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

Accounts Payable

The Problem:
The exempt, on-hold and join check status no longer displays in Enter Invoices or Change Invoices

What You Really Need To Know:
Sage Timberline knows about the issue and will soon issue a fix. Be assured that the issue is isolated to the display itself. The Exempt, On-Hold and Joint Options are working just as they always have.

Why’s it doing that?
The addition of distribution grid lines adjusted the items that will display in the Enter Invoices and Change Invoices screens.

Payroll

The Problem:
The format you added to the phone number field is not retained after saving the employee.

How To Fix It:
If you imported your employee phone number using ODBC and there is no formatting, retype the whole number, or use Cut and Paste, and then add the format.

Why’s it doing that?
Payroll automatically adds formatting to employee phone numbers (xxx)xxx-xxxx when setting up a new employee. However, if you import the employee information using ODBC, the employee phone number may not be formatted correctly and adding the formatting will not be recognized without changing the number.

Install

The Problem:
You’re getting an Error 1904 message.

What it means:
This means the install failed to register multiple dlls.

How To Fix It:
Uninstall and reinstall Pervasive on the server or the affected workstation.

Why’s it doing that?
Pervasive was not correctly installed on the computer.

Property Management

The Problem:
The Property Management Comparative Occupancy Analysis does not run for February.

How To Fix It:
Go in and change the design formula named “Test on February” from Month-As of Date (Design Formula) = 2
to Month-As of Date (Design Formula) >= 2

Hope this helps!

Timberline’s new version 9.6 doesn’t share common application files with Maxwell Systems Estimation.  Don’t put these 2 applications on the same computer until both software companies figure a way to resolve the problem.  Programmers at Maxwell Systems have been working on a fix for at least a month. 

As of today, both applications still don’t work together.  Sage Timberline and Maxwell compete for the same market share so they don’t normally help each other fix problems.  Eventually, both will find a way to work together.  It will just take some time.