Sage 100

JobOps Phobia It amazes me how JobOps is ignored in discussions where it should be the front runner solution. This is not limited to 90 Minds, but throughout the Sage community, including Sage itself. Either people have had bad experiences, they believe it is too complex or they simply do not have enough knowledge about it. By far I'm sure it is the lack of knowledge. We in this group who support JobOps owe it to the general 90 Minds community to identify this as a solution whenever it is appropriate. I acknowledge there are alternative solutions, but as good consultants, we need to make sure our customers and prospects are aware of the options available to them. Over the years I've been told countless times by Sage 100 users that they wished they or their reseller had known about JobOps before they went down the wrong road.

First, Job Ops is an invasive modification Second, Job Ops is typically 100% third party supported - in other words the typical VAR is recommending the work out to an independent consultant who will then takeover. That end user is pretty much unsupportable by the average reseller for upgrades. Third, We have significant and material chatter around ""who is going to be first to install Job Ops upgrade"" and these have been materially late to release and with not insignificant bugs which open up the finger pointing possibilities of supporting such a customized system Fourth, Job Ops underwent an ownership change which may be great or may be the start of a downward trend. These are some of the things that I think Job Ops is swimming against. Also Sage 100 core functionality is most definitely not MFG. Now wait - no arguments that you can roll a bunch of UDFS and workarounds but by the time you get down that road I'm guessing @MarkChinsky and Epicor are going to have an all-in-one offering that may outshine. So where do I personally see Job Ops fitting: A company -- existing Sage 100 or new Sage 100 -- with a love for Sage 100 and strong desire to use Sage 100 who also needs stronger mfg. What choice do they realistically have? As a consultant I have difficulty recommending Sage 100 into anything outside of strong financials or wholesale distribution. I just don't think Sage has shown any signs that they are ever going to improve the product outside that area. .02

If a client has Sage 100 and only wants to stay on Sage 100 and they manufacture and decide they want to automate that, what other solutions do you see people recommending John? I sure hope not the WO module.

Not arguing that Job Ops should not be recommended when the situation fits - only supplying some reasons that I think it may not be recommended as often as it could.

Just this week I talked to a management consultant that is helping an Engineer to Order (ETO) company look for a new ERP system. They have gone through a ""demo"" of Epicor with estimated software costs near $150,000 for a 25 user system. Next up they will be looking at a demo of Dynamics NAV with software and first year maintenance at $95,000. When the management consultant call SAGE HQ the ""Sage Sales Engineer"" told him to move along because SAGE ""does not support Engineer to Order and will not interface with Microsoft Project or SolidWorks CAD systems. The ""Sage Sales Engineer"" refused to provide the management consultant with a local Sage reseller name. So much for SAGE and/or Job Ops getting a chance to even swing at the ball.

Just keep in mind, ballparking, 25 user Sage 100 SQL not including Business Alerts or CRM (which is included with Epicor) is going to be nearly $70k with maintenance. Jobops, assuming 10 users would be about another $20k w/maintenance. And this assumes no significant timetracker (shop floor data collection users) which require a full Sage 100 license vs. the low cost per licence for that role in epicor. So you are now 90k for a bolted together software solution. Also, the epicor price sounds high for 25 users, as rule of thumb pricing is about $3.5k/user Keep in mind Epicor 'maintenance' also covers unlimited phone support. Plus in epicor you are getting the equivelent of business alerts, plus workflow, plus CRM, plus GetX, plus indented BOM's, plus multicurrency, plus intercompany, plus a web client option, and alot more and very little of all that is 3rd party boltons or acquired solutions on a different technology stack, all with a single simple 800 number to call for support for all these pieces. Add some of these in, and the fact that Epicor Direct sales guys will drop their draws 30% easy at end of quarter, and you will be holding the short straw unless the prospect is a Sage 100 diehard

Does the client need project manufacturing and Solidworks integration? If so Epicor will integrate with MS project, although it has its own full project manufacturing so you probably wouldn't want to use MS Project and has (third party) direct integrations to Solidworks and 20 other cad systems. I don't think Jobops offers any of that.

I believe the client is currently using MS Project for a part of the project tracking. If an ERP system can eliminate the need for MS Project, I believe that would be a plus for that ERP system. I believe all customer project configurations are done in SolidWorks, so some type of ERP integration would be helpful.

@MarkChinsky The only reason I would consider Epicor for a customer is because you represent it and I respect you. Otherwise my dealings with Epicor and their corporate attitude is very negative as a rule.

I totally agree with the overall cost of a Sage 100-JobOps solution. This is a reason why many customers hesitate or do not select this option. The source of this is the user charges, rather than just offering functional modules. There is increased use of the ""sublicense agreement"" which allows us to have a lower user count for JobOps than the Sage user count. This decreases the cost, but Synergistic is not facing reality. They should be either licensing it based on the modules or revise the user charges. Sage complicates this by not allowing restricted users or handheld device users, which are user categories offered with X3.

@MichaelMcDonald Sage not only is an impediment for third party solutions such as JobOps, they do this with their own products and bypass resellers when speaking directly to existing customers. An example is their waffling on BusinessWorks and when end of life will be announced. When you offer an upgrade credit of $1,500 per user to select another package, that's the message right there. Yet they backtracked recently and the party line is there has been no announcement and it will be around for at least 2-3 years. Back when they were calling customers directly (which they were not supposed to do for resellers like us that have a substantial customer base), they started introducing other resellers to sell standalone CRM, claiming that was a separate cert. (It is, and now we have that.) The bottom line is we can rarely trust Sage to be truthful or above board. (Wow, don't let that get out or I'll never qualify for the Spirit Award!)

um, err, ahhh, yeah , oh hi John this is Sage -- we sent you an invitation to the BPAC. Turns out that was a clerical error. Can you just disregard that for me. Thanks. By. Note (Call will come in after business hours so as to be sure they get your VM)

Um John, sorry to do this, but there was a mixup, looks like you've been accidentally uninvited to Summit :)

It's OK, I'm still going to New Orleans - for the music.

Do we have a list of all the 90Minds member JobOps authorized consultants and partners?

I'm not aware of a formal list, so although I could name most of them, I may be missing some.

From the JobOps website.

That list looks old, TAG in La Jolla I heard doesn't even sell Sage 100 anymore, but I could be wrong.

Or maybe it's the QA that is worse than Sage's, or the almost absolute refusal to cooperate with other master developers...

And we, Hutchinson and Bloodgood, are now at 550 North Brand, 14th Floor, Glendale.

Oh, speaking of QA, that's another function both MAS and Jobops doesn't handle. In the US, many of the manufacturer's that are left are higher end high quality type shops where a formal QA system is required. Companies hate spreadsheet bolt on QA handling. They want it as part of inline manufacturing on receiving, during manufacturing and on shipping. They want DMR processing and quarantine. All stuff that 'real' manufacturing solutions handle if they want to be relevant

JOScan has a QC module. Have you seen that @MarkChinsky ?