Birmingham D365PPUG - May 2026

Our next in-person meeting of the year will take place on Thursday 14th May 2026 from 18:30 at the Wesleyan Building. Parking is available close by at the B4 Car Park or it’s a short walk from any city centre train station.

Presentation 1: Using the Right Tool: Building Reusable Validation Without Over-Engineering (Speaker: John Andrews)
This session walks through a real problem that needed field-level regex validation in Model-Driven Apps, including patterns, custom error messages, and consistency across forms. Whilst looking for projects that would need a PCF, the journey led back to plain JavaScript as the most appropriate tool: lightweight, repeatable, and easy for teams to adopt without additional framework knowledge. The session covers designing a reusable validator that takes JSON configuration, attaches specific RegEx checks to fields, and provides clear messaging to users. We’ll look at the journey of evaluating options, deciding when not to introduce PCF, and how the solution aligns with DRY principles, portability, and team skills. Attendees will see the design, implementation, usage patterns, and how this approach reduces maintenance across multiple forms and environments.

Presentation 2: From Bottleneck to Empowerment: Building Intelligent Copilot Agents in Dynamics 365 (Speaker: Josh Kility)
In regulated environments, speed and accuracy aren't optional — they're essential. But when specialist knowledge sits with just a handful of people, that's not just an inefficiency, it's a risk.

In this session, I'll share my real-world experience building a Microsoft Copilot Agent integrated with Dynamics 365, empowering support team members to confidently handle enforcement, registration, and timeline management workflows using purpose-built Agent Flows. I'll cover the design decisions, the challenges, and how shifting knowledge into an agent-driven experience has reduced key-person dependency while improving the speed and accuracy of support delivered to end users.

We strongly encourage you to arrive early to meet other user group members. We will be providing food and refreshments and you are welcome to stay afterwards for a chat!
We are always looking for people passionate about Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform to present at our events. If you would like to speak at any of our future events please register here.