise data architecture. More mature organizations are already confronting questions around governance, security, lineage, and data quality.
Chris Smith’s three Community Summit sessions are designed to address that progression.
1. Microsoft Fabric for the D365 Power User: From Curious to Confident in 60 Minutes
Monday, October 12 | 9:45-10:45 AM CT
For Dynamics 365 users who have heard about Microsoft Fabric but are still trying to understand where it fits, this beginner-level session provides a practical starting point.
Chris will break down Fabric’s core components, including OneLake, lakehouses, warehouses, dataflows, and semantic models, and connect them to familiar Dynamics 365 reporting and data workflows. Attendees will also explore concrete use cases where Fabric can improve existing reporting and integration processes and learn how to identify a realistic first Fabric project.
Why it matters: You do not need to become a data architect to understand how Fabric could affect your organization.
For D365 power users, analysts, ERP leaders, and business technology teams, this session helps translate Fabric from an emerging Microsoft product into something much more useful: a set of capabilities that can solve recognizable business and reporting problems.
The goal is to leave knowing not only what Fabric is, but where you could start using it.
2. Data Warehouse vs. Lakehouse vs. Fabric: Making the Right Architectural Choice for Your Organization
Tuesday, October 13 | 9:45-10:45 AM CT
Once an organization moves beyond experimentation, the questions get bigger.
Should you continue investing in a traditional data warehouse? Should you move toward a lakehouse architecture? Where does Microsoft Fabric fit into that decision?
This intermediate session looks at warehouses, lakehouses, and Fabric through clear architectural criteria, including how OneLake and the Fabric lakehouse influence enterprise data design. More importantly, attendees will learn how to align those technology choices with their organization’s business needs and analytics maturity.
Why it matters: Architecture decisions can shape your data environment for years.
The right answer is rarely “use the newest technology.” It depends on your existing systems, data maturity, business requirements, internal skills, integration needs, and long-term goals.
For organizations considering modernization or expanding their analytics capabilities, this session can help leaders ask better questions before committing to a platform strategy.
3. Governing Your Lakehouse: Data Quality, Lineage, and Security in Microsoft Fabric
Wednesday, October 14 | 8:00-9:30 AM CT
As data environments become more sophisticated, governance becomes critical.
This advanced 90-minute deep dive focuses on the operational realities of managing a Fabric lakehouse, including integrating Microsoft Purview to catalog assets and track lineage, designing least-privilege security models, implementing row-level security, separating development, test, and production environments, and automating data-quality monitoring.
Attendees will explore practical techniques for monitoring freshness, validating row counts, identifying schema drift, protecting Dynamics 365 data, and creating greater visibility into how information moves from source systems to Power BI reports.
Why it matters: Getting data into a platform is only the beginning.
As Fabric expands across an organization, leaders also need confidence that the data is accurate, secure, traceable, and accessible to the right people.
Without those fundamentals, analytics and AI initiatives can quickly become difficult to trust.
For teams already working with Fabric or building more mature data environments, this session moves the conversation from “How do we build it?” to “How do we operate it responsibly at scale?”
From Curious to Confident to Governed
Taken together, the three sessions tell a larger story about where many organizations are today.
You may be asking:
What is Microsoft Fabric, and could it help us?
Or:
How should Fabric fit into our broader data architecture?
Or perhaps you are further along and asking:
How do we secure, govern, and maintain the environment we have built?
Those are very different questions, but they are part of the same journey.
Community Summit creates an opportunity to explore that journey alongside thousands of Microsoft users, experts, and partners who are working through many of the same decisions.
Join Us in Nashville
Weidenhammer has worked within the Microsoft ecosystem for more than 20 years, and events like Community Summit are an important part of staying current, exchanging ideas, and understanding how organizations are putting new technologies into practice.
We are looking forward to connecting with Microsoft users in Nashville, sharing what we have learned, and learning from the broader community.
If Microsoft Fabric, Dynamics 365, data and analytics, AI, Business Central, or Power Platform are part of your technology roadmap, Community Summit North American 2026 is a valuable opportunity to learn what is possible and, more importantly, what makes sense for your organization.
And if Fabric is on your radar, make sure Chris Smith’s three sessions are on your agenda.
