Sage Summit Conference 2014 Recap

Sage Summit is North America’s chance to converse and learn about all things Sage ERP in one location.  End users, ISVs, VARs and Sage Corporate staff all convene at this annual event.  Sierra has attended this event for many years, as an ISV with a booth in the Expo hall.

Sage Summit 2014 in Las Vegas was a big success for Sierra. This year the folks at Sage drastically changed the format and look of Sage Summit, including a new show schedule of events and an updated show look.  Sometimes, we admit, we work in our own time & attendance bubble.   All we could say was “Wow!”  The Expo Hall-which now doubled as a location for numerous talks-looked amazing.  The atmosphere was very visually appealing and innovative, in line with their corporate look and feel.

Ken Miller, Director of Business Development for Sierra, runs through new advanced scheduling options with a Sage ERP VAR.

What really was the icing on the cake was the inclusion of the “theater” spaces in the Expo Hall.  Sage did a great job of pulling in some top notch public speakers—everything from “Analytical Accounting” to “Marketing to Millennials” was discussed.  Headline speakers like Biz Stone, Karl Rove and Magic Johnson sparked an atmosphere of conversation.

Jay Bowden, Industry Director of B2B Software and Services for Google, delivered a great insight at Sage Summit. 

During Expo time, we had quite a variety of clients stop by our booth-Sage 50, 100, 300 ERP users. We really appreciate these trade shows for one reason-the face to face contact with clients, prospects and VARS.   It’s great to be able to demo our software, get feedback and respond to questions on the fly along with putting a face to the name.

Buzz topics for us in time & attendance land this year were Scheduling and Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) Reporting.  At Sierra we have been following the ACA closely.  All of our time and attendance systems now have built in report templates for pulling ACA metrics.  Being able to pull this business intelligence reporting on the fly is very important to our clients and a great value add for Sierra’s time & attendance product.

Scheduling has been an area of focus for us too.  About a year ago we realized that enhanced scheduling requests from clients were going to be the norm rather than the exception.  After much careful requirements gathering and research we now have several robust scheduling options.  Think drag and drop scheduling, skills based scheduling, multi shifts and rotating schedules.  Using technology to push and approve schedule change requests is another great feature.

Joey Madden and Ken Miller from Sierra in the booth at Sage Summit 2014 Las Vegas. 

Another popular item in the booth this year was one of our latest time clock product additions.  The TimeMaster “400” is a robust little workhorse built with a variety of feature options, everything from basic in-out punches to biometrics and job costing.  This particular clock works with several of our time & attendance offerings, all of which have a bi-directional interface to Sage 50, 100, 300 & 500 ERP products.

To view our time & attendance solutions, click here!

Click here to learn more about Sage Summit 2014.

The Sierra team is looking forward to Sage Summit next year in New Orleans!