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Sage Contact Round 2

  • 1.  Sage Contact Round 2

    Posted 02-25-2019 13:04
    I know that Sage Contact was discussed a little over a month ago. I wonder if anyone has further feedback to add? 

    My notes from the prior discussion: 


    Pro:
    • Free with Sage 100cloud

    Con:
    • Customer buy-in is difficult - until they have a pain point
    • Customers already own "1 free Sage CRM" - raises the question of why another (even if CRM lite)
    • Perceived as a free integration which in turn can imply the installation, configuration, training, and troubleshooting should be free from the consultant
    • Microsoft only allows a test Office 365 account for 90 days - after that time you must do the entire configuration process including adding Sage as an administrator  to O365 (this requirement does not appear to be different than what other similar systems - ie Acumatica - also require for O365 integration)

    • It seems likely that Sage is ramping up to give this integration another push. 

      I found the Sage KB article which seems complete however I'd like to break out the steps a little more distinctly so the customer knows what they will need to do themselves - or pay us to do for them.

      For those who have installed this for a customer: 

    • What were the major steps and about how long per step
    • Was there training required after the setup and, if so how much? 
    • What type of after-installation support questions were generated?
    • Lastly, it may be too soon but were customers overall happy with Sage Contaact? 




    #SageContact



    ------------------------------
    Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: Sage Contact Round 2

    Posted 02-25-2019 13:19
    Steve Malmgren will be at MOTM along with some Sage Support guys so there should be some time to Vet

    ---------------------------------
    Jim Woodhead
    VP Professional Services
    DSD Business Systems
    San Diego, CA
    619-990-3946
    ---------------------------------





  • 3.  RE: Sage Contact Round 2

    Posted 02-26-2019 12:33
    IN my opinion Sage Contacts is part of the "vision" being espoused by Steve Malmgren for the last couple of years.  I remember him demoing a concept of connecting Sage with features being made available through Office 365 at Summit 2016.  When Sage Contacts was released for production it was supposed to be the first of several connections that could be made from Sage to O365 through updated API's.  They specifically chose to take this route for integration versus building upon Sdata and BOI.   Connecting to Customers would have appeared to be a feature that would be readily embraced by our clients.  As of yet, we do not have a client that has taken the plunge.  Below was a takeaway from that 2016 session which I used in a subsequent conference with our clients.  Socius has subsequently become Velosio. 
    Sage 100 Leveraging O365

    ------------------------------
    alan niergarth
    Velosio LLC
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Sage Contact Round 2

    Posted 02-25-2019 13:21

    If I've posted this already, then I apologize for doing so again.  When Sage released this integration, we were having a Customer Conference, and invited Johnny Woodward to come up and demo the integration.  I felt really sorry for Johnny, as the folks at Sage would not purchase an Office 365 license for him (nor does it sound like many folks at Sage who are touting this feature have access to Office 365).  Poor Guy, he had to use the 90 day free Office 365 license, and because of that, didn't want to set the integration up too far ahead of time.    He did get it set up, and was able to demo most of it to our audience, but my feeling was that not only was it was quite difficult to make the integration work, that we would spend a lot of time attempting to do so since even Johnny was doing trial-by-error and my feeling was that he couldn't get support for it either.  So – my fear is what Wayne has posted:  We would spend a lot of free time trying to make this work, and I fear almost anything could/would break the integration (a Product Update, perhaps?).  Thankfully, none of our clients were really interested in the integration and we haven't "advertised" it or promoted it at all.  I'm avoiding it like the plague.

     

     

    Sue Bennett | President

    P. 503 620 3484 | F. 503 620 2765

    12559 SW 69th Ave | Tigard, OR  97223

    Sue@benpor.com | www.benpor.com

    Bennett/Porter Blog | facebook | twitter

     

     

     



    ------Original Message------

    I know that Sage Contact was discussed a little over a month ago. I wonder if anyone has further feedback to add? 

    My notes from the prior discussion: 


    Pro:
    • Free with Sage 100cloud

    Con:
    • Customer buy-in is difficult - until they have a pain point
    • Customers already own "1 free Sage CRM" - raises the question of why another (even if CRM lite)
    • Perceived as a free integration which in turn can imply the installation, configuration, training, and troubleshooting should be free from the consultant
    • Microsoft only allows a test Office 365 account for 90 days - after that time you must do the entire configuration process including adding Sage as an administrator  to O365 (this requirement does not appear to be different than what other similar systems - ie Acumatica - also require for O365 integration)

    • It seems likely that Sage is ramping up to give this integration another push. 

      I found the Sage KB article which seems complete however I'd like to break out the steps a little more distinctly so the customer knows what they will need to do themselves - or pay us to do for them.

      For those who have installed this for a customer: 

    • What were the major steps and about how long per step
    • Was there training required after the setup and, if so how much? 
    • What type of after-installation support questions were generated?
    • Lastly, it may be too soon but were customers overall happy with Sage Contaact? 




    #SageContact



    ------------------------------
    Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990
    ------------------------------


  • 5.  RE: Sage Contact Round 2

    Posted 02-25-2019 13:25
    I'm hoping to get a feel for the effort required to bring a customer <g class="gr_ gr_94 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Grammar only-ins replaceWithoutSep" id="94" data-gr-id="94">live</g> on Sage Contact.

    If Sage promotes this similar to the free Sage CRM license then we will begin to get inquiries and I'd like to have options for the customer such as: 

    1. Free = Provide a compiled FAQ and Sage's 800#, assist with obtaining, but not installing, and components from Sage KB
    2. $ x = Download and install but no training (this is the "I just want to play around with it" option)
    3. $ y= Download, install, configure, train and ongoing support

    Ultimately, I view this somewhat similar to Sage Intelligence. For no money, if you are on my access agreement I'll get the license keys installed and point you in the right direction but I'm not taking responsibility for design or debugging
    ​

    ------------------------------
    Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990
    ------------------------------



  • 6.  RE: Sage Contact Round 2

    Posted 02-25-2019 20:57
    Just remember the way the access was written Sage 'owns' the Office 365 license in order to use this feature. If you originally sold the license, golden, if it was someone else, not so golden.

    ------------------------------
    Moira Goggin
    Executive Director
    90 Minds, Inc.
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 7.  RE: Sage Contact Round 2

    Posted 02-26-2019 03:49
    Needing to add Sage as some type of admin to O365 licensing is a part of my concern. Then I've heard that other ERP have similar requirements of adding themselves to the license. In practice, 95% of my customers have some type of outsourced network administrator (MSP) and I have little to no ability to influence their use of apps outside of Sage 100. 

    I think in theory something like this sounds great. In practice, it's much more difficult when you are not managing the use of <g class="gr_ gr_656 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Grammar only-del replaceWithoutSep" id="656" data-gr-id="656">the O365</g> apps.

    In my view to make this work, the customer would need a high-level executive sponsor to really push this. It's not the type of thing a VAR is going to casually mention at the end of the upgrade and coordinate with the bookkeeper to install.

    This also completely eliminates anyone not using Office 365 for their email and productivity applications.

    For now, I file this under "sounds good on paper". I do expect Sage to make another run at pushing this as a benefit of Sage 100cloud though I suspect customers won't show any more interest than they did when some of our members showed it at customer conferences.




    ------------------------------
    Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 8.  RE: Sage Contact Round 2

    Posted 02-26-2019 09:22
    Sage put out a blog post on this yesterday... I asked for more technical details.
    https://sagecity.na.sage.com/support_communities/sage100_erp/b/sageerp_100_blog/posts/discover-the-power-of-sage-contact

    ------------------------------
    Kevin Moyes
    Technical Systems Analyst
    Munjal White Consulting Co.
    Toronto ON
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 9.  RE: Sage Contact Round 2

    Posted 02-26-2019 09:42
    That’s why I think we are going to see some promotion around this. Rather than be caught by surprise I want to have options for any customer expressing interest in installing their free Sage Contact integration.

    ---------------------------------
    Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990
    ---------------------------------



    Original Message


  • 10.  RE: Sage Contact Round 2

    Posted 02-26-2019 10:42
    You'll likely get the deer-in-the-headlights response.  Sage makes extra money with this type of set up even though there are other ways to connect O365 and apps that don't require a license take over.  
    ​

    ------------------------------
    Moira Goggin
    Executive Director
    90 Minds, Inc.
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 11.  RE: Sage Contact Round 2

    Posted 02-26-2019 12:38
    The point I am trying to impress on Sage is that we (as Partners) need more than marketing information when they release a new significant component. 

    Contacts... Bank Feeds... we need to know what is involved so when we are asked, we don't have that deer-in-the-headlights look ourselves.

    ------------------------------
    Kevin Moyes
    Technical Systems Analyst
    Munjal White Consulting Co.
    Toronto ON
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 12.  RE: Sage Contact Round 2

    Posted 02-26-2019 12:45

    I agree with Kevin completely.  We need courses from Sage that show us how to do setups for the new connectors Sage is coming out with – in this case, both Sage Contacts and BR Feeds.  We're the ones on the front lines with the clients, and I don't know how many times I've said "Yes, it has been said it is easy [CRM setup for example], but it is not as easy as Sage makes it sound."  I feel like I'm constantly in opposition to whatever Sage is promoting as "included" with the software constantly refuting Sage's claims as to what the word "included" means.  I fear Sage would like nothing more for us than to just give our time away to set up the new features they're including.  And obviously none of us would be in business if we did that...

     

     

     

    Sue Bennett | President

    P. 503 620 3484 | F. 503 620 2765

    12559 SW 69th Ave | Tigard, OR  97223

    Sue@benpor.com | www.benpor.com

    Bennett/Porter Blog | facebook | twitter

     

     



    ------Original Message------

    The point I am trying to impress on Sage is that we (as Partners) need more than marketing information when they release a new significant component. 

    Contacts... Bank Feeds... we need to know what is involved so when we are asked, we don't have that deer-in-the-headlights look ourselves.

    ------------------------------
    Kevin Moyes
    Technical Systems Analyst
    Munjal White Consulting Co.
    Toronto ON
    ------------------------------


  • 13.  RE: Sage Contact Round 2

    Posted 02-26-2019 12:50

    Steve Malmgrem and the powers to be will all be attending MOTM this year.    We willhave the opportunity to ask them FIRST HAND what the plan is and let them know our concerns.  We can do that that the SAGE Town Hall or one on one  or both!!.

     

    #GladIwillbeatMOTM2019

     

    Jim

     



    ------Original Message------

    I agree with Kevin completely.  We need courses from Sage that show us how to do setups for the new connectors Sage is coming out with – in this case, both Sage Contacts and BR Feeds.  We're the ones on the front lines with the clients, and I don't know how many times I've said "Yes, it has been said it is easy [CRM setup for example], but it is not as easy as Sage makes it sound."  I feel like I'm constantly in opposition to whatever Sage is promoting as "included" with the software constantly refuting Sage's claims as to what the word "included" means.  I fear Sage would like nothing more for us than to just give our time away to set up the new features they're including.  And obviously none of us would be in business if we did that...

     

     

     

    Sue Bennett | President

    P. 503 620 3484 | F. 503 620 2765

    12559 SW 69th Ave | Tigard, OR  97223

    Sue@benpor.com | www.benpor.com

    Bennett/Porter Blog | facebook | twitter

     

     





  • 14.  RE: Sage Contact Round 2

    Posted 02-26-2019 18:25
    I have to say I am a bit surprised... the help files do seem to have setup details for Contacts.  (Found after Sage reply to my Sage City question).
    http://help-sage100.na.sage.com/2018/index.htm#Subsystems/LM/LMOffice365Proced/Setting_Up_Office_365_Integration.htm?

    ------------------------------
    Kevin Moyes
    Technical Systems Analyst
    Munjal White Consulting Co.
    Toronto ON
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


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