Sage ERP MAS 200 SQL v4.45 has been released for New customers. This new version of MAS 200 for SQL looks very promising. Sage University released an overview video of this version of MAS 200 on SQL. Here is part 1 - An Overview video that will shows what makes this version of MAS 200 powerful. This will answer questions about how it is installed, what are the benefits and other features available.

Next week we will go over part 2 that Sage has about the new SQL version.

Sage has released the first version, for the second time, of Sage ERP MAS 200 SQL. Version 4.45 is now available for new customers. This is not an upgrade from the 3.x version of SQL and is not considered to be the same product. This is a re-release of SQL as a new MAS 200 product. This version of MAS 200 uses the new Business Framework architecture. It has improved MAS 200 by using Microsoft SQL as the Database so that it will  provide stability and scalability. More can be seen about this release by going to http://www.SageMAS.com/MAS200SQL.

Some of the reasons you might want to go to this version of MAS 200 would be:

• More efficient processing of large datasets.

  There are many MAS 90 and MAS 200 systems with hundreds of thousands or millions of records in their files, particularly in the transaction history files. Although the records in those files are currently indexed in the ways that Sage believes will be the most popular, they are not indexed in every conceivable way that a sophisticated user might need them to be, when business intelligence reports are being designed. Reports whose data needs to be selected and sorted by “non-standard” criteria (isn’t it interesting how non-standard criteria is almost always the most valuable?) can take many hours to print, when the involved datafile(s) are substantial. Crystal reports, BIE and other business intelligence tools can take so long to print in this environment, that end-users are reluctant to use them. A SQL-based system will virtually eliminate this problem, making data much more accessible and report printing much more efficient. Although the “standard” MAS 200 reports will not see a huge improvement, many reports written outside MAS 200 (in Crystal Reports, for instance) will only take a small fraction of the time to print.

• Better integration with third-party SQL-based applications.

  Many of the most robust third-party applications are written with a SQL backend. MAS 200 ver. 4.45 will now be much more compatible with those applications than it is now. Some of those third party developers had written integrations to MAS 90 and MAS 200, but many had not because of the added difficulty in integrating to a non-SQL database. This will no longer be the case, and I believe that we will see a number of vendors jumping on the MAS 200 bandwagon with their products. With the new SQL database, third party SQL applications can use the Business Framework’s integration layer in order to perform updates into the MAS 200 database. They can now leverage the MAS business logic, instead of bypassing it, which preserves data integrity and eliminates synchronization issues.

• Availability of SQL data for queries and other manipulation.

  Database administrators will now have access to the full MAS200 database via SQL. They will be able to perform ad hoc SQL queries using many of their traditional SQL-based reporting and BI tools.

Thanks to Doug Deane at DSD for this list that he had posted on one of his blogs.

Only modules that have been updated to the Business Framework are available on this version of MAS 200 SQL. There is currently no migration from existing Sage  MAS 90 or 200 data to the new SQL version. The second half of 2011, Sage plans on releasing version 4.5 that will allow for migration. This version is also planned to allow for the sageCRM Integration or have a Sage Extended Enterprise Suite (EES) version available.

It is coming close to the end of the year which means the Year End Updates are going to be released soon. Sage plans to have the Sage ERP MAS 90 and 200 Q1 2011 Tax Table Update (TTU) and Interim Release Download (IRD) available after December 17th, 2010. The downloads will be available from the Sage Online Support section.

Remember: If you are a Preferred Software Support account with MBA you can have us download and install these updates for you as part of your support.

As it is necessary Sage will update the TTU each week with late-breaking changes. The IRD changes will be included in the Product Update (PU) 4.40.0.4 or Service Update (SU) 4.30.0.21 when it is released. The SU and PU is expected to be released the week of December 27th, 2010. The TTU will need to be updated before processing your first payroll for 2011.

Now available is Product Update (PU) 3 for Sage ERP MAS 90 and 200 released from sage on September 27th 2010. New customer-requested features streamline workflows and solve Bank Reconciliation pain points. One of the main reasons for most users to update to this PU is to have Sage ERP MAS 90 and 200 4.4 compatible with Microsoft Office 2010. The remaining enhancements are to Bank Reconciliation.

This PU has had a few issues with the release. There have been a few bugs reported with this release and MBA recomend waiting until the next PU release, unless the need for Microsoft Office 2010 compatibility is requried. Sage has already released fixes for most of the issues that were found after the PU 3 release.