June 2022 saw Nathalie, Steve and Anne from Orchid attend Sage Partner Summit in Dallas, plus our pre-conference training day. It was our first overseas business trip, and first non-virtual conference, in over two years.
The mood wasn’t the only thing in the room that was infections, judging by the number of fully-vaccinated Australians who tested positive to COVID-19 on their return. I guess that’s what “living with COVID” is going to look like for the foreseeable future. (Fortunately, to the best of our knowledge, all symptoms were at the mild end of the scale.)
We did an informal poll of our biggest take-home impressions from the Summit. This is what we came up with:
Virtual is getting better, but Face-to-Face is still the best!
- It was great to catch up with so many Sage 300 Business Partners, both old and new, and to hear first-hand about the exciting things they are doing for their clients.
- We also enjoyed meeting a lot of new faces from Sage!
Hybrid Training looks here to stay
- We were delighted with the positive feedback from our first classroom training event in ages.
- The pandemic has seen big improvements to online training and collaboration tools, as well as increased familiarity with them.
- We took advantage of this by allowing those who couldn’t make it to Dallas to participate online. Expect to see more hybrid events like this in the future.
A positive future for Sage 300
- The continued passion for Sage 300, and its broad and deep feature set, was very apparent, and very encouraging.
- Although there weren't many sessions specific to Sage 300, we found the Sage 300 product roadmap presented to be very positive.
- We’ve already started thinking about how Orchid's modules might support the planned new features, so watch this space!
- Digital transformation in business was a recurring theme, and we’ll continue to explore opportunities for supporting these trends in Orchid’s Sage 300 modules.
EFT Processing for Sage Intacct
- Summit was a great opportunity for us to go public with our plans to port the IP from Orchid’s EFT Processing module for Sage 300 to Sage Intacct.
- The positive response to this, from both Sage staff and Sage Intacct Business Partners, reinforced our belief that there is a real desire for this.
- We look forward to taking up offers from the channel to assist with the design and beta testing of this, and other future Orchid product developments.
Passport to CA$H Promotion & Winners
We joined with 7 other exhibitors in a Passport to CA$H promotion. This was designed to encourage attendees to visit the booths of multiple ISVs, and engage with the developers…as if the great products on offer weren’t enough of an incentive!
This was a bit of fun, and I’m sure the three Visa Gift Card winners below will agree that it was a great success! Congratulations, and thanks for your support:
- $1000: Leo Wang (BTerrell Group, USA)
- $500: Gail Wilson (GWA Business Solutions, Canada)
- $250: Shelldon Chin See (Yello Media Group, Jamaica)
