Sage 100

Customer is upgrading to 100 Adv v2018. They are insisting on trying a Site/Site VPN and running Sage from a Hosted Environment and doing workstation setups on their local machines. Ping times are not in the supported range and I've told them so. I had to copy Wksetup folder to the local, run it and it ran fine. But now when launching it wants to do the Workstation Sync and is timing out. Is there anyway to copy whatever it's reading to the local or any suggestions other than RDS?

You can try installing a ""full copy"" of the system on a local machine, including the matching service update, running the workstation setup from there, getting it to sync, and then re-pointing the shortcut and the sota.ini to the ""real"" server. You could leave it in place for future service updates ..... Jeff

Would I need to do the third party products too or just Sage 100 and PU?

Depends on what they are, but 90+ % just the Sage100 and PU

Install the workstation from a mapped drive (or change the paths in SOTA.ini and shortcut to use a mapped drive). Temporarily point that mapped drive to path above a local copy of the MAS90 directory... then after the workstation is up to date, remap the drive to the network path (or update shortcut / SOTA.ini to the server's UNC).

I stumbled across these instructions on[ how to perform the workstation sync manually ](https://support.na.sage.com/selfservice/viewdocument.do?noCount=true&externalId=90140&sliceId=1&isLoadPublishedVer=&docType=kc&docTypeID=DT_Article&stateId=20399&cmd=displayKC&dialogID=823003&ViewedDocsListHelper=com.kanisa.apps.common.BaseViewedDocsListHelperImpl&openedFromSearchResults=true)

Even after you overcome the current Workstation Sync issue, I foresee the whole user experience as being way too slow for comfort. And printing a report will take ages. At Sage I contributed quite a bit to the SPM content. The section about VPN, ping times (the 1800ms Microsoft rule of thumb), shared internet vs Point-to-Point (P2P) connections, VPN alone too slow unless accompanied by RDP, etc is largely mine. I don't know what it says today exactly but I'm thinking your bigger goal should be to find a way to justify Terminal Server / RDS or Citrix and running Wkstn Setup on that hosted VM/box. In the non-optimal setup you're being forced into, you could document the slowness in terms of start up time, opening screens, moving from tab to tab within a screen, and printing. Just print an A/R Aging report and record the slowness. Then note the time to do same stuff on their current un-upgraded version. It's also helpful for the hosted IT people to speak with Sage 100 IT people like several in this group, some of which do their own hosting. It's a trust thing and they become much more receptive when you can speak their language. I sound vain but I've found for myself when I have that 20 minute friendly conversation with IT giving them my background creds and experience and explaining the 100 architecture, and using their terminology, it has made the key difference to swing the decision in the direction we want as the client's trusted advisor.

We had a customer set up by their IT with a VPN connection from a remote office location. I screen shared with her one day and it was painful. 30-60 seconds to even open a data entry screen. Take the user time wasted by waiting for system response (and time is money), not to mention the frustration factor... and any competent manager should see the cost of a terminal server will pay for itself. Setting up a remote desktop is not primarily about spending money, it is about saving costs / waste.

If its a money issue, put the customer in contact with Mark Grimes Dimension Funding, he can set up a great deal and bundle in your services with the hardware/software. https://www.dimensionfunding.com/90minds/

I agree with all of you and thank you for your input. I'm going to play their game and let them see for themselves what being cheap does to productivity. Then nicely tell them to please implement RDS. Sometimes you have to prove out the obvious.

Yes Remote Desktop or a solution like Citrix or Ericom are really the only viable solutions if they have a competent in-house or outsourced IT department. Of course there are several of us in the group that would suggest outsourcing the client as well. As the 2018 and Office integration come into play, I believe we will see a greater use of hosted virtual desktops as opposed to just hosting applications.