Sage 100

via Sage: Hello Wayne, My team and I would like to meet with you to discuss Infosource. Recently we had a security breach on the server and are getting pressure to retire it. I know you and some 90 Minds folks are still utilizing this old Knowledgebase, it is important to us that your needs are met which is why I am reaching out to you advance. The Sage team would like to ensure you are able to find this content in the new KB before retiring infosource. I know you and others rely on this resource to service your customers therefore I would like to review the plans and timeline to decommission this KB. The plans include content migration and search tuning with all partners that would like to attend to provide feedback. Please let me know if you have the bandwidth for this discussion, if so, what time/day will work best. Amy Dotson Director, Knowledge Management

I don't think that we have much choice here but to realize that the old Sage InfoSource found at this link: http://infosource.sagesoftwareonline.com/infasp/search.asp Will shortly be decommissioned. I think Sage is looking for feedback on what's missing from the new Sage KB (if anything) and what should be prioritized for migration from InfoSource. I know personally I use InfoSource as a super fast way to search without the slowness of logging into the new partner portal KB. I also find it convenient to email links for very common problems to end users. Unfortunately the present Sage KB via the portal does not have an easy way to send a ""login free"" link to an end user. I'm not super inclined to do much more with Sage on this other than to share my comments above.

I still make InfoSource my first go to and still find resolutions there that don't come up on the new one. I believe you mentioned to them before that it would be good to be able to search and get documents on just one product line. That still wasn't the case the last time I did a search.

They were talking about adding an ""email this article"" button. We should follow up and make sure that is happening. We also need to capture those articles we find on Infosource that we can't find on the new KB.

I could commit some time if we want to try and capture some of these articles, did a search on just ""error"" and resulted in 100 entries. I could copy to Evernote or print to pdf and email to someone to add to Evernote. Would need some suggestions on what to search for.

Here's my feedback to Sage: Hi Amy, I think the major concerns are: 1. Infosource is a first line of search for many consultants because a. No login required b. Contains most of the help articles (including for abandoned or obsolete products which customers still use - ex F9 and FRX) and errors which have been with us for many years. I only use InfoSource for FRX/F9 research so I don't know what portion of those articles may have been migrated to either of the KB (including archive) in the PP. c. Can copy links to detailed ""how to"" articles for emailing to end users - this needs to become a priority ( Ability to send a link to a KB article via email which does NOT require the user to login to view, second best would be to create a PDF and email as attachment). 2. Sage's Partner Knowledgebase is tarnished a. Slow and clumsy (ex - pop-up windows -- really ? In the year 2014 people use pop-ups?) - ditch these pop-ups pronto b. No easy sharing of article to customer without the customer having to login to view (they get confused when the shared link 'dead ends') c. Presently two separate KB in the portal - (Archive KB vs Sage Knowledgebase) which is the most updated? When to search each? d. Cannot easily narrow search by specific module It's going to be tough to say exactly which articles are missing or have not been transferred.

If Sage wants to recover companies on old versions who are ""off plan"", we need infosource to keep those accounts alive on Sage products. InfoSource allows us to search for errors by module. Portal KB gave 3 articles in my search, InfoSource gave over 30. Sage, leave it up or sell it to 90 Minds.

My hunch is that Sage will migrate the resources internally. The knowledge won't go away from them - only from us (aka web).

I think that's about right. It would be interesting to know what they think they will do better in the future. I wonder if KM is feeling any heat over inadequate tech support resources for customers?

An chance of getting them to can the M$ Download Manager that won't even work in IE on my computer? Fortunately my customer is still on Windows 2003 and it's antique IE, otherwise I'd have to turn down their request to get current on Sage Fixed Assets...

What is the real issue with the infosource server?????? Why not just move it to a new server that has better security features? Seems like an excuse to go backwards in the support of the client and resellers...... Time for another shot and a beer.....

I'm not sure what the real issue is. My guess is that the recent breach is probably viewed by some at Sage as a good kicking off point for eliminating an older KB which in some respects makes their multi-million dollar investment in the new KB look bad.

Ditto Jeff. I always start with the old knowledgebase (old habits die hard). Just think what the wait time on hold for tech support will be when we can't find the answers in the portal knowledgebase.

The old KB articles seem to be more complete/easier to follow often then the newer versions. It would be a shame to lose this information.

Hmmm, how about they give us a complete dump of the database and we can host it?

If they spent in excess of a million dollars on the last two KBs, then someone other that just the resellers got screwed. I totally agree that it would be a shame to loose this information.

I always look to InfoSource first and it returns many more results, one of which is usually the resolution to my issue. The portal rarely returns useful information. Yes, it is nice to not have to log in, but I'd jump through hoops to get to the information on InfoSource since it is always so much more useful.

Wayne, do you think there is anyway to get Ms. Dotson to understand the central theme of the comments in this thread? That is, ""Infosource works. The other KM doesn't."" Perhaps Brad Smith (VP Cust Experience) would be interest to understand why the ""KM Team"" wants to degrade the customer experience?

I sent her the reply (pasted above) but haven't heard anything further. It's possible they may want us to outline what articles need to be transferred (are missing) or they're just emailing as a courtesy.

My money is on ""going through the motions."" Current management's culture pretty much ensures that bad news is handled as a bad news event, not as a policy question. Shameful and shortsighted.

If we back up to the beginning of all this I am confused by what sort of concern they have regarding the initial ""security breach"". If this is un-gated and just a bunch of historical documents, why would they care who can access it. What are they worried about, people off plan getting help with errors? Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see what danger this presents.

I suspect that the server which is hosting infosource is a legacy serever, it's probably running some old version of the KB software and perhaps they had some type of security event on the server or the software that powers the KB. I don't think they are talking about a KB breach itself.