The DeRosa Mangold Blog

Online Training vs. Live Classroom Training

First a disclaimer: As most of you know, I am a big fan of live, in person, classroom training. I almost always recommend it and I enjoy teaching class as much as I enjoy attending a class. Maybe it’s because I am one of those people who learns better when I am actively engaged, hands on and face to face with an instructor. Maybe it’s because we know customers who tell us what a great job we have done and/or say they love the software are the ones who have attended a live class. Maybe it’s because dissatisfied customers almost always have not attended class. Either way, I’ll admit, my opinion may be biased.

So…over the Thanksgiving weekend I cracked open one of Sage’s Anytime Learning Courses. I have to admit, it is put together well, really well. So well that about 5 minutes into it I began to question my recent investment in a classroom training facility in the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex (more to come on this facility and an open house we are planning in a future blog entry). I said to myself, this is so easy and so clear, why would anyone want to take a day and come to a class?

Then it hit me…about 15 minutes into the class I started dozing off...seriously dozing off. I tried standing, even kneeling in front of my PC to stay alert. Got some caffeine. At best I found I could press through 30 to 40 minutes before my skin began to crawl and I quickly realized that I was NOT going to get through a day’s worth of material in a day, much less the less than a day I was hoping for. In addition, not being in the room with an instructor started to begin to take it’s toll.

I found more questions were being created than resolved. Information I already understood well came across well. Information that was new to me however, generated questions for which there was no relief, in the training manual or in the product. You know, the questions that usually start like “What would happen if you set this condition to A but performed a transaction like B. There were simplistic “real world” examples and shortened hands on activities, but they pale in comparison to the type of problem solving and “what if” scenarios we experience in the classroom environment.

My final take is that online type learning courses are great if you need an introduction into a limited topic area but are mind numbing and not well suited to learn a broad area. The spirited discussions in a live training environment as well as the ability to explore various what if scenarios tend to keep me more engaged. Even as an instructor, I don’t believe I have ever completed a live training class without learning something new, thanks to the challenging questions posed by the students as well as my own curiosity.

I am curious as well to what you think. Please take our survey linked below. 

Click Here to take survey

If you are in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, please look for our Open House invitation to our new Sage Training Center in Dallas. My hope is many of you, like me, get a lot out of a live training environment.

Mike DeRosa
www.derosamangold.com

Cannot Print Multiple Journal Entries To One PDF File When Printing Genral Journal In MAS 90/200

Sometimes it is just nice to know your not crazy. The following is a known issue with Sage MAS 90/200.

When Paperless Office Journals and Registers is turned on and you go to print your General Journal for Update, the resulting print out will behave differently if you preview vs. print. When you preview the General Journal it puts all journal entries in the batch on one General Journal Report. This is normal and how the program functions if Paperless Office Journals and Registers is turned off. When Paperless Office Journals and Registered is turned on and you select Print (which is required to create the PDF’s to be stored on the server) you will receive a separate PDF file for each journal entry. A real bummer if your posting a lot of short entries.

Sage is aware of the issue but engineering insists this is the way the old Extended Solution used to run before Paperless Office was incorporated into the product. So this issue is listed as an enhancement request with medium severity not an issue (bug) with the program. I’m not so sure but I am getting old, but I really don’t remember it functioning this way.

So here is where you can help. If getting a separate PDF in Paperless Office for every journal entry you post in General Ledger bugs you, please submit an enhancement request to http://ideascopeanywhere.com/sagemas/frmSubmitIdea.aspx. If you happen to know of someone running paperless office as an extended solution prior to 4.3, I would love to know if it really worked that way. (My friend in support didn’t remember it that way either.)

Mike DeRosa
www.derosamangold.com

October User Group Meetings

The October Sage MAS 90 User Group Meetings are coming up:

• Austin - October 13th

• Dallas - October 14th

• Waco - October 15th

Click the above dates to sign up or go to www.derosamangold.com/usergroupinfo.htm.

The topic in October is "Ways to Save with Your Business Information System".

If you have any questions about this, or anything else, don't hesitate to contact us!

877-772-2980

info@derosamangold.com

www.derosamangold.com

See you there!

FRx to be supported through end of 2012

Although previously told that FRx would only be sold until the end of this year and supported until the end of 2011, Sage has now confirmed that they will be selling FRx until the end of 2011 and support will continue until the end of 2012.

If you have any questions about this or any thing else, feel free to contact us.

254-772-2980
info@derosamangold.com

www.derosamangold.com

Back from Sage Insights 2009!

We just arrived back from Nashville and Sage's Insights 2009 Conference for Sage Authorized Partners. We would have been back sooner but weather cancellations caused us to be delayed a day!!!!

While there were great new features (recently added or on the horizon) for all of the Sage products we represent, we did notice a unifying theme throughout all of the conference. All roads seem to be leading to:

1. More and Better Business Intelligence
2. Custom Workflow Building Capabilities
3. Better Technology

Presentation after presentation focused on improving the user's experience through use of Business Intelligence tools and interfaces and Customizing the Workflow of the Product either directly or through the use of another tool, such Sage KnowledgeSync, an event driven product that can monitor a database or multiple databases and execute a job stream based on an event.

To give you an idea, you can look at your Sage Product Dashboard every morning with your cup of coffee to see what is going on with your Past Due Customers or you can have Sage KnowledgeSync monitor your accounts receivable and, when it detects that a customer went past due today (based on your criteria of what past due is), Sage KnowledgeSync can execute a job you define that might do things like:

1. Place the customer on credit hold.
2. Email and/or fax the customer a letter or other notice with an attached statement and/or unpaid invoices.
3. Send notices to people in your organization notifying them of what is happening with this customer or a summary notice listing all customers who were placed on credit hold today.
4. Update your CRM package (SalesLogix, SageCRM, Act! or ANY other database) with a note or flag to let salespeople know what is happening.

All without you having to do a thing. Best of all, this tool can be used to monitor and perform custom job streams on any readable database (Sage MAS 500, Sage MAS 200, Sage MAS 90, Peachtree Quantum...even non-Sage products like Quickbooks Enterprise as well as custom in house databases in products like Microsoft Access and Microsoft SQL).

The opportunities seem to be endless.

In summary, we also saw great product improvements such as:

Sage MAS 90 and Sage MAS 200

• Version 4.4
  • Completes Business Framework
  • New Expanded Inventory Item ID's and Customer ID's
  • Ability to Customize Sage MAS 90 and Sage MAS 200 Workflow with new Customizer capabilities
  • Web Services allowing forms from your website to write directly to MAS files
• New Microsoft SQL version to be rolled out shortly after release of 4.4. Customers can elect to stay on current ISAM database or go to Microsoft SQL.

Sage Peachtree Quantum

• New document management and routing capabilities

Additional Product Offerings

• Sage KnowledgeSync (described above)
• bMobile for Sage MAS 90 and Sage MAS 200 (allows you to access and work in your MAS installation using your web browser from anywhere in the world without Terminal Services)

So there is PLENTY to talk about in the coming months. As a result you should see an increase in or email newsletters, user group meetings and product demonstrations, both live and recorded, in person at user group meetings and webcasts. Hopefully, one way or another we will get the information to you. We highly recommend attending the upcoming user group meetings (the next will be in June) and as always, feel free to contact me anytime for a custom consultation.

More to come!

 

The Perfect Mother's Day Gift!

This is a wonderful little treasure I discovered last summer. I hope you enjoy!

-First...grab digital photos of mom's favorite kids. Be sure to include yourself!
-Second...Grab your favorite song from a CD or iTunes. (You can skip this step there is free, very cool music where you age going.)
-Third...go to www.animoto.com and follow the instructions!

At Animoto you can upload your pictures, select a tune and let Animoto do it's magic, creating a truly amazing video. You can add text and emphasize certain photos, use your own music or select from their library.

You can create a free short...about 15 seconds...or for a few dollars (like $3) you can purchase a full length video. The video can be downloaded, played on a PC, iPhone or iPod.

If the mom in question does not have any of these, for a few more bucks, Animoto will burn to a DVD and mail it to you. But for that you had better hurry. Mother's Day is Sunday!

I hope you enjoy this awesome tool as much as I have. Happy Mother's Day!

Mike DeRosa

Facing the Giants

A few months ago my son and I filled up our Netflix wish list. I didn't really pay attention too much to what he was selecting and as a result every week has been a surprise! Last week was a pleasant one.

He had selected Facing the Giants. An inspirational low budget film created by a church in Georgia. No one will win an Oscar for their acting but the movie was entertaining and had a strong message, one that fits for our current economic situation.

A scene that really hit home, and I have used in my business process decision making since, is a story told to the main character, the head football coach, by a local minister. Everything in the coach's world was falling apart and he was questioning himself. The minister said " There is a story about two farmers during a drought. They both prayed for rain. One farmer prepared his fields and planted his crops while he prayed. The other waited for a sign. The question is coach...what kind of farmer are you?"

Especially today with so much economic uncertainty it is hard to make business decisions without questioning ourselves severely. I have found this simple story to be of comfort to me as I now make these decisions. How do to I prepare my crops? Because we all know, sooner or later, it will rain.

Mike DeRosa

What is CRM?

Hello Everyone,

If you have spoken to me in the last several weeks or attended one of our user group meetings this quarter, you know that I am headed to Scottsdale, Arizona for Sage CRM training. The most frequent question I have been asked over the last several months is “What is CRM?”

While I could go into a long dissertation on what Customer Relationship Management is, how it can help your business; you are probably more interested in how it would look in software form so you can visualize how it can help your business. Follow the link below for a tutorial demonstration of Sage CRM.

http://www.sagecrmsolutions.com/assets/tutorials/introduction/crm%20intro.swf

We have a wonderful offering on this product. Sage CRM has been bundled with Sage MAS 90 and Sage MAS 200 along with fixed assets and released as a new product known as Sage Extended Enterprise Suite. This fully integrated solution comes on a single set of installation DVD’s, a single support number to call and a single software maintenance plan. Sage Extended Enterprise Suite is offerred as a new product offering and upgrades to Extended Enterprise Suite are available for existing Sage MAS 90 and MAS 200 users.

Have a look at the demo. If CRM is something your company should be doing a better job of, and you would like to see if Sage CRM could help, we would love to talk to you about it. We will perform a needs analysis and give you a customized demonstration at no charge. If you would like to learn more but not ready to commit to an appointment, join us for our September User Group meeting.

As always, should you have any questions or need anything regarding your accounting information needs, please do not hesitate to call.

Mike

Get Paperless!

We recently had Jeffry Pearson with eRequester give an overview of their product via webcast. If you missed it, you can watch it here. What is eRequester?

eRequester by Paperless Business Systems
In today’s environment of multiple offices, remote employees and increasing worker mobility paper-based purchase and requisition practices are difficult to manage. eRequester offers a web-based purchasing system designed for medium- to large-sized companies that manages internal purchasing and payment processes from start to finish.

eRequester is a Web-based procurement management, requisition, and purchase order software solution that allows companies to define and implement standardized purchase requisition practices which streamline and manage supply chains. eRequester controls the requisition process, helps entire organizations run more smoothly, and delivers rapid return on investment. It is simple to use and assists compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley.  www.erequester.com

We plan on having another eRequester webcast in the upcoming months. Keep an eye our for a new Webinar link on our website coming soon.

How to Send Forms Electronically in Sage MAS 90 4.3

Hi Everyone,

As you can tell by my infrequent postings to the blog, I am not much of a writer. But for those of you who know me, I love to talk! And I really like to talk about Sage MAS 90! So, for a new twist, I thought we would present a series of screen casts to introduce you to the great new features in Sage MAS 90 and Sage MAS 200 4.3 recently released.

I hope you enjoy our presentation. As always, we love to hear from you, so please give us some feed back!