Sage Sessions 2018 – Los Angeles Highlights and Recap

Sage Sessions 2018 – Los Angeles Highlights and Recap

Written by our own DSD Employee Contributor, Wayne Schulz, DSD Connecticut Office

Earlier this year Sage announced that instead of a pair of larger Sage Summit conferences – one in Canada and one in United States – they would instead produce a series of 10 local events branded as Sage Sessions.

Sage Sessions events in 2018 are scheduled as follows:
Los Angeles, CA – February 13, 2018 – The Westin Bonaventure
Chicago, IL – April 24, 2018 – Hyatt Regency Chicago
Toronto, ON – May 8, 2018 – Westin Toronto
Austin, TX – May – Location and Date TBD
Atlanta, GA – June – Location and Date TBD
Montreal, QC – June 26 – Hyatt Regency Montreal
Edmonton, AB – July – Location and Date TBD
New York, NY – July – Location and Date TBD
Seattle, WA – August 7 – Location and Date TBD
Vancouver, BC – September – Location and Date TBD

The first Sage Session was held in Los Angeles at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel on February 13, 2018. It attracted a crowd of roughly 300 and featured a more personal trade show experience with approximately 30 vendors setup with small booths. Since this was the first event, it’s likely Sage will fine-tune future Sage Sessions so don’t be surprised if the format changes slightly for future events.

Sage Sessions, and their represented products

Most of the mid-market Sage products were represented at Sage Sessions. Sage has recently rebranded several products to emphasis their cloud connections:

  • Sage Business Cloud
  • Sage 50cloud (formerly Sage 50c)
  • Sage 100cloud (formerly Sage 100c)
  • Sage 300cloud (formerly Sage 300c)
  • Sage Alerts & Workflow
  • Sage AP Automation
  • Sage eCommerce
  • Sage Enterprise Intelligence
  • Sage HRMS
  • Sage Inventory Advisor
  • Sage Intelligence
  • Sage Enterprise Intelligence
  • Sage Fixed Assets

Who should attend?

Sage Sessions is a smaller one-day version of Sage Summit.

It is more personal, less scripted and ideal for customers looking for information making better use of their Sage solution or third-party solutions to solve specific business problems.

There is a trade show area – minus the large distracting booths of Sage Summit – which is much more conducive to discussions with the vendors that you are interested in.

While there are sessions specific to Sage products, such as Road Ahead, the majority of the sessions are about how to use integrations to extend the functionality of your existing Sage product(s).

Attendees will get the very most out of the conference by doing homework on which vendors will be at their local Sage Sessions event.

Draw up a list of questions to ask and if needed, skip a session so you can spend some quiet time in the exhibit area viewing demos.

From the attendee or customer point of view

The day began with a welcome from Sage and a keynote address from a local Sage executive. In Los Angeles the keynote speaker, John Garrett – The Recovering CPA, gave a great talk for about an hour on the importance of standing out in a crowd. It was one of the better keynotes I’ve seen at any Sage Summit.

The remainder of the day is spent attending 1 hour sessions or browsing the trade show floor to talk one-to-one with the vendors representing products you may be interested in.

If you’ve been to Sage Summit in the past, think of Sage Sessions as a more intimate chance to discuss your business needs without having to stand in line behind dozens of people crowding around a booth or a session speaker. This is a great opportunity for exploring different integrations available for your Sage product.

From the partner point of view

Partners of Sage looking to participate in partner-centric sessions will do better in the hallway conversations that were plentiful.

In Los Angeles, there was no Sage sponsored partner only event either before or after Sessions. Instead partners could attend an ISV sponsored happy hour the evening before or join the remainder of conference attendees for a post-session happy hour.

There was more conversation during this event than typical during a larger event of this nature. The quality of conversation is much higher when you aren’t standing in a football field sized expo hall struggling to talk over the background noise.

Sage Sessions vs. Sage Summit

Sage Sessions = a smaller, shorter and more personal form of Sage Summit. Attending Sessions likely won’t require overnight travel for attendees.

This is an ideal conference experience for anyone with a clear idea of the type of issues you are trying to solve with your Sage solution. It’s not necessary to go into the event knowing the exact products that you are reviewing though it will be a big help.

Quick survey – feedback on the event?

We spoke with a few dozen partners and vendors. Nearly all were positive in their assessment of the event. A few partners who had customers attend relayed that they also received positive feedback.

For the price, Sage Sessions delivers value way beyond what’s charged.

As a word to the wise after attending, we recommend picking out specific sessions that addresses your business issues or goals that your company is facing. The remaining time we recommend talking to each of the vendors in the exhibit area to get a more detailed idea of what they offered.

In Additional Third Party Solutions Included:

  • Altec – Document management / paperless
  • Avalara – Sales tax compliance
  • DSD Business Systems – Extended Solutions for Sage 100
  • Paya – Formerly Sage Payment Solutions
  • Process Weaver – Multi-Carrier Shipping integration
  • Scanco – Warehouse management for Sage – including bar code scanning, Sage 100cloud Manufacturing ( Job Ops )
  • MAPADOC – EDI for Sage 100, 500, X3
  • True Commerce – EDI for Sage
  • Net@Work
  • SWK Technologies
  • Visibility Software -Cyber Recruiter / Applicant Tracking
  • Biz-Tech Services
  • Certipro Solutions
  • Fay Business Systems Group

The next Sage Sessions will be held April 24, 2018 in Chicago, IL at the Hyatt Regency Chicago.

Visit the Sage Sessions site at https://goo.gl/hGcYL4 for more information and to register for a specific session.

Written by our own DSD Employee Contributor, Wayne Schulz, DSD Connecticut Office

About DSD Business Systems

DSD Business Systems is comprised of dedicated software and IT experts, consultants, and CPA’s. We provide expertise in the selection, purchasing, customization, integration, implementation, training and on-going support of business management software systems. This can also include the IT infrastructure necessary to support them. Our focus is on delivering exceptional software solutions to enable business efficiency, growth and success. We have 37 offices in 21 states.

Product offerings include:

Sage Intacct
Sage 100cloud
Sage 100c Custom Development
Sage 100c Pre-Written Enhancements
Sage HRMS
Sage People
Sage Payroll
InfinityHR
Acumatica
Microsoft Office 365
Dynamics 365 Enterprise
Dynamics 365 Business Edition

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