S100C Enhancements & Upgrades

In late December, Sage came out with version 22.3.30 for 100 Contractor. This release had the Federal tax tables and quite a few states. In late January, Sage had another minor release that included a few more states. The list of states that were part of the release were included with the release email they sent.

When Sage announces a Release , they include highlights of things that have been changed. Not all releases need to be installed. You have some options, so here are some guidelines:

If the release has a feature you’ve been waiting for, a ‘fix’ to something that you regularly use, a report you’ve been waiting for, or a tax update that impacts your payroll, go ahead and contact your IT group to arrange the upgrade.
If it is a new Major release, the first number will be higher. For instance, in 2019, we were all running version 21, then mid-year, Sage released version 22 and wanted us all to be on it in 2020 (which is why the tax tables were only released in version 22).
Sage only supports the last two Major releases.

When updates are announced, we usually get a couple of panic calls. Sage is very aggressive about getting everyone on the latest release. It’s easier for Sage to support one or two releases, rather than having all their support people proficient on multiple versions of the program; completely understandable.

In mid-January, we had a call from a client who got the very dire-looking warning saying they had to upgrade. The new warnings are larger, red and black, and look very ‘dangerous’ if you don’t comply. She panicked and started installing the upgrade. Unfortunately, she was installing it on her local workstation and created some new problems that required some emergency IT intervention.

If you’re going to install the update, there are a couple of things to keep in mind here, too:

Before you start, check the space on your server. The upgrade when installed takes additional space, and upgrading the datasets also requires more space.
Plan ahead. Everyone will need to be out of the software, so a little planning will ensure everything goes smoothly.
An upgrade requires Exclusive Access, so everyone is out.
All datasets, including archives, need to be updated, as well.
For those of you with local workstation/laptop installations, the new release is ‘pushed’ from the server rather than the old way of installing on each and every machine; a great time-saver, but an extra step during the upgrade process.
Some of you have a separate SQL instance with the old archives; be sure the datasets on that separate instance are also updated; all datasets/archives need to be updated.

Lastly, there is a new Product Enhancement feature. Sage indicates that this helps them learn how their user base works within the software and what modules they use. With release 22.3.30, this feature automatically opted you ‘in’ for this tracking. We noticed it because we saw a Sage ‘user’ when we wanted Exclusive Access. It was turned ‘on,’ although we did not check the box. It’s under the Home & Resources icon. You can take a look and see if you’re marked as ‘Opt In’ and if you’d rather not participate, you can uncheck the box (which is what we did). Food for thought. – CMW