Sage 100

Anyone else having problems with SPS this morning? As in, credit cards not authorizing?

Not that specifically, but I encountered some websites late last night that simply weren't there. I assumed it was glitches from Sandy's infrastructure stress.

The customer gets this when trying to authorize: ""The credit card transaction request failed. The payment server returned a result of ."" Not very helpful...

Have you tried multiple credit cards? Have you tried running a charge directly inside VT? Have you contacted SPS yet? Keep us posted.

I have tried a different card and I have contacted my SPS guy. Haven't tried directly on VT though - good suggestion @BrettZimmerman !

You may also wish to consider contacting SPS Tech Supp directly. I have always found them to be very helpful.

The VT has an alert saying they are operating with reduced staff due to Sandy but I will give it a try.

I just took a report

They are not taking calls due to the ""severe weather""... Yeah, I got that one too @WayneSchulz

Okay, then, it's not just my client!

One of our clients just reported, ""When trying to process CC getting blank MAS message box with just an ""OK"" icon.

Asking Sage PR, blogged, Linkedin now - we'll know quickly.

Of course you beat me to it on LinkedIn... Damn, you're quick!

Sorry - I don't mean to rip people off when they are the source but at the same time I assume that people might now want to be identified as the source (a surprising number of VARS prefer to be left out of the Sage spotlight for fear of reprisals). So I tend to borrow general info without attribution unless someone tells me it's ok to use their name. I'm used to fielding phone calls and emails from just about anywhere screaming at me.

Not a problem. I don't know WHY I was surprised. It's a compliment, not a complaint. :)

Trying to chat with SPS now but the chat does not appear to be working. This is BS.

What do they claim their online reliability is??

Yeah, right...

I was able to get into a Chat session, but then received this: ""We are sorry the inconvenience, but chat agents are not available at this time. Our support staff is available 7 days a week from 8 am to 12 am EST. Please open a support ticket https://support.sagepayments.com/ics/support/ticketNew.asp or call us at 877-470-4001 for further assistance.

This is what is on the VT: ""Severe Weather Alert Limited Support Available - 10/29/2012 3:02:51 PM Please note that due to the severe weather conditions in the Eastern Region, Sage Payments Support is operating with a very limited staff, which may result in long hold times or times where support cannot take calls.

And when you call the phone #, they suggest you start a Chat session if your issue is urgent. lol

Sorry - but if you want to play in this sandbox Sage you need to be wearing big boy pants. An apology on you website is bullshit.

I just got off the phone with SPS. Will post info in a minute.

Yes, Sage should do better. I am most interested now to watch how Sage deals with the aftermath. Any credits to customers? Any apology? How about a detailed plan as to what they will change to improve for future outages. If they are strongly proactive on these things, there is hope. Remember, even Amazon AWS has challenges with outages. How they deal with them is the important thing - and whether they become less frequent over time.

Apparently SPS is technically closed, but I guess a few folks made it in to help with the phones, etc. One of the Processing Vendors is down, who is based out of NYC which obviously got hit hard by Sandy. Been down since 5:15a, and therefore Auth's and Settlements won't go thru. A mass e-mail was supposedly sent out to all customers at around 10a ET regarding this outage. No ETA at this point.

Thanks Brett - I updated the 90 Minds post. And I still think Sage is accountable. If you want to play in this arena = no excuses. And the reason they don't send an email to the channel? PR emailed me back that they'd have to check....didn't have any outage info

Is there only one processing center??? Asking my customer if she received an email. We'll see...

Can we say disaster recovery plan?????

I just received an email from SPS - they are working to resolve the issue, and will follow-up with a status update shortly...

My customer hasn't responded. I'm sure she's thinking, ""Email from who? You're the only one I've received emails from today!

Can you post the email @DianaLaughner ?

Would like to see the image of that email as well

I emailed their support address and received this: ""Therese, We do not currently have an ETA. I apologize for the inconvenience; we are working diligently with our processing vendor to restore service as soon as possible.

Here is the email

My customer just responded that she has not received any emails.

My customer responded that she received an email shortly after contacting me. I'm asking Sage why they did not bother notifying channel partners - a question that I will have the opportunity to ask a few more times...

Sage is absolutely accountable. It strikes me as very odd that they have only a single processing vendor, and it is centered in the World's Biggest Terrorist Magnet.

I think ""the Cloud"" is getting a test today.

Sage Payments website now has a ""Processing Delay Alert"" announcement (https://support.sagepayments.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=20000) Due to the extreme weather conditions on the East Coast, our processing vendor started experiencing connectivity issues with our network. This began around 5:15 am EST today, which may be causing authorization and settlement disruptions via our gateway products, such as the Virtual Terminal. We are working quickly to resolve the issue and will follow up with a status update shortly. We apologize for any inconvenience you may be experiencing with your processing at this time and thank you for your patience.

They don't even date this? Or did I overlook it somewhere? Sure , these guys are ready for the cloud....

Sage PR claims they are now back. Were only intermittently down. ""Not bad for Sandy"" ..

There is an update on the VT as well, dated today at 10:36 AM with the same info as @BrettZimmerman 's.

It's not working yet at my customer's.

Sage Payments (@SagePayments) has been Tweeting a little bit.

But not until 20 minutes ago!

One partner showed me an email they received directly from SPS representative at 10:50 am.

Good catch, @ThereseLogeais. I guess the media was so focused on preparing regular 'ol citizens (which I think they did a good job of), that they forgot to remind certain businesses.

And while I'm on a roll here -- exactly how many days did the East Coast know that Hurricane Sandy was coming? Granted Sage may have suffered a failure downstream - but could't they have used their week long notice ( there are weather services that provide those long range forecasts with EXTREME accuracy) to beef up their notifications? Something failed here.

When this type of incompetence happens at Apple - people get fired at the SVP level....

We all know how good Sage is at long range planning....

@WayneSchulz, can you imagine if this would have happened in Italy (i.e., re: not predicting the earthquake)?

One of my clients just called me - she called SPS and was on hold, then got a message saying Due to circumstances beyond their control, they are closed today. This is unbelievable. She did NOT receive an eamil from them.

Just heard from another customer. ""We cant get ahold of sage virtual support, and we are unable to run CC's HELP!!!

@DianaLaughner, that's exactly what I got but remained on hold and a Rep actually picked up after 5min or so. Sage Payments just changed the format of that Processing Delay Alert page (https://support.sagepayments.com/link/portal/20000/20000/Article/706/Processing-Delay-Alert). Of course I can't seem to locate the Subscribe link/button.

That reads like they are indeed only using one processor.

We have a few SPS Customers. As their partner, we haven't received any notices from SPS. What do you want to bet that any responsibility for Sage cloud uptime is in UK? I also think this is what you get with the ""hollowing"" of an organization. A Sr guy passes the job to stress the system on to a direct report who is simply not qualified. If they fire this week's VP IT over this, how will that affect Atlas? Will anybody notice anything at all?

I went through my list of SPS clients and have called them. We implemented work around procedures until SPS service is restored. 90 Minds helped us provided a level of proactive service that customers appreciate.

Subscribe link now available (https://support.sagepayments.com/link/portal/20000/20000/Article/706/Processing-Delay-Alert)

My customer just received an email from Website Pipeline, not Sage:

Perhaps we should be rethinking 2013 and switching everyone over to SPS or at least ask Sage why they don't have parallel systems in alternate locations.

As of noon still taking reports from customers of difficulties

Same here. Just heard from SPS guy who said: ""I see there is an email notification about a network destruction because of the storm.

We sent an email to our SPS customers (most of whom have already contacted us) letting them know of the situation, assuring them Sage is working diligently on it, yada, yada, yada and advising them not to post any invoices with credit card payment info until further notice. If this does not get resolved soon, the only solution I see is to keep track of those invoices to be paid by credit card, update them with no payment info, then wait and process them through a cc cash receipts entry if/when the system is back up. Of course, the same is true for pre-auth SO's. @MyronStevenson what workarounds did you suggest?

Hard to pin down how proactive Sage is being with notifications. One customer claims he was only advised by his rep after asking. Apparently ""because of bad weather"" is Sage's kryptonite which wards off all duties and responsibilities.

Just got this from my SPS guy: Here is the work around we are suggesting. I understand the problem is not one of our systems, however it is with an internet service provider that provides connectivity for the authorizations Due to the severe weather on the East Coast, the VT/Gateway is experiencing connectivity issues with authorization and settlement. Our vendor is working on fixing the issue, however in the meantime you may suggest to you merchants that they use the Voice Authorization numbers to gain an approval and then run a ""Force"" transaction once the Gateway is running again. The Help section of the VT has their Merchant ID Number for reference. Who do I contact to get a Voice Authorization? U.S. Merchants (Visa/MC) - (800) 291-4840 Canada Merchants - (800) 527-0782 Please let me know if I can provide any additional assistance.

In this situation, what ""force"" transaction process is he referring to?

I believe he means, they won't be authorized through MAS but you can get a voice authorization (with a code?). You would then have to log onto the VT and ""Force"" the transactions once the system is up again. How easily do you think it would be to get one of those voice auths?

Prediction: It will be as easy to get voice authorization (I bet this scales real well when you need more than two an hour) as it was to find a support person for Sage Payments this morning.

Actually the Processing Delay Alert page (https://support.sagepayments.com/link/portal/20000/20000/Article/706/Processing-Delay-Alert) has been updated with some detailed information on this workaround.

I'm pretty sure that they backdated that alert or they moved it from some private area -- I was in there looking pretty closely at these same pages about 10am and it was not there - and the alerts that were up were very generic - there was no date or time.

All they did was add ""Update"" to it.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't there at 10an when I looked - there was just a generic paragraph without date or any of this. Did you see it earlier?

You're correct, Wayne. Then at around 11a or so they changed to this formatted Alert page (with date and time of 5a this morning), and then it seems that about 30min ago they added the Update-workaround solution information.

We very well may have been some of the first to alert Sage to the issue -- assuming all their tech support people didn't show up due to the hurricane. Which , btw, completely boggles my mind that Sage could in any way shape or form find that acceptable.... especially given that there is a West Coast office where calls could have been transferred. If I were in charge someone's ass would be out looking for a new job.

I had contacted my RAM/RSM right after 10 this morning asking the uncomfortable questions (for Sage, not me) about the product and service in general that we are supposed to be pushing, so I know he forwarded that on to some SPS people, but I may now just be branded as another troublemaker and ignored.

A client just emailed me that her SPS is now working.

Glad to hear it although I wouldn't bank on it completely just yet, as it could be temporary as SPS is working on the issue. Plus the Processing Delay Alert web page still says Pending, and I haven't received an e-mail notification as of yet from SPS per my Processing Delay Alert Subscription. But now that I think about it, I didn't receive an e-mail notification once they updated that page with the Voice Auth workaround.

My customer still cannot authorize although they do get a failed message now instead of the blank one.

RESOLVED: *Update* As previously communicated the issue with processing credit cards and settling batches within the Virtual Terminal products and integrations, which were identified on 10/30/12, are currently resolved. All transactions have been routed to our McLean location until our vendors can confirm their primary circuits are back online. Please continue to process transactions as normal and settle any batches you were delaying due to the processing issue. We suggest that you review your open batch prior to settling the transactions to verify transaction accuracy in the event they may have been attempted and authorized multiple times.

My client called earlier today and was told that it was ""absolutely"" not a SPS issue.............

By whom??

Sounds like the company has their ""fucus"" on the problem -- it's not them.

Sage definitely has taken the approach that this was not an SPS outage but one from downstream at one of their processors. Still does not explain how the failed to notify any of their channel or many of their customers though I think it's in Sage's DNA to make excuses versus actually figure out a plan for something like an email notification in case their system went down. Somewhere in a conference room there are a bunch of Sage employees - all avoiding each others glances - having some type of a rah-rah session to reassure each other that this was not Sage's fault and it actually was worsened by channel partners telling their customers about it....

I'll put this down as an 8am to 4pm outage.

we use SPS internally and never received any notification with issues. so not sure who they sent noticiations out to if any :(

I sent my SPS users an email after it was resolved and one just replied and thanked me for letting them know of the issue and the resolution. Thanks for the suggestion @MyronStevenson and you're right, this group helps bring appreciated value to our customers. (Myron, have you done your testimonial yet???)

@ThereseLogeais -we did the same. I was just commenting that as we use SPS internally - that idealy, I should have been on the receiving end of any notifications maybe?

Agreed @AngieMarquez - it's been stressed in the above posts that Sage should have done a better job. Myron mentioned he emailed his users this morning so I did as well (in addition to this afternoon's email after it was resolved). I just wanted to thank him for pointing out how great this group is and the value it brings to not only us as partners but to the customers as well...

One more odd twist. This evening I got the attached note from Sage HRMS. The note is all about Sandy. Inside: ""Dear Sage Channel Partner impacted by Hurricane Sandy"" And yet, the attachment is all about a product upgrade?!? We never did get anything here from Sage about SPS outage or anything else. Really, really tone deaf marketing here.

Btw, I never did receive any e-mail notifications even though I subscribed to the SPS Processing Delay Alert. (""Click Subscribe here or at the bottom of this page to start receiving updates about this alert. Subscribers will receive an email any time a future alert is issued or an update to the current issue is posted."")

@BrettZimmerman I also subscribed and never received an email. I thought that was how you knew it was resolved and I was wondering why I didn't receive the email. Now why did we think they would actually email us??

At sometime overnight I got two emails from SPS - one timestamped 10/30 9:49 am about having problems and one timestamped 10/31 2:48 pm congratulating themselves for working so hard to fix things that weren't their fault.

Since we are on the topic of SPS, has anyone received their 3rd quarter commission ACH payment. It was supposed to be in the bank account the last week of October. Mine isn't.

Jeff - I just checked, mine was posted yesterday.

Haven't gotten mine yet...

Mine has not been posted yet either.

Blame it on Sandy?

Blame it on Sage. It is not like Sandy just came out of nowhere. They had over a week to prepare.

Hmm, mine is always two months behind. How come you guys are so special??

My boss received this e-mail from SPS yesterday afternoon - probably what @PhilMcIntosh is referring to.

Mine hasn't posted either. But we usually get it ~5 weeks after end of quarter.