Sage News and Discussion

A warning on the Sage U payments: not all training key code credits are equal!! Yep, key codes for renewing certifications will NOT work if you want to buy a cert CLASS. I put $$ against a card to handle our renewals and a $1000 cert class. The keycode generated would not work against the class. I talked to Katie Nearman about this, and she eventually confirmed this. It's like having two types of drink tickets at a party: 1 for beer and 1 for liquor. Katie was quite helpful and responsive, but sounded like there were a lot of things about this site she wasn't going to defend. It is not clear whether this problem is the way Sage implemented the Cornerstone site, or it's built into Cornerstone. Either way, Sage ought to hang a huge, flashing ""Beware. Not all credits are the same."" Between the inanity of having a site so complicated that you must go through training to use it, and this payment crap, and other nutso details I am now 100% in agreement with Peter's assessment: ""a stinking pile of s#*t."" Too bad, because it has lots of potential. Also, the attached ppt is a concise reminder of how to buy the keycodes to begin with. Yep, that's not intuitive either.

Epicor offers all training to partners for free. Doesn't that make sense? I wonder if sage charges their employers for training also lol

Jerry I think I can see the problem. Did you take the certification training to be certified to use the certification web site? I've talked to dozens of partners and they love all these new training opportunities and we've received nothing but praise for the increased complexity of our certifications. Most partners see this as an opportunity to force competitors out of the business due to frustration with our bullshit. Have a good Thanksgiving! Love , Sage

Once you become a Consultant Manager, all will become clear. I'm waiting for my official certificate, so I can hang it proudly on my office wall. I can say to prospects who are shopping around ""Yes, but do they have any Consultant Managers?"" That will seal the deal for sure.

This is no doubt a PITA. And yet, I do see a lot of potential value in this new system. The interface, including some of the required processes, is simply not intuitive. I keep seeing signs of the ""hollowing out"" of Sage NA. That is, they have lots (less now) of worker bees, and certainly plenty of execs. But middle, where the judgment about what really works in the real world, is pretty much gone. So we get a lot of half-baked releases.

Another incentive for the Clients First, DSD model of consortium (which is not supported by Sage) to centralize the BS and consolidate the channel so Sage can pay higher rates to the same people they could screw over easier as smaller entities.

You left off Net@Work - http://www.netatwork.com/alliance/

Yea, Blytheco and others as well...

@GaryFeldman - So very true. Sage is so intent on making life difficult for the smaller owner operators. Every time I turn around, there is another useless certification hoop to jump through. If only they would spend half as much energy making their product marketable as they are making life difficult for us, everyone would benefit.

You've also overlooked that not a single customer transfer from one partner to another can be facilitated without Sage's consent. So I'm not sure where you draw the conclusion that any particular business model is not supported by Sage. If the model were not supported the customer lists would not transfer. Or am I missing something else?

Both Microsoft and SAP have formal programs for partner consolidation. Sage, in this and several other aspects of its business, buries it's head in the sand and says that if you work with a consolidator you loose your identity as a business and only remain as an individual

Back to the original subject, I have had no less than 3 Sage U people helping sort out their mess with paying for certs. I originally had 7 so we qualified for the 20% discount, but then my competency ""X3 Pre-Sales Consultant"" has been deemed to not be certifiable, which says a lot about sales. I am left with 6 certifications, but the one for BusinessWorks costs only $350, so when purchasing Training Units, the total amount does not go over the amount qualifying for the 20% discount (which would be 6*$650=$3,900). So I was sent 6 discount coupons, but no actual instructions on how to use them. (No, that wasn't covered in my Consultant Manager certification courses.) Keep in mind this was happening all last week and now is continuing this week. I thought through the Training Units and coupon usage logically, which was apparently my downfall. There is no logic involved here. I bought Training Units at 80% of what the total is, thinking I could use those plus the coupons. Nope. You can use the coupons with a credit card or being invoiced. So now they are going to credit my Training Units, so I can pay for each cert with my credit card and the discount coupons. Oh, and two of my consultants already had renewed and asked to be invoiced, so they have to credit those also. Remember this all had to be completed by December 1 (which would have been actually last Wednesday), but that was an artificial deadline they aren't enforcing. I can't imagine how frustrating this would have been if I weren't a Consultant Manager!

John, I think there are now a lot of lower-level Sage folks, like Katie, shaking their heads while cussing in French. This isn't going to get better any time soon.