Sage 100

What have y'all been doing for getting the Sage 100 Adv (MAS 200) workstation setup software to a client's remote locations (e.g., FTP site, CD's, DVD's)? For example, I have a 4.5 client who has remote locations that access Sage 100 via their VPN (and then from the Sage 100 icon on their individual computers). I'm assuming doing the install over the VPN wouldn't be too feasible due to performance. I could always just have them all download the full 4.5 installation image (2.88gb) from the Sage Portal, but that takes a bit of time, and then they'd have to unzip the .iso, etc., etc.

We upload a copy of the extracted MAS CD to our Sharefile site (or you could use Google Drive, SkyDrive, etc) and then email a link to the client to download. Once that's done, we'll remotely connect in to perform the installation.

Can this be done with Dropbox?

Sure. You can upload it to your Dropbox folder and then Share it with the user, but then they'll have to install Dropbox (which is sometimes a problem).

I always try to go the Terminal server route if possible. This minimizes support issues.

Sounds like I should probably just do what I normally do with upgrades: have the client download the full installation image from the Sage Portal (http://tinyurl.com/mas90-200-45). That way there's no bother with a separate FTP site/service/client - of course the Sage Portal must be ""operational"" at the time of downloading.

Steve, Why is installing Dropbox on a customer's workstation a ""problem"" I thought that the customer only needed a small ""applet"" on their side to download large files from my shared Dropbox folder in the sky.

Overzealous IT security. If the user has rights to install, then there's no problem.

I haven't tried it but in our 4.5 image there are both MAS 90 and MAS 200 WKsetup folders, each with their own autorun. The contents look a lot like the Mas 200 wksetup CD we got with 4.4. The 4.5 MAS 200 folder is about 300MB.

Over zealous IT security......the bane of our existence. I wish I had a nickel for every time I explained Users must have LOCAL ADMIN RIGHTS on the workstation so they can run WKSETUP (or the ADMINISTRATOR can run each time it's required), and at the MAS90 folder. Then there is the issue of installing software to THEIR SERVER. I installed a tool so I could unpack an the MAS v4.5 iso. The IT guy came unglued. I had to explain what it was, he never heard of an iso.......Go figure! I usually have an image of the CD on each Server. I found this very helpful over the years.

1. Always put wording into your upgrade agreements that timing (start time is dependent from when you have adequate admin rights. Usually I'll state something like - ""Go live day to be no sooner than xx day from when we have adequate network access rights and approval of testing"". This gets you out of situations where the customer delays and/or won't get back to you on these types of issues. 2. I have been using Dropbox but it works best if you are the only one using it (ie - customer isn't involved) as I believe the customer could delete items in the DropBox and impact your files across all shared DropBox accounts (which is what DropBox is designed for). Also do not use a personal DropBox because anyone savvy on the customer end can go into Advanced and sync as many folders as they want -- perhaps even your personal folders. I think Google Drive may have the ability to share as read-only (share it to customer then copy to another location) but I have not yet tested.

I use the public folder in DropBox for client files. You then only need to provide the public link for download. They don't need to install anything. I use it frequently and really like that feature.