Savvy Technical Solutions

M365 User Group Year-End Meetup
2024-12-06 11:00 - 13:00 (America/Chicago) | Spark Coworking, 6 Cardinal Way, Suite 900, St. Louis, MO, 63102, United States
Join us for an informal, yet insightful M365 Meetup where we focus on the latest announcements from Microsoft Ignite (November 18-22) and discuss plans for the upcoming year!

Agenda

No formal presenters—just casual conversation and great discussions
Recap of the key announcements and updates from M365 Ignite (November 18-22)
Gather your input for planning next year’s monthly meetings and a potential M365 Friday event. Bring your thinking caps!

After the meeting, we’ll grab lunch at Condado Tacos, Ballpark Village (12 PM – 1 PM)

Location: Spark St. Louis, Mississippi Room (6 Cardinal Way, Ballpark Village)

We’re excited to hear your thoughts and get your feedback on how we can make 2025 even better for our M365 community!

STL Startup Week 2024
2024-11-11 - 2024-11-15
Launched in 2019, STL Startup Week (STLSW) has become the city’s premier event series built by and for the region’s entrepreneurship community. Drawing from St. Louis’s diverse and vibrant startup ecosystem, STLSW convenes thousands of founders, supporters, students, and professionals. This five-day conference is designed to spark new ideas, foster meaningful connections, celebrate wins (big and small!), and promote shared learning and experiences.
STL Startup Week is intended for entrepreneurs, small business owners, professionals, investors, entrepreneur support organizations, students, and members of the innovation economy. Attendees hail from a wide variety of industries, including, but not limited to: technology, agriculture, art, consumer products, education, fashion, finance, food, health, manufacturing, media, real estate, and social enterprise.
The five daily tracks are: Marketing & Branding, People & Culture, Product & Design, Capital, and Growth. Savvy’s owner, Becky Bertram, will be presenting, on Tuesday, November 12th. Check out her session Going It Alone: Lessons on Running a Solo Consulting Practice.
Are you ready to make that leap from being an employee to a consultant? Striking out on your own as a one-person company is how many people make the transition into being an entrepreneur, but it can be a scary step. In this session, Becky Bertram, owner of Savvy Technical Solutions here in St. Louis, will talk through some of the character traits and work habits required to run your own consulting practice, as well as talk about some of the technological tools that can help. Becky will share her personal experience as a woman who worked over 20 years in a solo role as a technology consultant, all while birthing and raising 3 children.

dev up 2024 Technology Conference
2024-08-14 - 2024-08-16 | St. Charles Convention Center, 1 Convention Center Plz, St. Charles, MO, 63303, United States
Dev up is back for its 13th conference! At dev up, you can expect a full schedule of inspiring speakers, informative breakout sessions, hands-on workshops, and networking opportunities. The conference program is designed to cater to all levels of experience, from beginners to old-school technology professionals.
Join Becky Bertram, Savvy Technical Solutions’ President, for her workshop on “Building a Copilot Plugin with Copilot Studio”. Microsoft 365 Copilot allows users to perform queries and commands using natural language processing. Now with Copilot Studio, you can create Copilot plugins that allow you to extend the functionality and data sources of these queries and commands. In this session we will talk about the scenarios where Copilot plugins can be used and we will walk through the creation of a basic plugin that can be used by Microsoft 365 Copilot.
This is a great opportunity for the regional technology community to come together to network, learn, and grow.
Location and Accommodation
The dev up 2024 conference will be held at the St. Charles Convention Center in St. Charles, MO. The convention center is attached to an Embassy Suites, with a special rate for attendees at this location. There are also a number of other hotels and accommodation options near the location.

M365 Community Days Chicago 2024
2024-07-20 09:00 - 15:30 | Microsoft Midwest District, 200 East Randolph Street #200, Chicago, IL, 60601, United States
Join professionals passionate about Microsoft Collaboration and Cloud Technologies gather to explore the latest insights, innovations, and best practices. Whether you’re a Microsoft 365 specialist, Cloud IT administrator, Power Platform enthusiast, developer, or architect, this event is designed to empower you with practical knowledge and networking opportunities.
This summer there will be a track dedicated to offsite and remote individuals. Register as a remote attendee for instructions on how to join the event remotely. Alternatively, select sessions will be posted at the M365 Chicago YouTube channel.
Make sure to check out the session led by our President/Owner, Becky Bertram: Level Up Your SharePoint Lists!
Many organizations rely on SharePoint lists for presenting and organizing data, but did you know you can extend the functionality of these lists? In this session you will learn how you can customize SharePoint lists, including:
– How to use JSON formatting to customize your list views, such as adding custom group headers, custom card views, and more
– How to use JSON to format your SharePoint form to allow for field grouping and HTML elements in your form
– How to use Power Apps to customize your SharePoint form, including how to display information from a secondary data source in your form
– How to use Power Automate to create a workflow triggered by the information stored in your list
Come learn how you can improve the usefulness and usability of your lists for your users!

ICCM 2024
2024-07-10 - 2024-07-13 | Hannibal-LaGrange University in Hannibal, Missouri, 2800 Palmyra Road, Hannibal, MO, 63401, United States
The International Conference on Computing and Mission (Americas) is scheduled for July 10-13, 2024, (Wednesday evening to Saturday noon) at Hannibal-LaGrange University in Hannibal, Missouri. This year’s theme is: Memory Upgrade.
Savvy president and owner, Becky Bertram, will be delivering presentations on:
Expand Your Impact with Microsoft 365 Copilot
In this session, we will discuss the capabilities of Microsoft’s new AI companion, called Microsoft 365 Copilot, and how it can be used to expand the capabilities of each member of your team. We will also discuss the security requirements for rolling it out.
Real-world Microsoft 365 Solutions for Non-Profits
Becky will walk through real-world examples of solutions she has built for non-profits, which utilize Microsoft 365 and the Power Platform to maximize their impact.

Register for the event.

About ICCM
Founded in 1989, ICCM is an incredible time of Christian fellowship, professional training, and networking among people with a technical interest in missions.

Microsoft AI Partner Training Roadshow
2024-05-15 | Santa Clara Convention Center, 5001 Great America Parkway, Santa Clara, CA, 95054, United States
Calling all Developers, data scientists, sales & pre-sales professionals and cutting-edge technologists!
Join us, in person, to hear about the latest trends and technology in the era of AI, with expert guidance from Microsoft executives and industry leaders like AMD. Check out product demonstrations and hear stories of AI deployments. Deep dive into the skills needed to pitch Microsoft’s AI and Copilot capabilities to your customers globally, and get hands-on experience with the technology to drive successful implementations. End the day in conversation with experts from Microsoft’s technical and sales teams. Register today for your preferred location.
The Microsoft AI Partner Training Roadshow will give you an opportunity to learn and experiment with generative AI, cloud-scale data, and cloud-native app development capabilities. More specifically, this event will cover:

Sales Excellence With Microsoft AI Services: Learn how to discover new opportunities, break barriers for your customers, and include the latest messaging from Microsoft to strengthen your AI pitch.
Build your own “Intelligent Agent” copilot: to answer customer questions on products and services: This hands-on scenario centers around building an “Intelligent Agent” where users can interact with a virtual agent to find product, user profile and sales order information. Participants will learn storing and managing chat history, using Azure OpenAI to generate vector embeddings and chat completions, performing vector search using Azure AI Search, ingesting and vectorizing data for real-time and transactional workloads, managing the process for conversation flow and prompt engineering for a customer-facing copilot.
Use & Deploy Copilot for Microsoft 365: Understand the M365 core architecture, data sovereignty, security and compliance, Copilot extensibility, deployment and monitoring performance.

12th Annual Career Exploration Fair
2024-04-25 08:00 - 14:30 | Regency Conference Center, 400 Regency Park, O'Fallon, IL, 62269, United States
We are excited to participate in this annual event, as close to 700 eighth-graders from across O’Fallon and Shiloh public and private schools are anticipated to attend this year’s fair, “Exploring Your Future.” In a few short years, these students will be part of our workforce. This fair is a service provided at no cost to the schools. Working with these students is an investment in our future.
Eighth grade is a critical time in the decision-making process for students. Preparing young people to survive in the future is a serious responsibility. Today’s students are our future doctors, educators, political leaders, plumbers, computer experts, employers, and employees in career areas that we cannot yet even imagine.
The Chamber and Junior Achievement work with local educators to make this fair a success. The purpose of this fair is to give the students a chance to get more information on the future careers they’re interested in.
Sponsored by O’Fallon-Shiloh Chamber of Commerce, Junior Achievement, and
Scott AFB STEAM Advisory Group

M365 Copilot: Data Governance and how to prepare for Copilot
2024-04-19 09:00 - 11:00 | Microsoft Technology Center, 4220 Duncan Ave, St. Louis, MO, 63110, United States
This session will be the 2nd session in our M365 Copilot series!
In this Session Kurt Rolland will discuss the least privileged access for Microsoft 365 Copilot.
Microsoft 365 Copilot provides rich and powerful generative AI capabilities within the context of your Microsoft 365 tenant. However, how can you ensure that the content accessed by Copilot is governed by Least Privileged Access, that is granting known users only the minimum permissions necessary to perform their tasks. This principle, known as Just-In-Time (JIT) and Just-Enough-Access (JEA), restricts access to sensitive data and minimizes the potential damage if an account is compromised. We will present tools and techniques to support this key Zero-Trust principle.

Small Business Innovation Bootcamp - STL Tech Week
2024-04-09 09:00 - 16:00 | Northside Economic Empowerment Center, 4248 Cottage Avenue, St. Louis, MO, 63113, United States
Expand Your Impact with Microsoft 365 Copilot
Savvy Technical Solutions’ CEO/President, Becky Bertram will be presenting during the Small Business Innovation Bootcamp, part of STL Tech Week 2024. Small business leaders often wear many hats, fulfilling the responsibilities of a COO, CFO, CIO and/or HR manager. In this session, we will discuss the capabilities of Microsoft’s new AI companion, called Microsoft 365 Copilot, and how it can be used to expand the capabilities of, and save time for, SMB professionals, as they go about their daily jobs.
Technology has the potential to scale every business, no matter the type or stage. In what was one of the most popular conferences in 2023, the Small Business Innovation Bootcamp is bringing out St. Louis experts to teach you the easiest tech integrations that can rapidly diversify your income streams and transform your company systems. Even if your business is new to technology, this workshop series can help you get started fast!
Hosted at the Northside Economic Empowerment Center, the Small Business Bootcamp comes with lunch. This a free event, but seating is extremely limited – get your spot reserved now!

St. Louis M365 User Group
2024-01-30 09:00 - 11:00 | Microsoft Technology Center, 4220 Duncan Ave, St. Louis, MO, 63110, United States
Becky Bertram, Bill Feldker and Ajay Iyer will talk about all things Microsoft Copilot. Becky has been doing training on Copilot and will talk about some experiences there. Bill has been helping companies get started on their Copilot journey and will discuss some of the ways companies are getting value from Copilot. Ajay will talk about how at Microsoft he is both using and helping companies with Copilot.

STS M365 Roundtable
2024-01-17 09:00 - 11:00 | Spark Coworking, 6 Cardinal Way, Suite 900, St. Louis, MO, 63102, United States
Please join us for this event hosted by Savvy Technical Solutions, to learn more about how AI can give your organization a boost using Microsoft 365 Copilot. Additionally, learn more about the new SharePoint Premium product offering.
Click here to read more about the event.
Agenda
▪ 9:00 a.m.: Meet & Greet with breakfast
▪ 9:15 a.m.: Overview of Microsoft Copilot
▪ 10:15 a.m.: Overview of SharePoint Premium
▪ 10:45 a.m.: Q&A and Wrap-up
Click here to register for the event.

KC M365 User Group
2023-12-11 12:00 - 13:00 | Virtual
Come get a recap of the announcements made at Ignite this year from Sharon Weaver, and join Savvy’s own Becky Bertram to see a demo of Microsoft Copilot in action.

dev up 2023 Technology Conference
2023-08-28 - 2023-08-30 | St. Charles Convention Center, 1 Convention Center Plz, St. Charles, MO, 63303, United States
Dev up is back for its 13th conference! At dev up, you can expect a full schedule of inspiring speakers, informative breakout sessions, hands-on workshops, and networking opportunities. The conference program is designed to cater to all levels of experience, from beginners to old-school technology professionals.
Join Becky Bertram, Savvy Technical Solutions’ President, for her half day workshop on “‘Getting Started with Power Apps and Power Automate” as well as a session called “Level Up Your SharePoint Lists”.
This is a great opportunity for the regional technology community to come together to network, learn, and grow.
Location and Accommodation
The dev up 2023 conference will be held at the St. Charles Convention Center in St. Charles, MO. The convention center is attached to an Embassy Suites. When registration opens, make sure to look out for special rates for attendees at this location. There are also a number of other hotels and accommodation options near the location.

ICCM 2023
2023-06-14 | Hannibal-LaGrange University in Hannibal, Missouri, 2800 Palmyra Road, Hannibal, MO, 63401, United States
The International Conference on Computing and Mission (Americas) is scheduled for June 14-June 17, 2023 (Wednesday evening to Saturday noon) at Hannibal-LaGrange University in Hannibal, Missouri.
Savvy president Becky Bertram will be delivering the following pre-conference workshop on Microsoft 365 on Wednesday, June 14.
Developing Your M365 Communication and Document Management Strategy Using SharePoint and Teams
In this workshop, we will focus on how you can use SharePoint Online to build your organization’s intranet. We will then focus on how you can develop a strategy for organizing and maintaining your teams in Microsoft Teams, specifically as it relates to document management and communication. (Please note that we will not specifically be covering the voice features or Teams Rooms, etc. in this workshop.) This will be a hands-on workshop, so come with your laptop and be prepared to build out a sample intranet and to create your own teams in a demo environment, or in your own tenant if you have permissions.
Topics we will cover include:

How to plan your intranet site structure using hub sites
How to edit web pages and create news stories and events in your SharePoint intranet
How to manage security in your intranet sites
Understanding the connection between Teams and Microsoft 365 groups
Understanding channel types in Teams, including standard, private, and the new “shared”
Teams administration concept including: naming conventions, group expiration policies and archiving
Understanding sharing, guest accounts, and B2B collaboration in Teams and SharePoint

Register for the event.

About ICCM
Founded in 1989, ICCM is an incredible time of Christian fellowship, professional training, and networking among people with a technical interest in missions.

Women in Tech Summit - Midwest 2023
2023-06-05 - 2023-06-06 | Northern Illinois University – Naperville Campus, 1120 E. Diehl Road, Naperville, IL, 60563, United States
The Women in Tech Summit – Midwest is excited to be back in person this year! The Women in Tech Summit (WITS), is the only tech conference with all women speakers, provides education, inspiration, and connection to women in tech, in every field, in business and technical roles, at every level of their careers.
Savvy’s President and Owner, Becky Bertram will once again be presenting and you won’t want to miss out!

Lessons on Running Your Solo Consulting Practice from 20 Years in the Trenches
June 6, 2023
11:15 AM – 12:00 PM

Innovate Yourself

With the proliferation of “gig” platforms, many women are re-evaluating their employment choices and considering launching their own solo careers as freelancers or consultants. In this session, Becky Bertram will lean on her 20 years of experience regarding what it takes to run a successful solo consulting practice. She will share her personal journey as a working mother and business owner, and provide her tips and tricks for running a tech consulting company.

Register to secure your spot now!

Metro East Roundtable
2023-05-23 09:00 - 11:00 | Cafe Biz 618, 10850 Lincoln Trail #16, Fairview Heights, IL, 62208
Please join us for this unique opportunity to learn from one another regarding how Microsoft 365 is being used within your organizations, as well as learn about new and upcoming features that can help your organization move forward.
Agenda
▪ 9:00 a.m.: Meet & Greet with breakfast
▪ 9:15 a.m.: Demo of real-world working Power Platform solution with discussion/ideas for similar solutions in your own organization
▪ 9:45 a.m.: Microsoft Teams discussion around new features and best practices (including naming conventions, archiving strategies, shared channels and sharing strategies)
▪ 10:30 a.m.: Preview of “what’s next” at Microsoft (including using AI to create and curate content with Co-pilot)
▪ 10:45 a.m.: Q&A and Wrap-up

KC M365 User Group
2023-01-09 12:00 - 13:00
Microsoft presents a number of options for collecting information from users, such as Microsoft forms, SharePoint list forms, and Power Apps. In this session we walk through the basics of how to build a Microsoft Forms form, how to customize a SharePoint list form, how to build a stand-alone Power App form, and how to customize a SharePoint form with a Power App. More importantly, we will talk about when to use which kind of form. We will also discuss how you can set up alerts to be notified when a new item is submitted using your form of choice and much more! Register here on Meetup.

CollabCon 2022
2022-10-28 08:00 - 17:00 | University of Kansas Edwards Campus, 12600 S Quivira Rd, Overland Park, KS, 66213, United States
CollabCon is dedicated to bringing together collaboration experts from across platforms and industries to share their expertise with you!

Join us for a one-day action packed event with sessions, hands-on opportunities at the Collaboration Station, and watch vendors and sponsors go toe-to-toe to defend their stance on why their tools and recommendations are “the right” ones.
Savvy Technical Solutions President, Becky Bertram, will be presenting a session on “Intro to Viva Goals”. In this session you will learn about Viva Goals, which recently made its debut as part of the Viva platform. You will learn about how you can set up OKR’s (objectives and key results) for your organization and your team. This enables measurable tracking by users toward larger, organization-wide goals.

Want to save on your registration fee – just use code BERTRAM20!

North American Collab Summit
2022-10-12 - 2022-10-14 | Brandson Convention Center, 200 S Sycamore St, Branson, MO, 65616
Did you know that one of the country’s best Microsoft 365 conferences happens in proximity to St. Louis? Every year we are happy to attend and speak at the North American Collaboration Summit, which takes place in one our favorite local vacation destinations — Branson, Missouri. This year, Becky will be presenting two sessions:

Exam Cram for PL-900: Microsoft Power Platform Fundamental
End-to-End Demo: Fully Automated Employee On-boarding Process

Please mark your calendars and sign up now!
www.collabsummit.org

ICCM Americas
2022-06-22 - 2022-06-25 | Hannibal-LaGrange University in Hannibal, Missouri, 2800 Palmyra Road, Hannibal, MO, 63401, United States
Founded in 1989, ICCM is an incredible time of Christian fellowship, professional training, and networking among people with a technical interest in missions. With ICCM conferences hosted in various locations across the USA, as well as regionally in Europe, Australia, Asia, Africa and Europe, over 110 missions, colleges, and businesses have participated in the conferences.
Join our President, Becky Bertram, as she will be presenting two sessions:

End-to-End Demo: Fully Automated Employee On-boarding Process
Planning Your Organization’s Communications and Collaboration Strategy Using M365

As a participant in ICCM, you are part of this story of taking the gospel of Jesus Christ to the nations through technology.
Mark your calendars and save 25% when you sign up now, as early bird registration is open until April 15th!
(Regular registration will be from April 16 – May 31st. Commuters may register after May 31st, but will need to provide their own meals. Commuter Registration ends June 15th.)

dev up 2022 Technology Conference
2022-06-06 - 2022-06-08 | Ameristar Casino Resort Spa St. Charles, 1 Ameristar Boulevard, St. Charles, MO, 63301, United States
After being required to postpone this event for the past 2 years, dev up is excited to be back for their 12th conference! Dev up provides professional development via pragmatic, strategic industry insight to address the challenges and trends that shape the lives of IT professionals.
Join Becky Bertram, Savvy Technical Solutions’ President, for her session: Presenting End-to-End Demo: Fully Automated Employee On-boarding Process.
This is a great opportunity for the regional technology community to come together to network, learn, and grow. Register for your tickets now!

**As in previous years there will be full and ½ day technology workshops on Monday, June 6th and the actual conference will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday, June 7th and 8th.**

Women in Tech Summit
2022-04-27 - 2022-04-29 | Virtual
The Women in Tech Summit will be happening virtually this year, and Becky will be presenting the following topic:
Going It Alone: Lessons on Running Your Solo Consulting Practice from 20 Years in the Trenches
In the midst of the Great Resignation, and with the proliferation of “gig” platforms, many women are re-evaluating their employment choices and considering launching their own solo careers as freelancers or consultants. In this session, Becky Bertram will lean on her 20 years of experience regarding what it takes to run a successful solo consulting practice. She will share her personal journey as a working mother and business owner, and provide her tips and tricks for running a tech consulting company.
The cost is usually $149 but you can sign up for 25% off using the discount code: SPEAKER25.

Canadian Cloud Summit
2022-02-17 10:00 - 18:00
Join us at the 2022 virtual Canadian Cloud Summit on Thursday, February 17. This fully virtual summit covers content from industry experts on topics such as Microsoft Viva, Teams, SharePoint, Power Platform, Azure and Dynamics 365.
Savvy owner Becky Bertram will be presenting her session that demonstrates how you can create a total employee on-boarding process by combining workloads in M365 and the Power Platform

M365 Chicago Virtual Event - 2022
2022-01-14 08:00 - 17:00
M365 Chicago is taking place on Friday, January 14th, 2022. Like the event in November, this event will be completely virtual. You register on EventBrite and learn more at m365chicago.com.
I will be presenting not one, but two sessions at this event. Sign up now for this great event!
Planning Your Organization’s Communications and Collaboration Strategy Using M365

Whether you are building your first corporate intranet in SharePoint Online (or rebuilding an old one), rolling out (or re-organizing) Teams, trying to implement Yammer communities, or anywhere in-between, it can be daunting to know what to do with so many tools available in Microsoft 365, and to know where to start. In this session, we will cover the questions that need to be asked, and decisions that need to be made, when implementing your overall communication and collaboration strategy. Questions we’ll ask include: “When do we use SharePoint, when do we use Teams, and when do we use Yammer?”, “How do we handle our organizational calendar as well as departmental calendars?”, “How do we facilitate cross-departmental communication?” and more. We’ll also talk about various strategies for making these decisions. At the end we will leave time for participants to share ideas with one another about how they have implemented their own solutions.
Exam Cram for PL-900: Microsoft Power Platform Fundamentals
This session will give you an overview of the Microsoft exam and certification process in general and and for the Power Platform in particular. We cover the main topics of the exam so you know which topics you need to study. We will also through a few sample questions in there so you have a feel for the type of questions you’ll encounter on the exam.

MVP Summit 2019
2019-03-18 - 2019-03-23 | Microsoft, Redmond, WA
The MVP Summit is a time for Microsoft MVPs to gather at the Microsoft campus in Redmond, WA, to meet with product teams and each other. As a 10x MVP (currently for Office Services & Apps), I will be heading to Seattle in March for this event. While what is discussed is under a strict non-disclosure agreement, I will be preparing for the public release of information ahead of time, so you can get the latest and greatest as it’s reported publicly.
(You can view posts about some of the other summits I’ve attended here.)

Office 365 Saturday St. Louis
2019-01-19 08:00 - 17:00
Join us for this all day, free event, where you can learn from well-known experts in a free, all day conference. Breakfast and lunch included.
