90 Minds Community

Having grown increasingly frustrated trying to find answers to questions customers are hounding me with - primarily about Sage 100 2018 and TLS ( but once this is resolve another problem will get a promotion ) I'm convinced we need to have a more proactive way to gather information about problem areas that are potential landmines for members.

The group is a great source of information but it feels like there's now a lot of digging and pulling to get at the nuggets of information.
Some of this is not esoteric stuff either ... 

I've spent probably well over 20 hours with Avalara trying to decipher their billing and talk an important customer off the ledge.
I'm stalled on APS/Repay because I keep reading tidbits about challenges with the integration.
Sage seems to value the 90 Minds relationship as a once-a-year event ( not sure why the 2018 patch for TLS has to leak out here vs Sage proactively working with the group )

We need to do better.
We are charging too much annual dues for this to just lapse into a "hey I'm working on an upgrade and it's Saturday does anyone have a set of xyz disks? "




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Wayne Schulz
Schulz Consulting
860-516-8990
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Hi Wayne - Thank you for this.  I am currently very involved in assessing and hopefully improving these engagements both internally and externally. 

That being said, 90 Minds Members are the best resource of information and more importantly - you know how you want to receive it. 

What could have helped with Avalara?

APS/Repay Stall - Is that because you have concerns implementing?  Would you want a review or recommendation?  Or even better - a memorialize process experience? There is a lot we can do about this! 

As far as Sage - I know you do a tremendous amount of heavy lifting when it comes to tracking Sage News and Info.  I know it is hugely appreciated.  I meet with several Sage staff monthly and we have some ideas to increase engagement in the pipeline.  But everything is open to improvement.  

What is a reasonable expectation of our Sage relationship?  Sage has a survey coming to our Members very soon as well.  

I would love to hear about what you all think that could look like.  I am happy to create a subcommittee just for this discussion if anyone is interested. 

Please comment below



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Anne Sawyer
Executive Director
90 Minds, Inc.
CA
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I'd like us to be more proactive in uncovering pending issues before we are receiving or experiencing angry customer calls. Perhaps one way this can be done is via surveys. There seems to be leakage from posting publicly in the group so an anonymous survey might help with responses.

What we should be looking to uncover is situations where one person will post "hey I'm having a problem with x" and then suddenly three other people in the span of a few hours have the same or very similar experience to share. The goal being to keep the member out of getting into trouble with great early information about experiences that other consultants are having. To me that has value. Sitting with Sage and listening to them for the 100th time tell me how they have to make it easier to do business with them does nothing for me except  provoke an eye roll. Sage has been a real disappointment to me in terms of their participation and their guardianship of the Sage 100 product line.


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Wayne Schulz
Schulz Consulting
860-516-8990
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Original Message:
Sent: 10-27-2021 13:18
From: Anne Sawyer
Subject: We need a more proactive way of keeping each other updated

Hi Wayne - Thank you for this.  I am currently very involved in assessing and hopefully improving these engagements both internally and externally.

That being said, 90 Minds Members are the best resource of information and more importantly - you know how you want to receive it.

What could have helped with Avalara?

APS/Repay Stall - Is that because you have concerns implementing?  Would you want a review or recommendation?  Or even better - a memorialize process experience? There is a lot we can do about this!

As far as Sage - I know you do a tremendous amount of heavy lifting when it comes to tracking Sage News and Info.  I know it is hugely appreciated.  I meet with several Sage staff monthly and we have some ideas to increase engagement in the pipeline.  But everything is open to improvement.

What is a reasonable expectation of our Sage relationship?  Sage has a survey coming to our Members very soon as well.

I would love to hear about what you all think that could look like.  I am happy to create a subcommittee just for this discussion if anyone is interested.

Please comment below



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Anne Sawyer
Executive Director
90 Minds, Inc.
CA
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I don't see much use of "tags" to classify specific subjects within the larger community discussions. Within those communities, you are left with searching by key words and that is not that successful.

I have several workspaces I share within Slack, each with many channels by subject. We could break those down even further, which is what Slack encourages. It makes searching much easier and faster. Except for the tags (I'm not sure that is the correct term), HL subjects are within communities, so the structure is not the same.

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John Hoyt, Co-Founder
Next Level Manufacturing Consulting Group
johnh@nextlevelMCG.com
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Original Message:
Sent: 10-27-2021 14:51
From: Wayne Schulz
Subject: We need a more proactive way of keeping each other updated

I'd like us to be more proactive in uncovering pending issues before we are receiving or experiencing angry customer calls. Perhaps one way this can be done is via surveys. There seems to be leakage from posting publicly in the group so an anonymous survey might help with responses.

What we should be looking to uncover is situations where one person will post "hey I'm having a problem with x" and then suddenly three other people in the span of a few hours have the same or very similar experience to share. The goal being to keep the member out of getting into trouble with great early information about experiences that other consultants are having. To me that has value. Sitting with Sage and listening to them for the 100th time tell me how they have to make it easier to do business with them does nothing for me except  provoke an eye roll. Sage has been a real disappointment to me in terms of their participation and their guardianship of the Sage 100 product line.


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


Original Message:
Sent: 10-27-2021 13:18
From: Anne Sawyer
Subject: We need a more proactive way of keeping each other updated

Hi Wayne - Thank you for this.  I am currently very involved in assessing and hopefully improving these engagements both internally and externally.

That being said, 90 Minds Members are the best resource of information and more importantly - you know how you want to receive it.

What could have helped with Avalara?

APS/Repay Stall - Is that because you have concerns implementing?  Would you want a review or recommendation?  Or even better - a memorialize process experience? There is a lot we can do about this!

As far as Sage - I know you do a tremendous amount of heavy lifting when it comes to tracking Sage News and Info.  I know it is hugely appreciated.  I meet with several Sage staff monthly and we have some ideas to increase engagement in the pipeline.  But everything is open to improvement.

What is a reasonable expectation of our Sage relationship?  Sage has a survey coming to our Members very soon as well.

I would love to hear about what you all think that could look like.  I am happy to create a subcommittee just for this discussion if anyone is interested.

Please comment below



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Anne Sawyer
Executive Director
90 Minds, Inc.
CA

I would not ever have thought to ask this question - which turned out to be a great ( great ) question with amazing responses. Which one of us don't have at least one customer how asks this question? And I know for me I am guilty of telling people that Advanced is great and I haven't had any issues.

This was an eye opener and maybe what the group needs is more of a regular Q&A or survey which can then be turned into an FAQ.

Customers are willing to pay $$$$ for a consultant who can provide this type of concise information that they are NOT going to get directly from any publisher.

https://community.90minds.com/communities/community-home/digestviewer/viewthread?GroupId=13&MessageKey=c3bf7d7d-1c5c-4586-8a1a-108ea6f39dfa&CommunityKey=4593d843-4557-43ff-ba4d-6240681ed696&tab=digestviewer&ReturnUrl=%2fresources%2fallrecentposts

1. Regular ask/response about similar type questions - unless it is to rate an ISV then it's a survey ( anonymous )
2. Compile info to a document
3. Save as an FAQ
4. Make available for members

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Wayne Schulz
Schulz Consulting
860-516-8990
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I'm as guilty as anyone when it comes to embedding an image of an error message (easier to get a quick answer), instead of typing in the text (good for search later).  Forums / discussion threads as a knowledge base is not an ideal format, but anything more requires content maintenance for someone to organize things coherently.  (I don't want that job!).

From Sage, a few years ago at MotM, I suggested something like an RSS feed of the Sage 100 KB, so we can see new / changed articles entered by Sage, and not struggle alone with new issues already identified.  Of course, nothing was done, but it is still high on my "wish list" from Sage.

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