The 2002 Livelink User Conference, was the first time that a Livelink user conference had been held in Europe was a wonderful success for both the users and for OpenText.

On the first two days a wide and varied program of training courses were provided on everything from 'Builders XML Objects' to the 'Livelink Architecture Workshop', aimed at a wide cross section of Livelink users from end-user to senior developers, project managers to administrators. The remaining two days of the conference contained a wide selection of breakout sessions and guest speakers.

On the openeing day I attended two workshops on XML and Livelink, investigating the use of XML and XML Stylesheets with Livelink and then how to use XML within the Livelink Builder - the Livelink SDK kit - both were very well presented and provided a lot of food for thought. The following day I attended a seminar on "Painless Livelink Upgrades" led by Robbie Cole, who led a very good session on how to plan and manage an upgrade to any Livelink system and covered some of the potential pitfalls. In the afternoon, Robbie led the group through a session on 'Troubleshooting a Livelink Server' including a chance to get our hands dirty with some 'broken' servers and discuss common problems and resolutions with others.

Also present were a large number of OpenText partners - such as Formark, Cardiff etc. This was not only a conference for OpenText's main product - Livelink - but also for their other products such as Basis. This inclusiveness was also reflected in the workshops, partners and breakout sessions available throughout the Conference.

One of the advantages of the Conference is the oppportunity to meet face to face with many OpenText staff that you may have spoken to on the phone, emailed of heard of in the flesh. I met several people who I had met previoulsy only in conference calls or by email and had 'known' in this fashion for several years. In addition to this, the conference provide the Europeans a chance to meet other Livelink users in Europe and dicuss what they used Livelink for - as a European Livelink User Group does not currently exist - this proved a real eye-opener in terms of the diversity of uses that Livelink is being used for.

As with all conference, various key OpenText people were present, some as trainers, others as presenters. I was lucky enough to sit in on Jeff Lang's - OpenText's Workflow and Forms Guru - Q & A sessions and discover many hidden facets and new approaches to working with these technologies. Also of interest was Dave Templeton (Indexing), who gave one of the workshop groups an insight into the advances that had been made in the Indexing side and the huge reduction in duration that had been achieved.

On the last night, we moved from the Palais de Congress to a river cruise up and down the Seine river, during which the several presentations were made as well as a disco and casino - although many of us took the opportunity to enjoy the sights of Paris.

All in all, I found the event a complete success, and hope that OpenText will repeat the event next year. I could quite easily have spent several more days there attending workshops, events, learning and meeting people and look forward to keeping in touch with the many new Livelink people I met in Paris.