For those who joined us on April 4^th, both customer and partners, we sure had a great time talking tech-y and BYOD all day at the fabulous Doubletree resort in Scottsdale!

A GREAT SUCCESS for CPFS – LAI collected 46 Cell Phones for Soldiers! Each phone valued at $5 translates into 2.5 hours of calling time for our military personnel. That means we collectively donated 115 hours to our troops!  Ledgerwood Associates matched each phone donation with a half an hour of FREE consulting time!

Keynote speaker, Joe Granneman, had the audience in a state of highly entertained shock as he shared stories of security gaps in super-powers like Google and Facebook, and how easy it is to crack 7-character passwords in under four seconds (make sure yours is at least 8 characters, and no “dictionary” words)! That information alone may have saved thousands of dollars in potential fraud!!

Our friends Diane Haines and Todd Juhnke from Sage Construction & Real Estate put on an amusing skit (complete with a fake marriage) on the frustrations of timecards between the field and office, and how Sage Construction Anywhere will allow you to watch more football! How many software solutions can claim that?!

After lunch by the pool, attendees split up into two afternoon sessions with a choice of four different tracks. SMEs from Sage, TimberScan, Trapp Online, Piracle, True Wireless, Hard Dollar, and Ledgerwood Associates spent quality time demonstrating integration strategies, hardware, and mobile solutions. CFMA was there too, to answer questions and talk about their great organization (LAI is a member)!

Everyone regrouped for Ed Ledgerwood’s closing remarks, and mingled for the last time during Happy Hour on the patio! Check out pictures of Technology Day on our FB Tech Day album.

Ah, the annual software upgrade! Sage typically releases the latest version of Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate (Timberline) at the end of the year, right when the accounting personnel of many companies are gearing up for closing the year, preparing tax filings, and surviving audits. It’s no wonder so many of our clients wait until late spring or even summer to begin thinking about installing the upgrade. This year’s release, version 12.1, is packed with lots of exciting new features, and a few tricky changes to the structure of the software as well. As with all software upgrades, making sure you’re adequately prepared before you begin the upgrade will save you lots of headaches, and potentially lots of time and unnecessary expense, if things don’t go well.

Here are some tips to prepare for an upgrade:

Read, read, read! Each new release comes with a .pdf file of Release Notes. These notes not only explain what changes you’ll see in the use of the software, but also provide essential notes on installation and a link to the latest update of the User’s Guide for step-by-step instructions.

Verify your system requirements. It’s a sad thing when customers spend hours attempting to upgrade their software, only to discover that the newer version wouldn’t run efficiently on their old system or wouldn’t run at all on their new system. Be aware: Sage 300 CRE is not yet supported on Microsoft Server 2012 or Windows 8 on workstations.

Make a plan. After thoroughly reading the Release Notes and the latest User’s Guide, create a checklist of the steps to be taken and the critical aspects of the upgrade process. For instance, if you use Estimating, at what point will you uninstall and reinstall the Estimating program? Do you use other Sage 300 applications that require special treatment during the upgrade, such as with Purchasing and Inventory?

The best tip of all! For the smoothest, most worry-free upgrade, contact Ledgerwood Associates, your Sage 300 CRE business partner, and schedule a consultant at least a week in advance to handle the upgrade for you. Then if an unexpected issue arises during the upgrade, you’ll have the best preparation tactic already in place!

-Guest post by Kyle Zeigler, LAI Certified Consultant

Yes, this is our last plug for the annual Technology Day event this week -  April 4th, and we are very excited to see everyone! Have you registered yet? If not…

Go Register for Tech Day Here

…so you can join us at the beautiful Double Tree Resort in Scottsdale Arizona. Bring your smartphone, tablets and other devices and plug-in to the future of construction technology.

Keynote speaker Joseph Granneman, CIO of Rockford Orthopedic, will kick things off with a presentation focused on information security and compliance.

Representing Sage, our co-hosts, Todd Juhnke, Regional Sales Manager-Construction and Real-Estate Division, and Diane Haines, Sr. Director, Product Management, Construction & Real Estate will be presenting the powerful cloud based construction technology solution – Sage Construction Anywhere.

There will then be afternoon sessions with multiple tracks for learning about specific topics. Head over to the registration page to learn more about all of the Tech Day Tracks.

And make sure you bring your old cell phones too! Ledgerwood Associates will be collecting them for Cell Phones For Soldiers, a non-profit dedicated to helping our troops stay in contact with their families here at home.

Don’t miss out on all of the fun and information this year. We look forward to seeing and talking to you all!

It’s a good thing we are all still drunk from the intoxicating security enhancements Timberline served us in the last version, 9.5, because it makes this 9.6 tap water taste soo much better.  Since the scarcity of enhancements in 9.6 are pretty sobering, let’s revisit the party days of 9.5.  Here’s what that version gave us…

• ScanQueue Security – You can now secure scan queues for private or group use.
• Document Type Security – You now have the ability to grant permissions for users or groups to selected document types, both default and custom documents.
• Document Security – You can secure selected documents or batched for confidential access.
• Type Security - You are able to limit access to main Document Management tasks Inquiry and Query.

Remember, you still have to upgrade Document Management to version 9.6 if you decide to upgrade the rest of your Timberline applications.  It will not be compatitble.