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August 31, 2010

Downsizing Your ERP System – Part 2

Filed under: accpac erp, mas200, mas500, mas90, peachtree, pfw, sage software — Tags: accpac erp, mas 200, mas 500, mas 90, peachtree, pfw, sage software — dougdeane @ 1:25 pm

Blog by Doug Deane

In Part 1 of this article, I described some of the benefits and considerations that you should be aware of in downsizing your ERP system, and some of the challenges that you might face in doing so. In this installment, we’ll discuss the approach that you should take when evaluating downsized ERP packages.

It is critically important to do a thorough evaluation, in order to determine if the candidate systems are capable of handling all or most of your critical needs. This methodology is similar to any standard ERP software evaluation, but with consideration given to the special needs of a company that is downsizing:

Business process review. Before you do anything, conduct a thorough business process review and analysis. Your ERP system is an extension of your business processes and you must document them before evaluating any downsized ERP packages. Most Tier 2 resellers are very capable of providing such a review, as are many CPA firms and business consultants. Cover any pain points, and list the strengths and weaknesses of your existing system. Be careful to include all areas of your business in which customizations were needed in order to accomodate your business processes. This will form the basis of the discussion that you will have with your prospective vendors.
Hardware/IT infrastructure. Include your hardware and IT infrastructure standards in your evaluation. Although downsized software will probably run on your existing system, many Tier 1 systems run on proprietary devices and operating systems. You must fully understand whether the downsized system is compatible with your current IT environment. If not, this may dramatically change the associated ROI. You should also determine if the downsized system is compatible with your IT Director’s or CIO’s in-house standards, and if not, whether there is flexibility in these areas, based on the need to reduce costs.
TCO. Determine the total cost of ownership (TCO) of the candidate systems. Some ERP software sales representatives are interested in downplaying the costs associated with their software. Be sure to uncover any hidden costs, including implementation and training costs, data conversion costs, annual software maintenance fees, associated hardware upgrade costs, etc. Also remember to obtain a proposal from your existing Tier 1 provider, for providing conversion data in a format that can be accessed by your new system. This information can dramatically change your ROI, and can turn a compelling reason to downsize into a marginal one. You should always ask for a fixed fee for the implementation services. Avoid contracting for the services on a time and material basis. And remember that very often, the lowest initial purchase price is not the lowest TCO. You get what you pay for.
Implementation plan. You must ask for a detailed scope of work (SOW) for the implementation before making a purchase decision. The SOW should include (i) acknowledgment that your special needs and pain points have been addressed, (ii) a detailed breakout of any customization services, (iii) a project schedule including the impact on your own staff’s resources, (iv) a description of the testing process, and (v) an estimate of the data conversion services.
Evaluate multiple options. There are many Tier 2 and Tier 3 ERP publishers and packages out there, each having distinct benefits and limitations. Avoid using a software vendor who only sells one particular ERP package. They will not be as objective as a reseller who has access to multiple ERP packages.
Involve your staff. It is critically important for you to get your staff’s buy-in before you make a final decision. You are asking them to downsize their ERP software, which means they may lose some features which, although not critically important to your operations, probably make life a bit easier for them. Make them stakeholders in the evaluation process, and have them participate in the creation of the mission statement for your project.

If you follow these guidelines, downsizing from a Tier 1 ERP package can pay for itself in a short period of time, allowing you to stay afloat until the market has rebounded.

DSD business Systems excels at business process review and documentation, and would be happy to assist any company who is considering a downsized ERP system, in order to cut costs.

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Doug Deane is President of DSD Business Systems, a national provider of ERP software and accounting software, specializing in wholesale distribution, warehouse management, inventory and CRM software, including Sage MAS 90, Sage MAS 200, Sage Accpac ERP, Sage MAS 500, Sage FAS, Sage Peachtree, SageCRM, SalesLogix, Extended Solutions Enhancements, and Custom Programming.

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August 23, 2010

Downsizing Your ERP System – Part 1

Filed under: accpac erp, mas200, mas500, mas90, peachtree, pfw, sage software — Tags: accpac erp, mas 200, mas 500, mas 90, peachtree, pfw, sage software — dougdeane @ 2:47 pm

Blog by Doug Deane

When families experience lower income or rapidly rising costs, they must often downsize in order to be able to meet their financial obligations. Enterprises these days are facing the same challenges and they, too, are downsizing their financial lifestyles. That often means moving downstream from a costly and high maintenance ERP solution such as Oracle, SAP or PeopleSoft (Tier 1) to something a bit more modest such as Sage MAS 500, Sage Accpac ERP, or Sage MAS 200 (Tier 2). And for smaller enterprises, downsizing may mean transitioning from Microsoft GP or Epicor to Sage Peachtree or BusinessWorks (Tier 3).

In fact, while it represents a sizable undertaking to downsize from a Tier 1 ERP system, it can certainly be worth the effort, even when measured over a small period of time. Because the cost of a downsized system, including implementation and data conversion charges, can often be less than the annual maintenance renewal fee for a Tier 1 system, the payback period is often a year or less! For companies moving from a Tier 2 to a Tier 3 product, the cost and ROI benefits are similar.

For those of you who are skeptics, you should be aware that during the past 20 years, as desktop computing power became more and more formidable, the functionality gap between the Tier 2 and Tier 1 ERP systems closed dramatically. 20 years ago, it was unheard of for a Tier 2 package to do competent warehouse management and on-demand or just-in-time inventory forecasting, but now it is commonplace. So, companies who have had their Tier 1 system in place for over a decade will be surprised when they see Tier 2 ERP functionality.

Some challenges associated with downsizing are:

End-user resistance. There may be one or more users who fear downsizing and who may sabotage the new system.
Cultural mismatch. It is possible that there could be a mismatch between the new downsized ERP system and your organization’s “information culture”. Both of these challenges can be overcome by closely communicating your goals and your timetable to your support staff, by involving them in the evaluation process, and by developing a detailed mission statement for the project.
Customizations. Tier 1 systems are notorious for having tremendous amounts of customization. If a Tier 2 product is replacing the existing system, programming modifications or customizations of some sort may be necessary to duplicate some of the most important functionality in the high end module. If customizations are not preferred, then the organization may have to make small but important changes in the way that they do business. Tier 2 customizations can be in the form of programming modifications, simple customizations to the user interface, or in the form of custom reports using the report writer supplied with the Tier 2 system.

In Part 2 of this article, I’ll give you a strategy for downsizing your ERP system in a way that maximizes your chance for success.

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Extended Solutions Catalog – Part 5

Filed under: extended solutions, mas200, mas90, sage software — Tags: extended solutions, mas200, mas90, sage software — dougdeane @ 12:33 pm

Blog by Doug Deane

This is the latest update on DSD Business Systems’ progress in acquiring and updating the former Sage MAS 90/200 Extended Solutions catalog.

Every licensed developer in the MAS 90 channel has access to source code for all of the ES titles. If you already have a strong relationship with a developer, then you should ask them if they feel comfortable upgrading the ES titles for your end-users. If not, then DSD will be able to provide those titles at a low cost, in a timely way, and at the highest level of reliability.

Here are some of the reasons you should consider using DSD:

DSD has been designated as an Extended Solutions Preferred Provider by Sage.
DSD has been a Sage MAS 90/200 Developer since 1989, when the first developers were certified by Sage. We have over a century of experience on our programming team, and we have contributed heavily to the MAS90 developer’s program and associated standards. Many MAS90 developers use DSD’s development tools to facilitate their MAS90/200 development work. DSD Business Systems is a Sage Gold Development Partner.
Before the discontinuation of the ES Catalog, DSD already had its own versions of many of the most popular Extended Solutions titles, such as Multi-Company, Multi-Currency, Magnetic Media, etc. We are experts on these titles, and rather than simply taking the ES programs and upgrading them, we have merged the ES functionality with our own enhancements. This makes many new features available to current ES end-users as well as our own.
All DSD development is done in-house. We do not use offshore developers. We are dedicated to the success of our community, our region, and our nation, and we cannot rationalize using offshore programmers for that reason. See my blog on “Offshoring” for my take on this subject.
DSD would never solicit business directly from one of our resellers’ end-users. Our reseller’s relationship with their end-user is one of our highest priorities. We’re here to make you look good, not to steal your business.
All DSD products go through a rigorous QA process. We are known in the industry for the reliability of our products, for fixing them on an urgent basis when a bug is reported, and for the quality of our support.
All DSD products are available for immediate download from the DSD website, and most may be unlocked in DEMO mode.
DSD publishes and sells many of the most commonly-used enhancements in the MAS90 world. If you purchase ES titles from another developer, we cannot guarantee that the other developer’s products will work properly with any of our popular and widely-used enhancements.

We’ve made incredible headway in our effort to upgrade all of the former Sage ES titles to the most current version of MAS 90. In the recent press release, we listed close to 100 of the most popular ES titles that have been upgraded and are available for purchase, or which are currently being worked on, and which will be ready for shipment in the next few weeks. That press release is available at:

http://www.dsdinc.com/mailer/enh_ebulletin_es_august2010.html

Our goals are to make all the widely used ES titles available on or before the end of 2010, and to make them available at the cost of your current end-user’s ES maintenance plan payment. Check out the link above to see how far we’ve come in meeting those goals.

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August 10, 2010

Do You Make Your Customers More Money?

Filed under: accpac erp, extended solutions, mas200, mas500, mas90, pfw, sage software, sagecrm, sales/marketing, saleslogix — Tags: accpac erp, extended solutions, mas200, mas500, mas90, pfw, sage software, sagecrm, saleslogix — dougdeane @ 1:28 pm

Blog by Doug Deane

Peter Drucker is famous for saying that “the purpose of a business is to create a customer”. But you probably have many competitors, and they are all after that same customer.

So, what incremental value do you provide your customer? What “special sauce” do you bring to the table that causes your customer to make more money than if they were your competitor’s customer? If you don’t know then you have not properly defined your value proposition, and you’re probably losing sales as a result.

The most important part of DSD’s Mission Statement says that, “Our team will help you dominate your competition and raise customer satisfaction to the highest level. We will help you be more profitable, more efficient, more self-reliant, and more consistent in your delivery of goods and services to your own customers.”

Do we do that better than our ERP system competitors? Yes, we do, and here’s why:

Dominate Your Competition. Every viable business must now have a formidable Internet presence. DSD has access to the best available Search Engine Optimation services. Those services will elevate your page rankings, get you a bigger audience, and cause more people to visit your website. We can also implement a world-class e-commerce website for you, that will link to your inventory and give your customers and your staff real-time order information. We can also use sophisticated reporting and analytical tools to help you make better sales, marketing and stocking decisions.

Check out these links:

http://www.dsdinc.com/solutions/by-internet-services/search-engine-optimization-seo-/index.html.

http://www.dsdinc.com/products/sage-accpac-erp/business-intelligence-reporting/index.html

http://www.dsdinc.com/mas90/mas90-business-intelligence/business-insights-explorer.html

Raise Customer Satisfaction. That’s why you’re in business, isn’t it? You want to create a customer and to make them happy. DSD has a complete set of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools to help you do just that. SalesLogix, SageCRM and Act! provide a complete view of customer interactions across sales, marketing, customer service and support so your teams can collaborate and respond promptly and knowledgeably to customer inquiries and opportunities. You know that it costs five to ten times more to get a new customer than to keep an existing one. Use our CRM products to stay in touch with your most important asset, and to nip problems in the bud before they turn into relationship-ending ones.

Check out these links:

http://www.dsdinc.com/products/crm-solutions/sage-sales-logix/index.html

http://www.dsdinc.com/products/crm-solutions/sage-crm/sales-automation.html

http://www.dsdinc.com/products/crm-solutions/act!-by-sage.html

Be More Profitable. Before we sell you anything, DSD will come in to your business and perform a thorough and detailed business needs and process analysis. This is what Value Added Resellers do; it’s not what Value Subtracted Resellers do. Value Subtracted Resellers don’t care about your profitability or your business. They only care about selling software, and they’re willing to do it at the lowest possible price. Just don’t complain if it doesn’t exactly meet your needs, or doesn’t make you as profitable as you’d like to be.

Check these links out:

http://www.dsdinc.com/tips-tools/business–industry-tips.html

http://www.dsdinc.com/consulting/implementation.html

Be More Efficient. Efficiency means doing more with less. It also means higher profits. Higher efficiency is not low hanging fruit for a battle hardened company like yours. It only comes with a thorough analysis of all your internal business processes, a review of your staff’s strengths and weaknesses, and the implementation of a system that is exactly matched to your needs.

As a Gold Developer for Sage MAS90/200/500 and Accpac ERP, DSD can help you think outside the box in tailoring your new system to handle all of the special rules, processes and systems that differentiate you from your competitors. That’s your “special sauce”, and it’s the most important thing in the world to your success. We’ll honor it, and we’ll make sure that your new system can handle all of those special processes. We’d prefer to do so without any customization, but if that’s what it takes, we’re there for you. We’re the best in the business at modifying Sage MAS90/200/500 and Accpac ERP to exactly meet your needs.

Check these links out:

http://www.dsdinc.com/enh/custom-programming.html

http://www.dsdinc.com/dsd/pdf/MAS_90_200_Custom_Office_Spec.pdf

http://www.dsdinc.com/products/sage-mas-500-erp/customization/customizer.html

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Doug Deane is President of DSD Business Systems, a national provider of ERP software and accounting software, specializing in wholesale distribution, warehouse management, inventory and CRM software, including Sage MAS 90, Sage MAS 200, Accpac ERP, Sage MAS 500, Sage FAS, SageCRM, SalesLogix, Extended Solutions Enhancements, and Custom Programming.

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July 30, 2010

Sage MAS 90 vs. Sage MAS 200

Filed under: mas200, mas90, sage software — Tags: mas200, mas90, sage software — dougdeane @ 8:47 am

Blog by Doug Deane

Sage MAS90 and Sage MAS200 are identical products in term of features and functionality. That is, once a user has logged in to either MAS 90 or MAS 200, they cannot discern which one they’re using. The differences lie in what’s going on in the background. MAS 200 uses a “thin” client/server architecture, which means that the amount of data being transferred back and forth to the end-user’s workstation is greatly reduced as compared to MAS 90.

In MAS 200, only the screen updates are passed back and forth between the workstation and the server, which means that all the work is being done by the server, and virtually none is being done by the workstation itself. So, on the plus side, MAS 200 makes slower workstations perform acceptably well (as long as they meet the MAS 200 workstation memory requirements) and MAS 200 works exceptionally well in a distributed processing environment, where users on the other side of the country or the world need real-time access to the enterprise database. MAS 200 is also considered by most IT experts to have stronger data security and integrity protections than MAS 90 running on a local network.

Because of these advantages, MAS 200 user licenses simply cost more than MAS 90 user licenses. There is little difference in the cost of a MAS90 server vs. a MAS 200 server and other hardware and system requirements are not significant enough for there to be a substantial price difference. So the burning question is - Why would someone purchase MAS 200 despite its higher cost?

First of all, let’s talk about that cost difference. The MAS application modules themselves are identically priced between MAS 90 and MAS 200, and it is only the user licenses that are priced differently. A 10-user MAS 200 system will cost about $7,800 more than an identically configured MAS 90 system, but many IT professionals feel that the difference in cost is a small price to pay for the improved security and data integrity. Of course, the price difference increases as the number of users increase.

Steve Iwanowski, IT Consultant for NextStep Technology Advisors says, “With regards to MAS 200, the big reason we prefer MAS 200 over MAS 90 is data integrity. If MAS 90 is loaded on a network, it seems to act like our canary-in-a-coal-mine for network problems; we’ll start chasing symptoms that end up being caused by silly things like bad cables or long cable runs. We never have these issues with MAS 200. Also, most of our clients are slowly replacing their PCs with laptops, which they want to run wirelessly, and MAS 90 struggles more than MAS 200 over Wi-Fi.”

“If Citrix is already available, then MAS 90 is a good alternative, although we start to draw the line at ten users for network utilization and general stability reasons. I admit that I don’t have any hard numbers to prove why ten seems to be a magic number for us but anecdotally, we’ve had a few clients that if one person locked up MAS 90 on Citrix, then all MAS users (Citrix or not) start to have issues. The only work around for that was to reboot the MAS server. “

“All that being said, I guess it all comes down to how much risk the client is willing to tolerate. Our preference is to follow the best practice of putting MAS on its own server, and as most of our clients are still heavily PC-focused, we feel MAS 200 is the safer choice. And if you already have MAS on its own server, you might as well go with MAS 200 so that you can use the server’s horsepower to run it.”

So, MAS 90 is a good choice for systems of 10 users or less, particularly when there’s not a large number of users who are located remotely from the main server. But when one or two remote users are needed, many IT professionals recommend Microsoft Remote Desktop instead of Citrix. John Broadfoot, a MAS expert at Parsec Computers, has this perspective on remote access to Sage MAS 90 systems:

“I use a windows terminal server client (Microsoft Remote Desktop) to do remote work on client MAS 90 systems regularly. The Remote Desktop Client is built in to most all Microsoft operating systems including servers. Microsoft Servers all appear to support two Terminal Server sessions that can be used by Remote Desktop Client to attach for Maintenance work.”

“Most of the business workstation operating systems will support a single Terminal Server session and I use this feature to work on my workstation from home or when traveling. Microsoft makes versions of their Server Operating Systems that can be licensed to handle far more Remote Desktop Client attachments. We have a number of clients who have a Microsoft Terminal Server setup and run most of their users on it. Some don’t even have PCs for the workstation. They use Windows Terminals instead.”

“There is a similar more advanced environment which does the same thing and more from Citrix; however it is more expensive.”

“Terminal services from either Microsoft or Citrix are supported for MAS 90 and 200. The supported platform matrix discusses this.”

“For any end-user environment, it is possible to have a single physical server with both a virtual MAS 90 Server and a virtual Terminal Server to act as workstations for remote or local MAS users. The virtual part is unnecessary from the MAS viewpoint because Sage does support putting MAS 90 (not 200) directly on the terminal server.”

“On those systems we maintain remotely via Terminal Services, we have protections in place that allows us access only to the machine we need using a private port scheme.”

Steve Iwanowski added this information about an interesting alternative to Citrix or Terminal Server for remote access:

“Every Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 (or newer) has a feature built-in called Remote Web Workplace, which allows users to connect to their PC at work via the web (no VPN, terminal server, or special software required). I always considered it the “killer app” of SBS since it essentially replaces software like pcAnywhere, VNC, or LogMeIn, but it never got the recognition it deserved.”

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Doug Deane is President of DSD Business Systems, a national provider of ERP software and accounting software, specializing in wholesale distribution, warehouse management, inventory and CRM software, including Sage MAS 90, Sage MAS 200, Accpac ERP, Sage MAS 500, Sage FAS, SageCRM, SalesLogix, Extended Solutions Enhancements, and Custom Programming.

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July 27, 2010

The Highly Anticipated Release of Sage Accpac ERP Version 6.0A

Filed under: accpac erp, extended solutions, mas200, mas500, mas90, sage software, sagecrm, saleslogix — admin @ 9:02 am

Blog by Doug Deane

The Highly Anticipated Release of Sage Accpac ERP Version 6.0A

Everyone in the Sage community is eagerly awaiting the release of Version 6.0A of the Sage Accpac ERP suite. This version of the software is a leap forward for Sage Accpac ERP in that it presents the user with a browser-based user interface (UI) that has been designed using the Google Web Toolkit (GWT).

The new UI has been designed to allow the user to navigate as quickly and as intuitively as possible, based on their specific job duties (i.e it’s roles-based). As you can see from this screen shot, the user is presented with a dashboard style screen, that displays their mission-critical data in a graphical format, and allows them to navigate accordingly. Each user can personalize their own portal, and system security assures that each user will only be allowed to view or change information that they are allowed to access.

The UI also allows quick access to inquiries on an ad-hoc basis and facilitates the creation of quick information lists and reports. User-created queries can be saved and reused. The new UI will replace the existing Sage Accpac ERP desktop.

Crystal Reports is still used as the default report writer, but in the new release, query results are shown using the Crystal web view in a separate tab on the Accpac portal, as shown in the attached screen snapshot.

Along with the dramatic improvements made to the UI, Sage has also added significant functionality to SageCRM and to the ERP accounting modules. Improvements have been made to SageCRM in the area of quote-to-order workflow, in the elimination of the Lanpak requirement for SageSCRM order entry users, and in support for SageCRM 7.0. Users will now be able to create quick product quotes in SageCRM, and turn them into orders without exiting SageCRM.

Last of all, a much requested change has been made to the ERP module functionality. Users now have the ability to lock fiscal periods by module. Modules can now be locked down until the fiscal period closing has been completed, preventing unwanted postings into the wrong fiscal period.

The new 6.0A release is due out in the third quarter of this year, and it is eagerly anticipated by the Sage Accpac ERP partner channel and by end-users. The use of the GWT in the design of the UI, and in the design of the version 6.1A accounting modules, will bring Accpac ERP one step closer to being a truly web-deployable product. The new design will allow it to be deployed in a public or private cloud, and we’ll undoubtedly begin to see a high end-user adoption rate for Accpac ERP delivered in a SaaS model. Sage has beta-tested Sage Live in the UK, and I don’t think it’s a stretch of the imagination to expect to see a version of it soon in North America, using Sage Accpac ERP and SageCRM.

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Doug Deane is President of DSD Business Systems, a national provider of ERP software and accounting software, specializing in wholesale distribution, warehouse management, inventory and CRM software, including Sage MAS 90, Sage MAS 200, Accpac ERP, Sage MAS 500, Sage FAS, SageCRM, SalesLogix, Extended Solutions Enhancements, and Custom Programming.

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July 22, 2010

Sage MAS 200 EES Roadmap

Filed under: mas200, mas90, sage software, sales/marketing — Tags: ERP sales, mas200, mas200 EES, mas90, sage software — dougdeane @ 1:19 pm

Blog by Doug Deane

The Sage MAS200 Extended Enterprise Suite (EES) was originally released to give current and prospective Sage MAS 200 end-users access to enterprise-wide functionality. That suite took the powerful and widely-used Sage MAS 200 ERP product, and married it with SageCRM and Sage FAS, in order to add CRM and Fixed Asset capabilities to an already impressive ERP feature set.

There were, and still are, significant challenges facing Sage in getting traction in the marketplace with the product, and tougher still, getting their partner channel to become EES evangelists. Some of the challenges are:

ERP consultants aren’t necessarily CRM experts. In fact, more often than not, they are not familiar enough with CRM functionality to be able to implement it in an enterprise environment. That requires a great deal of collaboration between the MAS resellers and the SageCRM channel, and that collaboration was slow to happen, at least initially.
Compounding the SageCRM issues were the EES certification requirements mandated by Sage. In order for a partner to be certified to sell EES, that same partner had to become certified on SageCRM. Many partners were reluctant to do so, and Sage did not initially have a certification policy that allowed two different resellers to collaborate on an EES implementation.
Not all end-users need all MAS 200 modules, and for many of them, it is less expensive to purchase the MAS 200 product with only the needed modules, whether SageCRM and FAS are needed, or not.
There have been challenging licensing issues. It is typical for any EES implementation to have a different number of ERP end-users than it had CRM end-users. For instance, if 35 end-users need ERP (MAS 200) access, then only 10 end-users in the sales department might be deemed to need SageCRM access. The challenge is that all EES licenses are concurrent, and they all give access to all the modules. So, each license would include the cost for SageCRM access, although many of the users wouldn’t need it.

This last issue is an interesting one, because I think that it highlights a needed change in mindset in the ERP marketplace. Many ERP channel partners have been selling their products for a decade or more; in DSD’s case, for nearly three decades. We have always considered the center of the customer database universe to be the customer master file, located in MAS 200 in the Accounts Receivable module. That’s old school thinking, and I believe that EES adoption has suffered as a result. The hub of the enterprise database wheel should be the CRM database. The CRM database should be the receptacle for all customer-centric activity, and if end-users saw the ERP world through those glasses, many more licenses would be sold for CRM. But to some extent, ERP resellers don’t view the world that way, and so their end-users don’t either. That inevitably affects EES’s perceived value proposition.

So, with all of these challenges, it’s understandable that Sage’s roadmap for the product will be fine-tuned. At around the time of the version 4.50 release of MAS 200 (which would have been the version 1.5 release of MAS 200 EES), we may see the product disappear as “EES” and replaced with two purchase options for MAS 200 – per-module (ala carte) licensing or per-user licensing. Sage’s intent is to give all of its prospects and end-users the greatest amount of flexibility in purchasing and tailoring the ERP system that meets their needs.

The per-user license model will be what we now call MAS 200 EES, and each license will include all of the current EES modules. SageCRM licenses may be named user or concurrent user licenses (with concurrent licenses costing around 2.5 times more than a named license), and concurrent licenses will have the capability of being assigned to one specific end-user. In other words, if one or two of the concurrent end-users has a mission-critical need for access, then a concurrent license may be reserved in their name. Of course, this dilutes the advantage of having concurrent licenses, so reserving them should be the exception and not the rule.

As of now, Sage is not planning to allow both concurrent and named SageCRM licenses to be able to coexist on the same MAS 200 system – the end-user must select one or the other. Also please note that the ERP modules (i.e. MAS 200) will only be available in concurrent licenses.

Sage has also not yet decided if they’ll continue to brand the per-user licensing model as “EES”. That will be a task for their marketing department to figure out.

To make things even a little bit tougher for the Product Management folks, MAS 200 will (hopefully) be available in two flavors by the time that version 4.50 is rolled out – Providex and SQL. So, there will be eight permutations of the Sage MAS 200 product, defined by these three distinctions:

Licensing: Per-User or Per-Module?
Licensing: Concurrent or Named-User? (For SageCRM – ERP licenses will continue to be concurrent only)
Backend: Standard (Providex) or SQL?

We are looking forward to the Product Management and Development teams collaboration to streamline the licensing and installation processes for all the (now) EES modules. From their recent LinkedIn Groups posting, it’s Sage’s intent to do the following:

To deliver the product on a single DVD with a simplified installation.
To make the product available in both per-user based pricing and traditional modular pricing.
To make SageCRM user licenses available to all Sage ERP MAS 90 and 200 customers as “add-ons”, and each Sage ERP MAS 90 and 200 will get a free single SageCRM user license as part of version 4.5. This will be a full and unrestricted SageCRM license.
To continue to bundle FAS in the per-user pricing model. For per-module pricing it will continue to be an option.
To provide a single support contract for ERP, SageCRM and Fixed Assets.
To provide a seamless upgrade path for existing per-module MAS 200 end-users, to the per-user pricing module.

I’d like to thank Travis Taylor in the Product Management Department of the Sage Mid-Market ERP Solutions Division, for his kind assistance in clarifying some of these details.

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Doug Deane is President of DSD Business Systems, a national provider of ERP software and accounting software, specializing in wholesale distribution, warehouse management, inventory and CRM software, including Sage MAS 90, Sage MAS 200, Accpac ERP, Sage MAS 500, Sage FAS, SageCRM, SalesLogix, Extended Solutions Enhancements, and Custom Programming.

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July 14, 2010

How to Get Yourself Fired

Filed under: accpac erp, extended solutions, mas200, mas500, mas90, pfw, sage software, sagecrm, saleslogix — Tags: accpac, extended solutions, mas200, mas500, mas90, pfw, sage software, sagecrm, saleslogix — dougdeane @ 1:36 pm

Blog by Doug Deane

As you know, the “How to Get yourself Fired” series of articles gives disgruntled employees tips on getting themselves fired so that they can collect unemployment benefits while they spend some much-needed time at the beach. In this article, we will be assisting CFO’s and Accounting Managers in getting themselves fired. One of the easiest ways to accomplish this, and the least suspicious, is to botch an accounting or ERP software evaluation for your company. It’s done all the time, by smart and well-intentioned people.

There’s a useful document in understanding what you shouldn’t be doing, to get prepared for your ERP software evaluation. It is titled “How to be Successful in Choosing and Implementing a New Accounting Software System — 39 Useful Tips” and you can find it by clicking on this link:

http://www.dsdinc.com/dsd/pdf/HowToSelectImplementAccountingSoftwareSystem.pdf

Of course, you’ll use this document as a reverse barometer of how you should approach this project. I’ve listed some of the highlights from that document. In a nutshell, you should avoid doing any of these:

Don’t change your existing system until well after it has run out of capacity to handle your business issues. That way, you’ll be under tremendous pressure to get a new system in, because your old one has failed, and this will cause mistakes and errors by your staff. The added pressure will also prevent you from going parallel with your new system, in order to check its accuracy and its adherence to your business model.
Do not compromise with your software vendors. If they indicate that one or more of your processes or procedures can be changed to make your company more efficient or profitable, definitely do not succumb to their advice. The last thing you want is to make more money for your company. That’s not the kind of behavior that gets you fired.
Do not create a task force to evaluate the software. You’ll be much better off doing this in a vacuum, because it’s quite likely that others who you recruit will sabotage you, without knowing it. After all, they may enjoy working at your company.
Do not tell your software vendor what’s special or unusual about your company. The less you tell them, the less likely they will provide a system that actually meets your company’s needs.
Whatever you do, do not involve your sales team in the software evaluation process. That is a recipe for disaster. They will probably insist on integration with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, and they’ll want to know how the new system makes it easier for them to sell your products and to service your customers’ needs. Yikes!
Do not select a system that has the capability to be customized to meet your needs. That would defeat all of your personal goals, wouldn’t it?
Avoid having your software vendor perform a complete Needs Analysis. The less information they have, the better.

Now, you’ll need to select one or more vendors to assist you in your evaluation. You should probably not pick an experienced and honored vendor like DSD Business Systems or one of its partners, who sells the most popular, widely used, and full featured products like Sage MAS90, Sage MAS500 or Sage Accpac ERP. And you certainly shouldn’t select a highly ethical reseller like DSD or its partners, who are at the highest level of recognition by the Better Business Bureau, who is a recent Finalist in the BBB Torch Award competition, and who was recently the first-ever winner of the Sage Community Service Award. This is a recipe for success, which is not the goal here.

The next step in your evaluation process is to not create an Accounting Software Checklist. There’s an example of what you shouldn’t be creating at this link:

http://www.dsdinc.com/dsd/pdf/TIPS-AccountingSoftwareChecklist.pdf

If your software vendor proposes that you use such a checklist, let them know that you already have one, and that you’ll use it appropriately (i.e. not at all).

Next up on your list of things to avoid doing is creating a list of questions for your prospective vendors. If you’d like an example of questions to stay away from, click on this link:

http://www.dsdinc.com/dsd/pdf/TIPS-ConsideringIntegratedSolutions.pdf

Let me highlight that document for you:

Do not investigate any areas in your company that are now manual and which may possibly be automated by your new system. The only exception to this rule is when you’re sure that there’s a disgruntled employee who wouldn’t mind being laid off. After all, you’re not the only one who could use a better tan.
Do not ask your software vendor if they can produce any much-needed reports that your current system cannot. If the new system doesn’t produce them either, your boss will just assume that it’s an impossible need that no software can fulfill.
Do not bring up the Internet. There’s no better way for your company to connect with your customers, staff and vendors, so this is an area you should avoid at all cost.
Steer the discussions away from your customers’ needs. Their needs don’t get you a paid vacation to the beach for the next 6 months, do they?

The next important topic is “saving money”. This works at odds with your hidden agenda, so you’ll need to know how to spend the most amount of money on the system that is the most poorly matched to your business needs. Check the “Penny Pincher’s List” out by clicking on this link:

http://www.dsdinc.com/dsd/pdf/TIPS-PennyPinchersChecklist.pdf

Of course, you want to avoid all those suggestions, in order to spend as much money as possible on a new system that doesn’t do what you need it to.

One of the most important aspects of any ERP software evaluation is the Needs Analysis. You should avoid having one performed, but if your vendor insists, then it must not be thorough. A top notch vendor will explore every nook and cranny of your business, determining where your current system falls short, documenting your business processes, and even suggesting improvements to your work-flow. You can find a list of suggestions to avoid by clicking on:

http://www.dsdinc.com/dsd/pdf/TIPS-HowToCreateAccountingSysNeedsAnalysis.pdf

The most important area for you to concentrate on are unstated needs, and “innocent” inaccuracies in your responses to your software vendor’s interview questions. If you have a special need that is not obvious, and your vendor does not ask that question, then who’s to blame? Remember, your goal is to have a system installed that cannot do what your company needs it to do.

So let’s do some damage control. Let’s say that you’ve been working with a vendor like DSD Business Systems or one of its partners, who has access to multiple ERP software solutions, who has come into your offices and performed a thorough and detailed needs analysis. They have met with all your key staff, they’ve investigated all your reporting and information needs, they’ve looked at Internet connectivity and they’ve had extensive discussions with your sales department. Based on their research, they’ve selected the one product that best meets your needs and they’ve given you one or more product demos, and they proposed a very competitive price and possibly even a fixed price for the implementation services.

Are you completely screwed?

No, not yet. Simply get on the Internet and Google “????? discount”, where ????? is replaced by the name of the software product that has been proposed. For example; “mas90 discount” or “accpac discount” or “mas500 discount”. You get the idea. This will enable you to locate a software vendor whose business model is roughly equivalent to your own personal agenda. They have taken a highly sophisticated piece of intellectual property, and turned it into a commodity.

Most software vendors are referred to as “Value Added Resellers” whereas discount vendors are referred to as “Value Subtracted Resellers”. You definitely want as much value as possible subtracted from your system. Such a vendor can provide you with a lower purchase cost than your diligent vendor, because they have not taken the time to be diligent. That’s a significant cost savings, which may tip the scales in favor of the discount vendor. Best yet, they will not understand all your business processes or needs, so there is a high likelihood that the implementation will be botched or go terribly over budget. These are both extremely helpful to you.

So, let’s discuss the worst case scenario. Someone like DSD Business Systems has come in, and they’ve proposed a wonderful solution for your company, after having performed a thorough needs analysis. You brought up the discount vendors, but your management team overrode that option, correctly thinking that it might lead to trouble (for them).

The only straw you have left to grasp at is doing your best to sabotage the implementation. Here’s a link to a document that will describe to you exactly what not to do during this important phase:

http://www.dsdinc.com/dsd/pdf/TIPS-5TipsToEmbraceChange.pdf

In order to ensure the failure of your ERP software implementation, you have to prepare the soil, much like a farmer does, except that you want those crops to fail. This document provides you with a great list of what not to do, which I’ve summarized below:

Do not build a case for change. The more that your staff feels that the new system is an inconvenience, the more likely they will be to fight it at every turn.
Do not keep your staff informed about progress, and under no circumstances should you let them know how their jobs will be affected by the new changes. It is advisable to have them all believe that the new system could replace any or all of them. Posting Dilbert cartoon strips or pictures of trained monkeys on the lunch room bulletin board is a nice touch.
Invest as little as possible in employee training. Tell your boss that you’ll be the only one trained, in order to save money, and that you’ll train everyone else. Gotcha!
Do not support your managers’ need for change. Keep them in the dark about the new implementation, until it’s time to go live. They are much more responsible than you are, so the less they’re involved, the more likely you are to reach Margaritaville.

This should be a foolproof way of Getting Yourself Fired, if you’re a CFO or Accounting Manager doing an ERP software evaluation. Hopefully, the software disaster that you leave in your wake will not be fatal for your previous employer. You want to avoid putting those severance checks in jeopardy.

For more ideas visit http://www.dsdinc.com/dsd/featured-topics.html.

In the next installment, we’ll discuss creative and survivable ways for airline pilots to Get Themselves Fired.

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Doug Deane is President of DSD Business Systems, a national provider of ERP software and accounting software, specializing in wholesale distribution, warehouse management, inventory and CRM software, including Sage MAS90, Sage MAS200, Accpac, Sage MAS500, Sage FAS, SageCRM, SalesLogix, Extended Solutions Enhancements, and Custom Programming.

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June 14, 2010

Sage MAS200 SQL – A Huge Step Forward

Filed under: mas200, mas90, sage software — Tags: mas200, mas90, sage software — dougdeane @ 2:51 pm

Blog by Doug Deane

In the fourth quarter of this year Sage will be releasing MAS 200 ver. 4.45 which will bring SQL functionality to MAS 200. Steve Malmgren has been the driving force behind this release for many years, and he is to be commended for his great work. Sage claims that the new SQL version will not suffer from the same problems as the disappointing legacy SQL version of the product. That product was retired after ver. 3.74 and Sage has since made an upgrade path available to all MAS 200 SQL end-users in order to move them to a more current version of the non-SQL software.

Would a SQL version of MAS 90 be an improvement? Good question. The answer is yes, for a lot of reasons. Some of them are:

More efficient processing of large datasets. There are many MAS 90 and MAS 200 systems with hundreds of thousands or millions of records in their files, particularly in the transaction history files. Although the records in those files are currently indexed in the ways that Sage believes will be the most popular, they are not indexed in every conceivable way that a sophisticated user might need them to be, when business intelligence reports are being designed. Reports whose data needs to be selected and sorted by “non-standard” criteria (isn’t it interesting how non-standard criteria is almost always the most valuable?) can take many hours to print, when the involved datafile(s) are substantial. Crystal reports, BIE and other business intelligence tools can take so long to print in this environment, that end-users are reluctant to use them. A SQL-based system will virtually eliminate this problem, making data much more accessible and report printing much more efficient. Although the “standard” MAS 200 reports will not see a huge improvement, many reports written outside MAS 200 (in Crystal Reports, for instance) will only take a small fraction of the time to print.
Better integration with third-party SQL-based applications. Many of the most robust third-party applications are written with a SQL backend. MAS 200 ver. 4.45 will now be much more compatible with those applications than it is now. Some of those third party developers had written integrations to MAS 90 and MAS 200, but many had not because of the added difficulty in integrating to a non-SQL database. This will no longer be the case, and I believe that we will see a number of vendors jumping on the MAS 200 bandwagon with their products. With the new SQL database, third party SQL applications can use the Business Framework’s integration layer in order to perform updates into the MAS 200 database. They can now leverage the MAS business logic, instead of bypassing it, which preserves data integrity and eliminates synchronization issues.
Availability of SQL data for queries and other manipulation. Database administrators will now have access to the full MAS200 database via SQL. They will be able to perform ad hoc SQL queries using many of their traditional SQL-based reporting and BI tools.

These are all compelling issues for end-users with larger datasets or complex business needs, and on paper, those end-users should be well-served by this new release. But, many of us were greatly disappointed with the old MAS 200 SQL software, so resellers and end-users alike are naturally wary of this product’s claimed performance.

To address this very issue, Sage asked a small number of channel partners to spend time at Sage in Irvine, testing the new ver. 4.45 product and grilling Sage development staff about its capabilities. All feedback from that meeting was very positive, and it looks like this new product has the potential to be a huge step forward for MAS 200. Jon Reiter, our VP of Engineering and Jim Woodhead, our VP of Professional Services – MAS, were both in attendance and came away very impressed. Some of their observations were:

Very large datasets were tested and were processed very quickly. Crystal Reports and inquiries were generated in a small fraction of the expected time.
BIE loads were extremely fast.
Because there are no SQL Server stored procedures, a single code base will be maintained, allowing for smoother integration and support of third-party products.

The drawbacks, at least initially, will be:

Only new sales will be supported. Initially, there will be no upgrade path available for existing MAS 90 and MAS 200 end-users. We expect that to change when ver. 4.50 is available. When it is released, existing end-users may upgrade to the 4.50 SQL version of MAS 200, in order to gain all the described benefits.
Only the current Business Framework modules are currently planned to be available in ver. 4.45. That means that the following modules will not be available in the new SQL version when it is first released: Payroll, Job Cost, Work Order, MRP, eBusiness Manager, Business Insights Reporter, FRx & F9, Starship Parcel, CRM Integration and FAS Integration. If a new end-user must have one of these modules, then they will be prevented from buying the new 4.45 version. Most of these modules may be replaced by the functionality of other products available in the market.

Ver. 4.45 will support these platforms:

Server. SQL Server 2008 (32 and 64 bit) and Windows Server 2008 (32 and 64 bit)
Client. Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 (32 and 64 bit)

Sage has announced that there will be a bundled edition of the MAS 200 software, containing a SQL Server license. The 4.45 version will essentially be based on MAS 90 and MAS 200 ver. 4.40 and will include the ver. 4.40 workflow and business processes enhancements in the Inventory, Purchase Order and Bill of Materials modules.

The minimum application server configurations in order to achieve the product’s intended performance are as follows:

Windows Server 2008 Standard (32 bit). Processor must be Intel Core 2 Duo class or better, RAM requirements are 4GB + 200MB per concurrent user, and there must be a 100Mbps network connection.
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise (32 bit). Same as above.
Windows Server 2008 Standard (64 bit). Intel or AMD 64 bit capabile processor, 4 GB + 200 MB per concurrent user, and a 100 Mbps network connection.
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise (64 bit). Same as above.

For the clients, the minimum configurations are as follows:

Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services (32 and 64 bit). Intel Core 2 Duo class processor or better, minimum amount of RAM recommended for Windows Terminal Services PLUS 128MB per concurrent user, and a 100 Mbps network connection.
Citrix Presentation Server 5.0. Intel Core 2 Duo class processor or better, minimum amount of RAM recommended for Citrix PLUS 128MB per concurrent user, and a 100 Mbps network connection.

We’ve been told by Sage staff that these requirements will vary based on the number of users and the profile of the tasks being processed, and that these requirements may be upgraded before the product is release, based on feedback from the business partners.

We are eagerly awaiting the release of this new product, and DSD Business Systems will be in the first group of adopters and implementers. We believe that the 4.45 and subsequent 4.50 releases will allow the channel partners to capture more new business, and better serve the needs of their existing end-users.

DSD publishes the SQL Mirroring enhancement for MAS 90 and MAS 200, which allows end-users to create an exact duplicate of their MAS90 (Providex) database in SQL. Will the new SQL version of MAS 200 make our SQL Mirroring product obsolete? No, not at all. Implementing a MAS 200 4.45 system takes a considerable investment in hardware, networking, software and training. SQL Mirroring will continue to be a great alternative for end-users who do not need enterprise-wide SQL functionality. Specifically, it is targeted for a MAS 90 or MAS 200 end-user whose database administrator needs occasional SQL data warehousing, reporting and inquiry capabilities. DSD will continue to actively support and upgrade that product. SQL Mirroring is a great alternative for end-users having one or more of the legacy non-SQL modules (such as Payroll, Work Order or MRP), and it is available now.

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Doug Deane is President of DSD Business Systems, a national provider of ERP software and accounting software, specializing in wholesale distribution, warehouse management, inventory and CRM software, including Sage MAS 90, Sage MAS 200, Accpac, Sage MAS 500, Sage FAS, SageCRM, SalesLogix, Extended Solutions Enhancements, and Custom Programming.

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June 10, 2010

What is Hybrid Computing and Why Should You Care?

Filed under: Uncategorized, sage software, sagecrm, sales/marketing, saleslogix — Tags: sage software, sagecrm, saleslogix — dougdeane @ 2:13 pm

Blog by Doug Deane

I recently came across an exceptionally informative article posted on June 9, 2010 by Laurie McCabe on www.smallBusinessComputing.com. The article begins:

“A hybrid computing platform lets customers connect the packaged small business software applications that they run on their own internal desktops or servers to applications that run in the cloud.”

Among other things, Laurie talks about Sage’s Connected Services offerings, Sage’s e-Marketing application, and the new Sage Exchange online payment processing. I highly recommend that you click on this link:

http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/buyersguide/article.php/3886761

Check it out, and ask our consultants how DSD Business Systems can help your company benefit from these new Sage services.

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Doug Deane is President of DSD Business Systems, a national provider of ERP software and accounting software, specializing in wholesale distribution, warehouse management, inventory and CRM software, including Sage MAS90, Sage MAS200, Accpac, Sage MAS500, Sage FAS, SageCRM, SalesLogix, Extended Solutions Enhancements, and Custom Programming.

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