About Me

Hey y’all, I’m Chad Althaus. Thanks for visiting my blog! I’m a passionate enthusiast of the Dynamics 365 and Power Platform who decided to begin blogging about it. I'm also a husband, father to one, and follower of Christ. I graduated with an engineering degree from Texas A&M University… so of course I found my calling in IT. 🤪

I began my career in a global manufacturing company in operations and moved into IT within a few years. I worked as a business analyst for internally developed applications until I was offered the opportunity to manage the D365 support and development in our organization. At this time, in early 2019, I had only a vague idea of what a CRM was or how it was used, but I knew it would be a great opportunity. Diving in, I discovered something that I wanted to build my career upon.

After taking a training course, I began to inundate myself in the world of Dynamics 365 and the newly created Power Platform in which it seemed to now belong. I'll admit it took a while for me to get my bearings and start understanding how to customize the system and build processes, especially as there were now two ways to do almost everything (referring of course to the Power Apps "Maker" Portal and the classic Solution Explorer within D365). I now have primary responsibility for the customization in our organization and work with a great team to carry this out.

As far as D365 applications, I have the most experience with Sales, am gaining experience in Marketing, and this year I'm expanding into F&O (Finance and Supply Chain Management) as our organization begins an implementation.

As a self-identified "citizen developer", I've developed particular passions for using Power Automate with CDS and replacing developer code with native no-code tools. Nothing beats the feeling of replacing a plugin or JavaScript with a code-free native tool (hey... I'm not a developer after all!). I'm sure you'll see this come out as a common theme in many of my posts. 😄

I got plugged into the CRMUG (now D365UG CE) early on and have been regularly attending our local UG meetings and participating in the discussions. Seeking to get further involved, I joined the leadership of our local UG in July 2020. I love to network with others who are using the same tool and see how differently each company leverages the same application. 

You can connect with me on the D365UG or LinkedIn. Please don't hesitate to reach out! I'm always interested in meeting new people, and I'd love to collaborate, chat, or just hear your story.