Sage 100

Has anyone noticed this little addition to Sage 100 2017 PU 2 for Library Master: Partners and SAN Customers (NFR keys) will expire on the date that corresponds to the year that support ends for this version. This is telling me that I can no longer support customers after Sage says support has ended. All of our keys, I believe, show as 100c so we can work with all the bells and whistles. But from 2017 PU 2 and on, Users of NFR keys, can not use their key to support non ""Sage Supported"" versions. We would have to register a non-NFR key to use the software. I have every version going back to 3.21 installed and available. Anyone else see this as an issue?

We need to fight this, it's directly undercutting our abilities to do business. There are plenty of reasons to have non-supported version available for Partners: 1. Customer has modifications and can't upgrade until mods are available. 2. To help customers off plan migrate to current version and make more money for Sage. 3. For testing of feature changes for customers and to take over for Sage's support staff, since they are redirecting partners to our group. 4. We use the NFR internally and since we are busy upgrading customers, supporting Sage's tech staff and trying to make sales, we haven't had a chance to upgrade our own systems. Geez, what idiot thought this one up. I implore our BPAC members to help get this stopped - @JohnHoyt @CarlaBrown @BobKohlmeyer @KayleyBell and I and I'm sure many in our group, will be happy to help in anyway needed.

I think it might be a bug fix, not a new restriction. Look at the KB article referenced.

I just installed 2017.2 and my Payroll Subscription expires 12/31/2020. Is that when support for this version expires?

Looks like you got 12 extra months

Has anyone else reached out to Sage about this? I contacted them and got the following response from Linda Cade: I had asked how partners are suppose to support customers if their keys are all subscription based and expire when versions are no longer supported. She replied, Partner do receive 100c license keys. Customers may renew their business care on a perpetual plan or subscribe to 100c. If a customer subscribes to 100c, access to the software ""expires"" based on the renewal date of their business care plan and the program is placed in a ""read only"" state. In that state they can view records, run reports, and export data, but they cannot enter any new transactions or records. Partners are exempted from that requirement and only need concern themselves with expiration at the point that the release is no longer supported (usually a period of 3 years post-release). This new requirement only applies to releases 2017 and newer so the first time it would impact a partner would be in 2020. I then said that we are unable to support customers past this cut off date for development or support unless we are using the customers key internally to develop. While my developer key gives me access to the source code it doesn't give me modules in Sage 100. She then replied, Sage is aware that this is a concern. The above mitigation is just that a mitigation until we can determine how best to administer multiple license keys for a single business entity when the Sage Licensing Server is verifying valid licenses against unique identifiers. Providing a 3 year window is designed to give us the time needed to find an alternative solution. Well guess that is the official answer from Sage. We are correct in saying that in 2020 resellers and developers will not have access to a reference copy of 2017 (and each version after that for each year) unless Sage comes up with a replacement of the current license system they just put in place in 2017. They had talked about this new license with expiring keys for at least two years. I want to say they talked about it ever since 5.0 came out. If that is the case, it took 4 years to develop a solution. I don't think the three years will cut it, unless we keep pressure on them about it.

What are the odds that any of Sage NA leadership will be around in 2020?

You could probably say that 30% of them would have changed by then.

Prediction: In three years we will still be faxing orders, this issue of keys will not be resolved and the Sage 100 install base will shrink 5 % YOY.