Sage News and Discussion

Sitting through a Debbie Hill (who is awesome) demonstration of Sage Intelligence. Looks pretty damn sweet but the question running through my mind is ... how many customers really need / want / can afford this product? or similar BI tools? I've always felt that BI tools were the next hot thing but I've felt that way for 10 years. What do you think?

I think SMI demos really well. After that....

Is BI as a category taking hold though?

Not among my clients (who are usually smaller, like 10 user licenses or less) as in something they want to be able to do for themselves. They still want me to just write a report for them they can run, but they don't want to have to learn how to do it themselves. I have one slightly larger client coming on line in Dec who has someone internally that will definitely play with the non-GL side of SMI, but that's still a rarity.

The other issue is that you need accurate underlying data - I have seen quite a few customers who don't pay close attention to inventory and that makes some reporting more difficult.

And I think Beth is right - this stuff demos great but few customers take the time to think about setting it up in a way that helps their business. Could we be more proactive -- probably. I've also been in more than a few situations where I've tried to convince customers to become more active in using the software and the overall ""we're too busy"" excuse (or some variation) keeps coming up.

It gets really expensive when you need to report on more than one company too.

The need or demand for this is dependent on the size of the company and who the management is. We have a client who just added a CIO who spent 20 years in IT management at Disney, and he wants this capability.

I just thought I'd mention that Disney has used Crystal Reports in the past - I was perusing their job openings once and considered it long and hard for a moment or two...

Yeah. I've seen those too.

@RobertWood thanks for mentioning the added expense for multi-company. I was just about to use that for company consolidation reporting and we'll either need the client to buy the extra or use something else.

We have a customer with 78 companies.

Is there a per company/connection fee??

You have to have a connector license for each additional company in the same report.

Holy cow!!

Recurring revenue.........

Which is why the first hit is free.

@RobertWood Do you mean multiple Report Manager licenses - one for each company to be consolidated? As far as I know the Connector just facilitates this process.

I'm not sure which license it was but they said we needed one for each company.

With Report Manager (without the Connector module), you can access one company at a time for reporting. The Connector allows the consolidation of multiple companies using your Report Manager. I cannot imagine you would need any other licensing. I know Sage has a reputation, but if a client asks what they need to do consolidations we sell the the Connector for $2,000. If I then ask them how many companies they want to consolidate and the answer is 5, then I tell them they need to pay an additional $4,000. That would not be an easy sell. And, of course, with FRx you could have done that with just one license.

Ok, contacted my source - Gary Boddington. No, you only need the Connector and one Report Manager to do consolidations. There is a ""connection"" to each company you want to consolidate from the Connector module, but the Connector is a site license.

@MoiraGoggin Remember, there is still the bundle promotion this quarter, so your client can get the Designer and Connector for $2,000, plus maintenance.

And I also have an e-mail response from Debbie Hill confirming what Gary told me.

@JohnHoyt, Thanks for shedding light on this. Considering what is paid for the rest of the Sage 100 modules and the benefits SBI can provide if it is really Used, the Bundle is not a bad deal for the larger companies and the Designer is not a bad deal for those mid-sized companies wanting very flexible Financial reporting. IMHO, when SBI/SMI/??? was introduced as the replacement for FRx, it was no where near a replacement for FRx, F9, Biznet or anything else except perhaps the Reports menu financials. That said, I have been impressed how quickly Alchmex has understood the issues the product has faced and actually moved on some of them. Sage could take a lesson here. If Sage leaves them to it, I think Alchmex will end up making SBI one of the better solutions.

BTW, We just sold a copy of SQL mirroring to a company that needed all the company data viewed as one database. (in this case it was BizNet) it is a trivial view to create for each file needed. I bet it would be a lot less expensive than having a connector for each company. Jim

They've made a lot of progress. $1000 for the designer module is a steal when you consider paying 3K to do the same type of financial reporting with excel functions with another software (I won't mention any names). $2000 for connector and designer and the sky is pretty much the limit. We have had one client go crazy with SMI - all sorts of reports and dashboards, but you almost need a dedicated employee to fully utilize the software. But as an FRx replacement, they are finally there - simple and affordable.

I'll chime in on this one, too: I don't know if they've fixed the ""bug"" or not, but I've done a couple of consolidated reports for customers who do not have the connector, and they work fine. Also, my understanding is that the connector is a $2,000 buy, that covers all companies, and I've never had anyone pay more than that. If the promo keeps going (and it's been going for quite a while), you'll never spend more than $2,000 for Sage Intelligence.

@JimWoodhead, it is my understanding that you don't need a connector for each company. Both the Connector and Designer are site licensed and can be used by as many people as have access to a Report Manager license. A single Connector is good for as many MAS 90 companies (all modules) and as many non MAS ODBC compliant data bases as you want to mix. The Designer is a Financial report tool only Our clients that had multiple FRx licenses got matching Report Manager Licenses and Viewer Licenses. Large companies may want to purchase additional Report Manager licenses; however, I have heard if a concurrent license will do, installation on a Terminal Server will work.

The issue that Biznet is having is that it cannot reference more that one company in one cell. (Normal MAS has one compnay per DSN) With SQL Mirroring we are combining all the Companies into one database via views. This will allow it to reference multiple companies in one cell with a new company_code field