Here’s why.

Sage no longer sells Extended Solutions. This has been the case since they announced their discontinuation in late 2009.

However in some cases customers on supported versions of MAS90 and MAS200 may still be using Extended Solutions if they have not yet upgraded to version 4.4.

This can cause problems if users on an older (yet still supported) version of MAS90 or MAS200 need to install a service update that breaks an older Extended Solution.

Up until April 30, 2011 Sage was providing updated versions of Extended Solutions which would be compatible with those newer service updates.

After April 30, 2011 Sage no longer provides those updates except with a Sage sales supervisor approval. In most cases that approval is granted provided the service update was required to fix a critical system issue.

Now we are hearing that Sage is about to discontinue providing any further updates to their Extended Solutions – even to customers on still supported versions of MAS 90 and MAS 200.

If you’ve been holding off upgrade – and you are using Extended Solutions – we recommend that you begin proactively planning for an upgrade to version 4.4 so as not to be caught short with an Extended Solution that might not work after you load a service update.

via: Sage Extended Solutions Updates Discontinued Soon

© 2011, Wayne Schulz. All rights reserved. Formed in 2005. the 90 Minds Consulting Group is a collaboration of 100 Sage partners who independently join together online in a 24 x 7 private communication network to solve difficult issues for their customers. The group is not affiliated with Sage and our collaboration provides for unparalleled member access to early warnings of bugs and other issues which members in turn are encouraged to use to provide an exceptional customer experience.

Typically these changes involve modifications for tax forms or reporting as well as any changes for electronic reporting and new tax regulations.

The installation of the IRD is relatively simple. Just log into Sage Software and download the IRD (they no longer send CD or floppy disks). The installation routine is self-running.

What you should do in advance though is:

1. Contact your Sage Business Partner for assistance. Some enhancements you have installed may require an upgrade BEFORE the IRD is applied to your system.

2. Upgrade any Extended Solutions which Sage indicates need updating. They’ve published a list (pdf) which you can check here.

3. Be sure you read through the instructions that Sage provided (copy here) BEFORE installing the IRD.

We also recommend that during this busy time of the year you approach any changes to your accounting system with an overabundance of caution and be sure you have a complete backup PRIOR to installing any updates.

via: Using Extended Solutions? Sage ERP MAS Q4 2010 IRD (Interim Release Disk) Requires These Updates

© 2010, Wayne Schulz. All rights reserved. Formed in 2005. the 90 Minds Consulting Group is a collaboration of 100 Sage partners who independently join together online in a 24 x 7 private communication network to solve difficult issues for their customers. The group is not affiliated with Sage and our collaboration provides for unparalleled member access to early warnings of bugs and other issues which members in turn are encouraged to use to provide an exceptional customer experience.

It outlines via screenshots all of the new capabilities included in this service release of Sage MAS 90 and Sage MAS 200.  New features include, but not limited to:

• Enhanced searching in Cash Receipts entry.  You can even find invoices based on the serial number of an item sold on it.
• Record wire transfers in AP Check processing (doesn’t actually do the ACH file creation though)
• Setup Automatic Earnings Codes for employees in payroll
• Enhanced Purchase Controls in SO entry.  Can limit customers to only be able to buy certain items for example.
• Print Back Orders on Picking Sheets.
• Avoid Duplicate Picking Sheet Printing
• New Bin and Lot searching in the Inventory Module
• New Credit Card Encryption that is part of the new PCI-DSS regulations.
• New ability to search in Data File Display and Maintenance (Should only be used by consultants and support personnel)

This is the first drop in the plans for Sage to include normally extra charge Extended Solutions into the base product.  More should be coming over the next 2 years or so

Whats New in MAS90 + MAS200 Product Update 4.4.01

© 2010, Mark Chinsky. All rights reserved. Formed in 2005. the 90 Minds Consulting Group is a collaboration of 100 Sage partners who independently join together online in a 24 x 7 private communication network to solve difficult issues for their customers. The group is not affiliated with Sage and our collaboration provides for unparalleled member access to early warnings of bugs and other issues which members in turn are encouraged to use to provide an exceptional customer experience.

Sage has announced that 56 of their Extended Solution catalog will be incorporated into version 4.4+ of Sage MAS 90 and MAS 200 (EES would receive them as well). The remaining catalog is available to all developers in good standing with Sage. They may upgrade these items and offer them to their customers – or to the general public.

Preferred Development Partners are a firm that has gone through the application process and have 15 positive references on their Providex programming work. They must have 5 partner and 10 client references that Sage checks. If the development partner is already a Gold or Endorsed Partner they get to skip the reference check and are considered a preferred development partner.

90Minds member DSD Business Systems is one of the Preferred Developers on this list. The contact is Jon Reiter – jonr@dsdinc.com.

Here’s a list of the current Sage Preferred Developers who can update your Extended Solutions (for a fee).

Via: Schulz Consulting

© 2009, Wayne Schulz. All rights reserved. Formed in 2005. the 90 Minds Consulting Group is a collaboration of 100 Sage partners who independently join together online in a 24 x 7 private communication network to solve difficult issues for their customers. The group is not affiliated with Sage and our collaboration provides for unparalleled member access to early warnings of bugs and other issues which members in turn are encouraged to use to provide an exceptional customer experience.

Sage MAS 90 and 200 Development Partners are an important member of the Sage partner community, providing valued specialized solutions for Sage MAS 90 and 200 ERP customers.

The library of over 1000 Sage MAS 90 and 200 Extended Solutions titles have been made available to Sage Development Partners so that they can apply their expertise and provide Sage MAS 90 and 200 customers the specialized solutions that they need. The Sage MAS 90 and 200 Development Partners shown below have expressed interest in the Extended Solutions business, and have made a commitment to provide Extended Solutions customers with a high standard of service.

If you are not already working with a Sage Development Partner, please consider one of these Development Partners.

This announcement is related to Sage’s decision to incorporate some Extended Solutions into the future releases of MAS 90 and MAS 200 (version 4.4+).

The remainder that users wish to continue using will need to be independently upgraded by the developer community (of which the Preferred Development Partners are the chosen).

Click the image below for contact information.

90Minds founding member DSD Business Systems is one of the Preferred Development Partners and can be contacted via their web site – DSD Business Systems Preferred Development Partner for Extended Solutions

© 2009, Wayne Schulz. All rights reserved. Formed in 2005. the 90 Minds Consulting Group is a collaboration of 100 Sage partners who independently join together online in a 24 x 7 private communication network to solve difficult issues for their customers. The group is not affiliated with Sage and our collaboration provides for unparalleled member access to early warnings of bugs and other issues which members in turn are encouraged to use to provide an exceptional customer experience.

Sage has been discussing the future of their Extended Solutions since the Insights 2009 Partner Conference. At the conference it was widely discussed that certain Extended Solutions might become open source meaning that the source code would be given to select Master Developers who Sage has authorized to customize their program code. These developers would then be able to upgrade the enhancements individually (and for a separate fee) for end users.

Some Extended Solutions Incorporated To MAS 90 & MAS 200 4.4+

Starting with Sage MAS 90 and MAS 200 version 4.4 expect to see approximately 56 of the popular Sage Extended Solutions incorporated to the core MAS 90 and MAS 200 product.

These select solutions will likely be added over a period of 12 to 24 months with a few titles being added with each release.

Remaining Extended Solutions Released As Open Source

The remaining catalog of Extended Solutions will be released as open source. Customers are free to select a Sage Master Developer and retain them (for a fee) to upgrade any Extended Solution that they own which was not selected by Sage for inclusion in a future MAS 90 and MAS 200 release.

Below is the list of Extended Solutions that Sage has indicated WILL be incorporated into future releases of MAS 90 & MAS 200.

Sage MAS 90 and 200 Extended Solutions Incorporation List

© 2009, Wayne Schulz. All rights reserved. Formed in 2005. the 90 Minds Consulting Group is a collaboration of 100 Sage partners who independently join together online in a 24 x 7 private communication network to solve difficult issues for their customers. The group is not affiliated with Sage and our collaboration provides for unparalleled member access to early warnings of bugs and other issues which members in turn are encouraged to use to provide an exceptional customer experience.

I just had one – and I’m going to share my experience with you so that anyone  who runs into the same (or similar problem) can learn from my 8 hours of hair pulling, cursing and confusion mis-fortune.

Background

One of my clients ordered the Sage AP-1063 Extended Solution that enables ACH processing for accounts payable. Think of it as anothe form of direct deposit – only instead of direct depositing employee checks you’ll be depositing vendor payments (aka – wire transfers).

Before I ordered I casually noted that the client was on version 4.05 (first mistake – they were on version 4.1). When Sage sent the Extended Solution I logged in at 7:15 AM remotely with the client and began the installation.

Unfortunately the version 4.05 install routine did not check to make sure it was actually installing to a version 4.05 system – -and dutifully installed itself over my version 4.10 system.

Luckily I caught this and quickly determined that version 4.10 of the Extended Solution was needed. Once I ordered the re-packaged part, Sage was quick to email it over to me.

Here’s where the fun began.

Extended Solutions Say’s “Now Installing Extended Solutions” – Forever

Technically the message did not stay there forever. After three hours the client wisely decided to end task and call.

From there I logged in and we engaged Sage to assist in looking at the issue. Neither of us were able to determine the cause due to the lack of any error messages.

As a final resolution Sage offered to look at the data (all 5 GB) if we would upload to them. Fearing the lengthy upload time (easily a day or two on the clients poky network) I declined to upload.

Luckily the client ran into another error — Error 88 SY_Report.PVC Line 203.

This error message was in the knowledgebase and the cure was very simple. Luckily the cure for the above error also resolved totally my “Now Installing Extended Solutions” hung installation problem.

The Resolution

The fix for both the error message and the hung Extended Solution install routine was to go into the \MAS90\SOA folder and delete any SY_*.PVC files (I suggest you move these somewhere as opposed to outright deleting – just in case).

Once those files were deleted, the Extended Solution installed just fine and all error messages vanished. My theory is that the v4.05 Extended Solution may have dumped those SY_*.PVC files into \MAS90\SOA which in turn caused all my subsequent error conditions.

Hope this is helpful to someone else in the future.

© 2009, Wayne Schulz. All rights reserved. Formed in 2005. the 90 Minds Consulting Group is a collaboration of 100 Sage partners who independently join together online in a 24 x 7 private communication network to solve difficult issues for their customers. The group is not affiliated with Sage and our collaboration provides for unparalleled member access to early warnings of bugs and other issues which members in turn are encouraged to use to provide an exceptional customer experience.

When I first installed I had mistakenly used a 4.05 ES (client is on 4.1). This unfortunately installed without checking version number.

Once I realized the stupidity of my ways, I went to re-install 4.10 ES.

This is when I hung at the “Now Installing Extended Solution” forever.

Turns out the resolution (which I only found because another error popped up) was to remove the leftover SY_*.PVC from the \MAS90\SOA folder (naturally I just moved these files somewhere else). But that did the trick and after wrestling that issue all day I’m happy to report systems are back to normal and the Extended Solution installed just fine.

If this is an issue that you’re wrestling with, I’ve written a little more about it here.

via: Schulz Consulting – Glastonbury CT

© 2009, Wayne Schulz. All rights reserved. Formed in 2005. the 90 Minds Consulting Group is a collaboration of 100 Sage partners who independently join together online in a 24 x 7 private communication network to solve difficult issues for their customers. The group is not affiliated with Sage and our collaboration provides for unparalleled member access to early warnings of bugs and other issues which members in turn are encouraged to use to provide an exceptional customer experience.