Sage 100

What is your interest in a support co-operative for a small subset of 90 Minds members? Think of this as a support team backup for when you are: 1. On vacation 2. Working on a big project 3. Have an overload of sudden support At its core we have like minded members in this collaborative who assist in returning support calls for other member customers. This would be a share and share alike - in most circumstances you would not be expected to pay another member or receive payment for calls you return. This is for occasional use -- vacations, holidays, overload -- not everyday ongoing ""normal"" support. Definitely not intended to replace your internal support people. And, yes , there are plenty of details to be discussed such as who pays for a charged Sage case, managing usage and preventing over-use. Ideally I see this as a core of 6 to 8 members who share overload support and have a way to more closely communicate during the day regarding whether support assistance might be required. As an example of how you might implement this in your practice - let's say you simply add an email tagline when you know you're going to be out of reach to customers: Example: I am presently out of the office - please email support@90minds.com with urgent questions or call xxx-yyy-zzzz (which will be a Google Voice line). Level of interest? @MarkKotyla and I talked about this on our recent concert trip and think that it has a lot of merit - so you can assume there are at least already two people interested. No cost to join other than shared expenses that may occur. ?

I like the idea and would like to explore further. Obviously, this would be most beneficial to smaller owner/operators who have periods of extreme activity or on vacations which are really weeks where they are working from a different location. In fact, I am on site currently for the week and have three support calls scheduled from 5 - 7 AM this morning before I start my day.

As I said yesterday, I think it's a great idea. I thought about you @JeffSchwenk being in CA - who's minding the store??

Same person who minds it on vacation. Call forward the office phone, Watch for e-mails on phone. Still trying to collect from a three hour ""emergency"" session conducted from Hilton Head Island last February. Dinner was extremely cold when I ended the call.

See? Now if there were a 90 Minds group you could have called upon, your dinner would not have gone cold...

Agreed, but would I be able to stiff the good Samaritan because my client is being a butt hole???? But for family peace and harmony, it would have been worth the expense.

This would be a non-paying gig, right @WayneSchulz? You'd still be the one being stiffed @JeffSchwenk.

Interested, but there are lots of logistics in figuring it out.

I assume that the arrangement would be a fee based support understanding.

KISS... you watch my back and I'll watch yours. Not fee based and a simple non-compete agreement (and possibly a confidentiality agreement for some clients). This is really meant to cover the easy, but time sensitive, issues that arise while we're on vacation, sick or unavailable. We'll tweak, as required. If it doesn't work out, there's no obligation to continue participating.

Here's how I would see it: I'm on vacation somewhere and Customer ABC calls or emails me that they can't run payroll. They get the message that I'm out of the office but being a member of this great 90 Minds group, they can email their question to them. They do and one of you wonderful people says, ""Yes, as a member of 90 Minds, we back each other up when needed. How can I help you?"" You proceed to close their quarter so they can update their payroll and the customer asks, ""How am I going to get billed for this?"" You reply, ""That is up to Therese and Technology Integrators. She will be informed of this incident and will handle it as she sees fit."" Maybe they have a support agreement, maybe they don't. Maybe the incident falls under an agreement, maybe it doesn't. When I return, I am sincerely grateful and thank whomever, knowing my turn will come to do the same for another member. The only thing I see that could be problematic is if the 'manager' sees that I've apparently gone on a too few many vacations and the group has handled a half dozen incidents for my clients and I have not reciprocated, at which point, shame on me! I'm no longer allowed to post the support link on my out of office replies, etc. Or you get a @JeffSchwenk incident where it is a 3-hour deal after hours. Jeff bills his customer whatever and collects or not. Again, at some point, Jeff returns the favor. Now if I'm stuck with a handful of these lengthy issues and feel I can no longer participate in the group, I would simply ask to be removed. Am I oversimplifying this?

I think the 3 hour after hours call is outside the scope of this program. But, all it takes is a call to Jeff for direction on how to proceed. He can ask you to triage for now, or negotiate a fee for the call. Insofar as keeping score, I wouldn't ask a participating member to leave, but they may want to throw a bone to whomever picked up the slack. Thinking about the times I've relied on others to cover for me, I can count the incidents on one hand. I'd expect to tap this resource a couple times a year, especially during vacation. Personally speaking, I'd be nice to take one without putting my family on hold while I tend to client issues. If we use a database to log the incidents, it should be apparent who's abusing the process.

It is all in the details. I am always available to jump in and assist. So count me in the interested column.

I see this in the way Mark described - and in a similar infrequent use pattern. If you think - once established this is a very powerful marketing tool when you are asked about the size of your company , etc. I'm not concerned about the odd 3 hour call so log as it is not a pattern. And some of the way you guard against problems is you have the coop be invite only (not new members). I think it's also a great benefit of being a full 90 Minds member. This won't be to everyone's taste. All I think we need is 6-8 people to get it started.

I agree @WayneSchulz - very powerful marketing tool! I'm just starting to think about how I can leverage being a part of this group. I have already mentioned it to at least two customers regarding add-ons. ""I'm a member of a group called 90 Minds, partners like me who share ideas, information, experience, etc. Let me check with them to see what they have to say and I'll let you know!"" I think it's an amazing asset...

One other thing I would add is a heads up to the group when you will be using it. ""Going on vacation next week. Will anyone be available if necessary? Thanks in advance!

I can imagine an arrangement where multiple members may be the best cover depending on areas of expertise. Or someone with broad skills may be the designated cover while a number of members could be called on based on the area of expertise needed. I may be well rounded physically, but I am not a well rounded in using MAS on a day to day basis. However, I could certainly support other's clients with respect to tools (Custom Office, Crystal Reports, Scripting, ODBC and V/I).

While we could have three ways to contact: 1. Email 2. Web form 3. Phone I'm thinking that a web form (Google Docs) might be easiest. I don't really like taking blind incoming calls because it causes you to struggle to figure out if the caller is a customer or someone calling from the web, etc. We could ask information about: a. Company b. Name of partner (use a 90 Minds pick list of participating members) c. Phone d. Email We could also create a landing page with an FAQ and what to expect type info

Count me in

I am working on finding a date for us to have a conference call for those who are interested. I'll post the link when ready.

OMG, small owner/operators actually disconnect when taking a vacation. What planet have I been living on???? When we used to visit WDW in the 90's when the kids were much younger, I would sneak away to pay phones while they were riding It's a small world. They would joke ""Hey, dad, there is a pay phone over there. Need to call anyone""? And for the last 10 years as a Sage owner/operator, I cannot even remember a vacation where time wasn't spent fixing a client issue or even demonstrating MAS. Looking forward to the conference call!!!!

While I cannot promise completely trouble free vacations - I think we've all known each other long enough that we should be able to pull together this type of collaboration.

I'm not sure it fits for us. But I'm interested in exploring the details.

Reminder that we have a conference call scheduled for today 9/19/12 at 2pm ET - use the link in this message to sign up. I've also posted the agenda in a link to that message. Everything is up for discussion so what you see in the slides are to get us started. https://90minds-com.socialcast.com/messages/13439659-httpswww3gotomeetingcomregister722965518?ref=stream

Today is the 17th.

Oops - the call is today 9/17 Monday

I was late and quiet on the call, but we would probably want to work differently than most 90 minds members in that our primary focus is hosting. Therefore, we outsource a bunch of our support now and would probably want to use the group more for escalated support or Sage 100, Sage CRM or other application specific support. Our specifics for the group to know would be how to connect to our environment when assigned a case etc. Finally, I liked the idea of specific cost structures. One of the things we are working on is monthly support prices per user per month. We would collect from all hosted customers who subscribe and then judge whether the program makes sense based upon our support. The free < 30 minutes wouldn't be applicable because most of these would be escalated. However $250 may be too much for an hour call. I definitely look at this as a potential win win for the individuals performing the support and the customer.

As I sit here frantically preparing for my departure Wednesday for France for three weeks, this discussion seems quite timely. I opt in, but always feel a bit less capable than many of you since all we do here is manufacturing (standard and jobops) implementations. No installation or technical support flows from this place. But for what we can bring to the table...yep, we're in...

A wine tour @DebThomas ???

@DebThomas I think there is value in having a MFG specialist or two - especially Job Ops which is so specialized that most of us might not want to reply.

@ThereseLogeais - Not on a tour...well except that of my own making. Paris, Alsace, Switzerland, Lyon, Provence...in that order. Wine and food all the way along. Have a reservation at Alain Ducasse's ""Bistrot"" in Paris. Lyon is the gastronomic capital of France and Alsace...oh yeah those whites bring you to your knees.

Thanks @WayneSchulz ... I do JobOps, but seems like @JeffSchwenk is becoming quite JO skilled :)

@DebThomas - I have enough issues. Don't need any more........

@WayneSchulz - sorry missed yesterday's call but count me in as an interested party. Missed the call since I was swamped after coming back from a non-vacation (moving my college student). This would have been the perfect arrangement for last week - it's hard to answer the phone when you're carrying a 25 lb box upstairs, 3 flights, no elevator.

I hear ya!!!! Where are their friends when you need them...........

@JeffSchwenk amen.