TPAC 2018

This past February was the Third-Party Advantage Conference (TPAC) held in Vancouver, British Colombia, Canada. I had the opportunity to visit this beautiful city and participate in the conference that brings together a great group of products and people on the Sage 300 ERP platform. Sage Business Partners, Development Partners, and customers from all over the globe were in attendance to discover what products are available on the market to enhance an end user’s Sage 300 experience.
I was in Vancouver the week before TPAC to attend a pre-conference training session for AutoSimply, one of the featured third-party exhibitors at the conference. The two-day training session discussed how to utilize the Manufacturing Order Module (version 2018) within Sage 300. The Manufacturing Order Module allows end users to create Bills Of Material (BOMs), manufacturing order entries, returns, and receipts. Other modules that were discussed, which can be added to Sage 300 in addition to the Manufacturing Order Module, includes Manufacturing Lots for lot control operations; Production Planning for budgeting and forecasting; and Shop Floor Control for tracking manufacturing operations such as runtime and operation downtime. AutoSimply also discussed their Inventory Barcode Manufacturing product which allows end users to scan compatible barcodes and automatically upload the information to their Sage 300 ERP. End users can also create Purchase Order (PO) Receipts, PO Returns, Order Entry (OE) Shipments and OE Returns from their handheld barcode scanning device.
At the end of the two-day AutoSimply training session, I was awarded a Certificate of Completion from AutoSimply.
I also attended a conference session regarding new features coming to the next version of Sage Alerts & Workflow led by Donald Farber of Vineyardsoft, a developer of the product. The next version of Sage Alerts & Workflow will be web based for convenient user access along with modern web screen designs.
Sage Alerts & Workflow is a query reporting software that notifies end users of events that users without Sage Alerts could only “wish they had known sooner.” These events include lists of: customers with open invoices due over ‘x’ days ago; customers whose credit cards expire next month; open sales orders that have not been shipped yet and are past the expected ship date; orders that have been shipped to the customer but have not been invoiced, etc. These reports can be set to automatically run on certain time intervals such as “Daily at 9am” or “Every 4^th Friday of the Month,” and sent via email, text, or fax to persons of different departments and management levels internally and externally according to a business’ needs. Sage Alerts & Workflow is a great tool for users to keep track of their business from all angles.
Overall, TPAC 2018 was a successful and enlightening event to attend, to forge new relationships and learn about different products that operate alongside Sage 300. I look forward to attending again next year!