Sage 100

Have you seen this? On 11/8/17, client purchased but did not install Sage 100c Std (4 users). As of last Friday, client was on Sage 100 Std 2017.0 (5.4.0) (5 users) installed long ago. On Monday, users were greeted with new UI and discovered Sage 100c 2017 (5.4.0) is now installed with new keys and new 4 user count. Screen personalization to grids were gone. No Theme was selected for Users. Did Sage phone home and download the new keys, thereby unlocking the 100c features? *scratching head*

Look in activity log, it should show a phone hime event. They appear to phone home 1x month every month.

Yuppers. It auto-validates with Sage's server, every 28days I think. And the first time it auto-changes the interface.

And updates the keys?!?! Wipes out personalization?!?! Wowzers! Nice surprise for clients. This will be fun 'splainin' to those that buy the migration promotion. Thanks Sage!

Sage implemented an automatic license key update program starting with Sage 100c v 2016 PU 2. Versions of Sage 100 and Sage 100c which auto-update keys: 2015.5+ 2016.2+ 2017.0+ Note: Versions 5.20.3 (2015.3), 5.20.4 (2015.4), 5.30.1 (2016.1) will have the ability to update the payroll expiration date with the Update button by installing the Hot Fixes based on version KB 83158 ( https://goo.gl/NnlQbY ). I haven't seen UI changes (ie Custom Office) though if a user was presented with Classic/Standard choice and chose Standard they would notice that the shortcut ""buttons"" were gone and not transferred to the new Standard UI (themes/colors don't transfer). I can't say whether grid changes were also cleared although my first suspicion would be that the user tried to reset the panel in order to get back to the old UI which would also reset any grid level changes. I have seen updated keys push sooner than 28 days in the case when the customer made a change with Sage -- usually removing user licenses. Early on there was some discussion about whether this update could somehow be blocked by disabling the ability to access the licensing server. I don't think this is (easily) possible and seem to recall that doing so resulted in some type of other error messages. It seems 100c needs an Internet connection as evidenced by this Sage KB - Could not contact the license and subscription service in the allowed time. If the problem continues, please contact Sage Support.- https://goo.gl/tKUkHJ It would be helpful if Sage 100c allowed for an administrator to push out a standard UI setup to end users. Many of the remaining Sage 100/100c customers are 10+ user distribution sites. In many cases, an administrator would like the order entry and other users to have a standardized desktop. It's somewhat 1980's technology to have to go workstation to workstation at a 40 user site (1/2 of who/whom aren't in the office or are remote) and coach users on how to slightly modify the new UI. An ability to centrally maintain all user desktops is a feature many of my 10+ user sites would appreciate.

90 minders, it seems to me that this is a big deal. Wayne has a lot of information. I wonder if it would be useful to the group (I know my team is keenly interested) to have a person from Sage respond in a conference call or similar to talk to this point. What do you think? @MoiraGoggin would you please comment?

@BobPfahnl, did users lose their screen customizations because the client dropped from 5-user to 4-user, and therefore they no longer own Custom Office?

Also an important related note: If a Payroll user does not want to sign up for the Payroll Subscription, but plans to continue to use the Payroll module for printing checks or just as an employee database, they should stop at version 2014. They WILL NOT receive the message that their subscription has expired and can only operate in ""Read Only"" mode if they run version 2014.

The customer, I'm assuming, was aware that they changed to subscription (100c) and voluntarily reduced their user count. This action would then affect the customer's license key, and the system, being at a level later than 2015.5 would update the keys during it's 28-day key check cycle. I agree with @WayneSchulz that an administrative warning and override would be a great feature. @BrettZimmerman makes a good point, did the user license reduction result in a deactivation of a module, in this case Custom Office? If that is the case, is it Sage that's responsible to communicate that the reduction in user licenses will result in a module being deactivated or the reseller's responsibility or both?

It shouldn't be the loss of Custom Office because under 100c Custom Office is included from the first user. None of this is brand new info - it's been around for a while we just don't notice it until we run across a specific situation. The next issue we'll probably encounter is what happens when an end user moves off 100c but wants to keep the product on a computer so they can lookup history. Will it go into read-only / print only mode like we think it should or will that user be locked out? This is a hard situation to test until you come across a customer who expires.

If custom office is included, then the change to user customizations after a key update, that included a reduction in user licenses, should be reported to Sage support.

@BrettZimmerman With 100c Custom Office is in all bundles regardless of user count. They lost their customized grids. I don't know if they lost their My Tasks.

@MoiraGoggin My bad I guess. I missed the memo that the keys were auto-installed and therefore the UI was auto-enabled. I had told the client that nothing would change until we did their next upgrade and installed their new keys.

@BobPfahnl Not only will the keys change but I believe it is not presently possible to ""keep"" a copy of perpetual as promised by Sage at Summit. At the various Sage 100c Sage-led discussions, I recall them saying a user could ""keep their perpetual, they own it"". However, as you probably have discovered, with self-updating keys there doesn't appear to be a way to do that short of pulling the perpetual data off an Internet-connected PC and isolating it to a PC with no Internet connection - even then I believe you'll get a warning when it tries to phone home...... I guess you could back the customer down to a version that did not support self-updating keys however if the customer owns a perpetual license at a higher version I don't see why they shouldn't be able to take advantage of it. So in my book this claim of ""you can keep your perpetual"" is presently only true if the customers lets their perpetual lapse and creates a 100c under a brand new Sage customers number

I am assuming this auto-install will create an issue if the EU has 3rd party enhancements?

This isn't an install just a key update. I don't know if a key update will affect 3rd party enhancements. @NicoleRonchetti how is DSD handling the key updates from Sage?

DSD Keys are based on the serial number and I don't believe Sage is changing the serial number during these auto updates. So it wouldn't cause any issues with our products that I'm aware of. It could cause issues with others though in theory. (Maybe Job Ops?? )

JobOps yes, if the Sage user key changes then new keys are required from JobOps.

Would it be possible to make a copy of the existing perpetual license keys before Sage changed them and reinstall them down the road if Subscription didn't pan out. Just wondering.

@HaroldWestover, I originally thought that also, but now my guess is no if the customer is on a version of the software that phones home. If you went back to a version that doesn't report back to Sage, I think it would work. I had to do that with a customer that was bot by another company and couldn't access their historical payroll without paying Sage's requested bounty of $6,000 per year to see history (#versionnightmare).