Sage News and Discussion

Hello Partner Community! Sage Software Online Order Entry functions will be disabled effective Monday, January 9, 2012. Partners will no longer be able to view quotes, orders or even create them. Partners will see on the page immediately after they login to SageSoftwareOnline.com will state: Introducing the New Sage Partner Information System! On February 27, 2012, we will be implementing a new internal business management system (also known as ""Atlas"") that will unify your experience with Sage and allow you to access most information from a centralized location. After that time, all content on this site will become static and you will need to use the new Sage Partner Information System. Be afraid, be VERY afraid!!

Disaster waiting to happen

A bit of advice - download all your customers' license keys NOW - when Accpac went on this system we lost visibility for MONTHS!

Two frickin' months to switch over?????? Guess it is another reason why you have to go back in time, pick up a phone or send and e-mail to ask someone else to do the deed! Can someone confirm that Sage is REALLY a technology company?

Sage is not a technology company. It is a holding company that buys tech companies, cuts their support and development staff, and renames their products.

They are basically a finance company. Not much different than Apex who bought Activent and Epicor, Infor etc. From: do-not-reply@socialcast.com [mailto:do-not-reply@socialcast.com] On Behalf Of Phil McIntosh Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2012 9:18 PM To: Mark Chinsky Subject: Re: [90 Minds Consulting Group] Hello Partner Community! Sage Software Online Order Entry functions will be disabled effective Monday, January 9, 2012. Partners will no ...

Thanks Phil we had heard of the 2/27 date but someone forgot to mention that as of Monday the ""normal"" website will be down. Welcome to the Jungle --- http://erplife.com/2012/01/06/sage-mas-90-partners-say-hello-to-atlas-22712/

When they say ""all content will become static"" I presume that they don't mean they'll leave the data there for lookups but that at some point that data is going away. We heard similar tales of horror about unlocking keys, etc. Sage clearly got the short end of the stick with this Atlas project. Unfortunately it's mostly the customer who I think will suffer in terms of response time. I would plan to throw more of the ""what are our unlock keys "" onto Sage's shoulders if we dont' have ready access to that data. One unasked question --- should we anticipate problems with the knowledgebase? Will they flip some switch on the old KB on 2/27 and ""convert"" all the old data into a new database? Given the lack of any prior thought Sage seems to put into their KB I wouldn't be surprised if they either left it to hang out there.

You know how the MAS KB returns tons of irrelevant articles? The Accpac KB tends to return NONE. I get better results using Google (without using site:) than from within the Atlas site. Pitiful. Useless. Shit.

Good to know... I think. Thanks for the update.

Was this sent to MAS90/200/500 partners or to the general partner community?

I got it from Susie Johnson (and it looks like she sent it to all the VARs she works with).

Mine came from Susie also.

We received the same email from Susie as well. Also, I've heard that there may be a special business parnter call for larger resellers on Monday. Anyone heard any scoop on this that they can or will share?

I'm on a need to know basis ..

Taking an incoming call from Kevin Rooker -- I think I'll call him just to get more info... I'll update after I chat with him.

Mine came from Susie too. And the big joke... Atlas is SAP. Why not shift those resources into making X3 work globally?

Because they started trying to implement SAP before they bought X3, I think. I know they had already been at it for awhile in June of 2008.

Any other questions I should ask Kevin when he calls me back: Timeline Will new customer numbers be issued? Will unlocking codes still be accessible? SMI, FRX, CRM Will and if so when will KB change? Multi-office features? Will customers need new logins? What is the notification timetable? No view or change of quotes - how should we get maintenance renewal pricing? Monday conference call?

If I read the message correctly, it's only the Order Entry part of SSO that's being discontinued - all other info and functionality will remain, for now. And I thought there was an email a few months back to not use Order Entry to calculate renewal pricing because it did not reflect the new calculations, etc.

@WayneSchulz Ask him what he does for a living these days...

That's my understanding too - however we enter and commit orders. It would be nice to know what the new procedure needs to be before Monday. Sage should have laid out more of a timetable rather than just give general info. It's not like the MAS partners are the first group to go through this.

@MarkChinsky Added this the the list ""Mark Chinsky wants to know ...

LOL - I get the 5:05pm call from Kevin Rooker. That's how you can tell these old school Sage guys - they'll wait until after 5pm to call. I dumped him in voice mail.

Looks like the Order Entry freeze is happening Wednesday instead of Monday

Wayne - Did you find out how this is going to affect the KB?

I believe the KB is moving over - as well as everything on www.sagesoftwareonline.com. This undoubtedly means that search will be challenging for a few weeks as everyone grows accustomed to the new portal. According to Sage they ""learned"" from the past and are keeping sagesoftwareonline.com open in read-only mode for a short period of time.

With the Accpac channel shift to Atlas, they took a vibrant, well populated, well trafficed KB and virtually killed it overnight. I'm not remotely exaggerating here. The new KB / forums are desserted. Maybe a few posts per week. All the more reason to create a 90 Minds / OASIS KB that the partners own - not Sage.

So what can we do to create a KB between now and 2/27? They cut out our support and now they will kill the KB - ummmm....

I think OASIS / 90 Minds Socialcast is the KB / forums until such time that we establish a ""true"" KB for the group.