PUG Chair Corner: First-ever virtual PUG Conference

November 19, 2020

For those that do not know me, I am Adam Spitzley from the Michigan DOT and the 2021 Chair. As we all know by now, the 2020 Project User Group conference was completely virtual due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Even though we were not able to attend and network in person this year, we still had a lot of content to cover! This included webinars for the TAG meetings, PUG User Rep/PTF Closed Meeting, the open PUG Business Meeting, Special Topic Webinars hosted by Info Tech, six presentations including a PTF Town Hall during two webinars, reports from the PTF Chair, AASHTO, and Contractor, and even PUG Board videos putting the Power of You into action!  To view all that the 2020 PUG Conference had to offer, please visit https://www.aashtowareproject.org/pug#recording-archive.

The AASHTOWare Project 4.4 release was just released on September 30^th, 2020, and there are videos covering 11 of the Enhancement TMRs. To view these videos, please visit https://www.aashtowareproject.org/training-videos. Please note that you will need to login to https://www.aashtowareproject.org/ first to view the videos.

There is also a new forum available on aashtowareproject.org where the PUG User Community can ask and answer questions on 14 categories associated with AASHTOWare Project. To view the forum, please visit  https://forum.aashtowareproject.org/.  Please note that you will need to login to the forum site the first time.

Looking forward to the 2021 PUG, a decision was made by the PUG Board and the subgroup that the 2021 PUG will be virtual. The Board and the subgroup felt that there were too many unknowns to be certain that we could provide an in-person conference this year due to possible travel restrictions for agencies.  More to come on the details of what to expect for the 2021 PUG. The Board will be collaborating with the subgroup, Project Task Force, and Infotech to ensure that the 2021 Virtual PUG will be a success.

Future Dates

PUG 2021 (Virtual) – Monday, September 27^th, 2021 through Thursday, September 30^th, 2021

PUG 2022 (Nevada) – Sunday, October 16^th, 2022 through Thursday, October 20^th, 2022

PUG 2023 (Idaho) – Sunday, August 27^th, 2023 through Thursday, August 31^st, 2023

PUG 2024 (Virginia) – To Be Determined

 

By

Adam Spitzley, Information Technology Specialist, State of Michigan, PUG Chair