Sage 100

Jeff Schwenk asked a good question in another message thread --- has anyone heard anything about Sage 100 ERP 2014 and the release date or new features? Is there a What's New guide? While searching the Sage KB I found a What's New in 2013 has been issued last year in June 2012. Seems like we should have something for 2014 ? Or should we all brace ourselves for Sage to announce that product updates are the new upgrade?

About a week ago we were invited to participate in the 2014 VIP Partner program but no release dates, etc were provided. I can keep the group posted when we hear more specifics.

What is the VIP Partner program? Formerly known as Beta Testing? @BethBowers , have you heard anything?

I heard of the VIP program back at the customer event Sage held here in Minneapolis. The day before was for partners only and a handful of us showed up. Tim Sullivan said it is for new products, to get partners assistance. At the time, they were looking for SIA and the mobile services. Kind of like beta-testing, yes @JeffSchwenk

Maybe only a few showed up because no one really believes Sage is looking for our input?????? Maybe, my cynicism is running rampant.... Maybe they are slowing down the releases for other reasons. Where is the Shadow when you need to know......

We participated in the program for the Sage Inventory Advisor release and they seem to be trying to take a more organized approach to beta testing - Customer Insight through Controlled Release then Channel Readiness through VIP Release and then Solution Confidence through General Availability. We had access to sell the product early and some advance tools to learn and market it.

Did anything change to the final release based on your feedback or is it more of an early bird review of the product?

It's hard to say if anything changed, as we were not familiar with the product like we are with Sage 100, but I know we got them thinking about and addressing things like integrating with non-vanilla installations. I felt they really wanted the product to succeed and rolled up their sleeves to work with concerned participants to make sure it did. Also, having that early contact with the SIA team has been great for us as we continue to sell and market the product.

From some feedback I just got on the VIP partner program - it looks like a late winter (Feb / Mar) general release is the target for Sage 100 2014, but don't quote me on that. :)

we were also invited to the VIP program - I asked for information about what enhancements would be in the new release - because I want to know what we'd be expected to beta test. And we have a Boise Sage 100 users' meeting tomorrow so I've also asked our RAM for any info she can give me about the 2014 release. I'll let you know what I hear back - if anything.

I was able to get this PPT slide set - Lori Maloof's Road Ahead. 2014 stuff starts around slide 44 - pretty good info.

Wow, This brings back memories of the 80's.......... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug75diEyiA0

Jeff - do you have something against nice big fluffy buns!. That does bring back memories, well done.

There is so little new here they had to put removal of choice in tax reporting as a feature...the rest are in the ""why didn't it work this way all along?"" category.

@EricAnderson Don't get me started on my choice of buns..... @PhilMcIntosh Could this be why Lori was reassigned?????

PDF of Summit - Road Ahead. So this is what it has come to. The excitement about a new ERP release is basically a PPT from a session at Summit. There's no advance ""What's New"" pdf. And explain to me again how Sage is surprised that customers haven't widely adopted their latest release?

JPG images to G+ - https://plus.google.com/109408520520143490220/posts/2tKozViCk6T

Also sad that most of the items highlighted aren't even Sage products. Who do you call when you have an issue????

The customer calls the vendor if they want to order more. If they have a problem or if something isn't working they call you. If there is some bit of bad news about a bug or missing promised feature then the vendor tells you (after much prodding on your part) then you call the customer. TL;DR: The customer buys everything from the vendor and you're left being the unpaid complaint and warranty department. Only slightly exaggerating.

The Auto-Complete feature. I hope this is a system option. I can see performance issues if you have 24,000 customers. I have a number for customer limiting ALE lookups. Of course it's probably not an issue in ABC company.

Here's a potential future fun enhancement. I wonder if this is going to enable direct chat to Sage support?

Two features which I think are already in 2013 but I'm unable to locate: - Expanding AP vendor number - Viewing cleared status of checks (appears to be on invoice maintenance tab)

Not sure what they're talking about with payroll tax tables possibly requiring additional fee. I wonder if that is being contemplated in the near term (have {PR tax tables be a subscription that is extra money).

Wow, talk about scraping the bottom of the barrel if this really is what they mean..... Perhaps they really mean electronic file via Aatrix.......

I would expect (as would customers) that maintenance on payroll would include tax table updates. We can anticipate a fee increase for payroll maintenance. What would make a big change would be the elimination of tax table maintenance.

I think the bigger change might be if Sage locked down the ability to self-maintain their tax tables. Then customers who are comfortable using the circular to key in the changes would be forced to purchase a tax table (assuming that's in the cards). Sadly Sage is actually late to this game of locking down tax tables. Intuit does this and they rip you for about $300 per year just for tables and force you to upgrade about every three years.

I'm sure everyone is amazed there is no mention of Work Order or Job Cost - when are they going to open those up to outside developers? And whatever happened to the payroll plan - taking payroll from AccPac or something else and moving it into Sage 100 Premium. We recently had a payroll customer that wanted to move to SQL and the response I received from Sage was - they can buy ABRA.... thanks so much.

+1. I think there has been some internal indecision regarding the remaining non-framework modules. Another good question -- will Sage at some point ""buy back"" an upgraded Extended Solution or two just to avoid having to code new features? That thought was floated by a few people way back when Sage dumped a big portion the ES onto the developer community.

Internal Indecision = No decision. Sage buy back something they've discontinued? Really?

Just send in your $7000.00 annual maintenance and be quiet.

I believe Lori's comment about WO was that there are multiple 3rd party enhancements that can supplement it so why recreate the wheel? Resources needed elsewhere, yada, yada, yada.

has anyone moved a Work Order customer to JobOps? My customer feedback has been, ""we have to enter a sales order to manufacture parts for stock - that just doesn't make sense."" JobOps definitely has it's place, but I don't think it is a great work order to stock replacement, although it can do it. ACS and VBscan put lipstick on the pig, but we all know there is still a pig laughing at us behind the lipstick.

I guess the Sage message is - continue to pay maintenance for the pig and then go buy some additional lipstick to do what your maintenance dollars should have already given you.

At least until the next reorganization at Sage.

@Eric, regarding JobOps. Conceptually, starting a production run from a SO is no different that starting it from a WO. (The SO is to an internal customer. ) From there, the Work Ticket is processed/managed as any other job moving through production. It's not as counterintuitive as your prospect seems to think -- it isn't an attempt to jam a square peg into a round hole. Take another look at it.

@Jerry - it's no different other than it's different - some customers don't want their production people going to sales order entry for any reason (even if it's just an internal customer for production). I understand it can do the job, just passing on some customer feedback/first impressions of the product. But the point was, Sage is telling us there are other enhancements/solutions that can do manufacturing so they aren't going to worry about it - just keep paying maintenance on work order. That just doesn't sit well and I think taking someone from Work Order to JobOps is a stretch - $$ and retraining - it would be a big expensive project. That why I was wondering if anyone had gone through that process with a customer.

I'm with Eric. Whatever happened to the Payroll plan? At the very least i would like to see a Business Object solution for payroll.

Just got a call about the VIP program from Rick Englhard, Product Marketing Manager. One of the expectations of VIP partners is: ""Make 1 new solution release successful"" That seems kind of vague. Does that mean make it successful come heck or high water??

Go to Sage University and review the What's New in Sage 100 2014. There are some things we all need to be aware of and lots of cool features. FYI Windows XP will no longer be supported. What's New in 2014 100ET Sage 100 ERP Overview of 2014 Release 4 min 100ET Sage 100 ERP Improved User Experience v2014 7 min 100ET Sage 100 ERP Supported Platforms v2014 6 min 100ET Sage 100 ERP Installation, Migration, and Technical Changes v2014 5 min 100ET Sage 100 ERP Sage CRM v2014 4 min Sage Intelligence Reporting 100ET Sage 100 ERP Sage Intelligence Reporting in the ERP v2014 2 min 100ET Sage 100 ERP Sage Intelligence Reporting New Ribbon v2014 5 min 100ET Sage 100 ERP Sage Intelligence Reporting Usability Enhancements v2014 8 min Sage Mobile SMS Sage Mobiles Sales Key Features 3 min SMS Sage Mobile Services Key Features 4 min SMS Sage Mobile Billing & Payment 4 min Sage Inventory Advisor SIA Sage Inventory Advisor Key Features 4 min

Windows XP is EOL on April 9, 2014 - which I think is within a month or two of when Sage 100 ERP 2014 is slated to ship? http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/lifecycle Someone also spotted that WRT virtual platforms Sage essentially reserves the right to not support them -- which is a pretty big change if you have a 60 user customer who is using virtual server and runs into an issue which Sage cannot resolve.

Does anyone have a Whats-New-in-Sage-100-ERP-2014-brochure PDF? Not seeing it on the partner portal or on the Sage web site. I suppose it is on the Sage sales side of things. Thanks in advance.

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