From the Sage MAS Team

[#1]

Several of us are involved with the MAS 500 implementation. I will be curious to know what implementation partner consider as they embark on a MAS 500 implementation. Think of this as a check list one should consider for a successful implementation.

To start the dialogue, here is a list of things to consider during MAS 500 implementation. Feel free to enhance/update the list and share your feedback here.

Thanks to Darrick Coles and Ruedi Schmid – both Development Managers in the MAS 500 team who helped in pulling this list together.

10. Consider skills (technical/functional) needed to maintain the system: MAS 500 leverages Microsoft database technology, although powerful, does require Microsoft trained people and regular maintenance.

9. Consider hardware & system software (like SQL Server version, OS version, Security patch, etc.) need: It may be good time to upgrade existing system software to take advantage of the latest that MAS 500 supports. Where possible maintain a separate Test environment.

8. Consider growth or future changes in your business: It helps knowing future rollout plans and increase use of the software.

7. Consider plans on keeping up with the MAS 500 upgrade and new versions, particularly as this relates to customizations and third party integration.

6. Consider system behavior and performance: It help to do “As is” and “To be” analysis of your business processes. After initial system setup, confirm that the module options, GL account structure, distribution settings, pricing, etc. provide the behaviors you expect. Also confirm that the system performs acceptably – if not, determine the primary cause; there is usually an easy or workable solutions. Often the cause is something outside of MAS 500 like configuration tune up; SQL Server tune up, having appropriate indexes; using file groups, etc.

5. Consider Reporting and other application/programs accessing MAS 500 data need: Depending on reporting needs exploring data can take considerable system resources. It helps educating users to formulate queries that are focused. For larger installation/complex needs - consider replication and doing more advanced reporting and analysis on a replicated database.

4. Consider key system constant need upfront such as Date, Unit of Measure, Currencies, etc. e.g. Units of measure allow for many ways to consider inventory quantities, but can lead to rounding issues. If possible, try to choose an atomic, integer unit as the stock unit of measure.

3. Consider spreading work process to tap computing resources efficiently: Like doing bulk/batch processes/updates at different time of the day. Some of these postings and queries can be particular complex and require many resources. E.g. Manufacturing labor and Production entry, Picking and Committing Shipments, etc.

2. Consider regular upkeep and review of the system’s health: Schedule for archiving and purging, Compare module balances to GL, Review Server and Network resource usage, Permission and Security settings, and Business continuity. Data issues should be reported to Sage; they cannot be fixed if we don’t know about them.

1. Consider time and resource need to implement: As part of the rollout have a plan with appropriate commitment of resources to review business process and the work flow required to perform all the processes. A successful implementation of MAS 500 is key to the ongoing success of using MAS 500.

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Here are some additional short cuts to guides and documentation to help you with MAS 500 implementation. Support login required.

a. Hardware recommendation
http://support.sagesoftwareonline.com/mas500/support/documents/matrices.cfm

b. Implementation planning
http://support.sagesoftwareonline.com/mas500/support/documents/userguides/docmap.cfm

[#2]

I would think another step to consider are modifcations to MAS 500 that are needed for the business and how these will be maintained.  Depending on the type of customization (Changes to source code, Customizer, or a brand new interface (i.e. ASP .NET) ) this will impact other steps within the checklist such as the implementation schedule, applying upgrades to MAS 500 and training.

[#3]

Great point Lou.

Along the same thought - How would implementer weigh, on an average, where they usually end up spending their effort across these 4 category of customization? I am adding 4th one say "Configuration" given each customer situation warrant different application setup and configuration need.

I understand, it will be hard to put a number given every customer situation can be different - but is there some general rule of thumb being observed in the context of MAS 500?

e.g. (just to illustrate the point)

35% - Configuration 

30% - Customizer

20% - Change to MAS 500 Source

15% - Brand new interface

Although limited in what we can do, however, more use of customizer the better.

[#4]

I think you should also take into consideration database maintenance plans, backup plans, and business continuity plans as well. This is especially important for the client and the Business Partner to agree on who will be responsible for delivery and configuration of this process at go-live.

Another area of importance is to gather some baseline information on the performance of the application. This will serve helpful in the future if there are hardware changes, OS patches, SQL patches or MAS 500 patches that get deployed. It also serves helpful if by chance the client or Business Partner make a change to a table, view, stored procedure, etc. this can be used to checked against baseline stats.

Also a discussion about shared reporting deployments vs. having the reports running from each clients workstations has been invaluable for us.