Partner Overcharging? $3500 from SP2 to SP3

allan1956

Hello, I am having some strong concerns about my Microsoft Navision partner.

I have a Navision Financials with very low customization, say 4 reports modified, perhaps some other things, but minimal, -

I want to upgrade to SP3 from SP2, they say it will take at least 24 hours of testing and install time (at 160 an hour)

"Several hundred NAV objects were changed between SP2 and SP3 so testing is still important"

I have very little data to go by, its like dealing with a car dealer. Everything I read here is that this is an easy upgrade

I want this because we are on Navision database and will be going to SQL Server and windows authentication at some point. Everything here says SQL Server has issues with SP2

Note that these folks are highly suspect on past performance. They charged us customization fees, at 160 an hour, because of margin errors in reports that I found were caused by SP2 and fixed with an update1 from here.

Please Advise

ara3n

If it is 4 reports and they were modified because of left margin issue. I would overwrite them from sp3. It takes 10 to 20 min per object for merging objects.
If the reports do not have any improvements, then they do not need to be merged.

The rest is just replace all. Testing is about 6-8 hours.
If customer complains then we ask that all the testing is done by Customer beside the developer unit testing.
Upgrading of the executable is done by the customer. If it's done by NSC then yes it will take time to go to each workstation, uninstall the old one and install the new one.

Alex_Chow

Assuming what you said is true regarding low customization, then yes, 24 hours use for upgrading from SP2 to SP3 seems a little excessive.

But this is not to say that your solution center isn't actually spending the hours quoted doing the upgrade.

Why not ask them to itemize what they're going to do so you can have a better idea of the hours being spent?

Captain_DX4

If you are working in any sort of Corporate environment in the United States, you should actually be performing all your testing by in-house staff anyways. You need the qualified people internally to sign-off on the tests and verify the values that the application spits out, not just the application "works" (read: splash screen testing).

You are the one responsible for the data within the application, no matter what kind of billing you are getting from your reseller. As a reseller, I can test functionally what is supposed to happen, but how can I qualify that everything looks as it should? With some training, I can surely make comments about what is working or not. But this is your company's livelyhood. Do you really want to take someone else's word that everything is working as it should, or would you like to get your hands on the backup copy in the modified version with actual data and test it yourself? I would! In the project I'm currently working with another reseller with, a standard migration from native to SQL backend, we wouldn't have thought there would be any huge issues. But one of the posting routines was causing a huge shipping error, all due to how certain data and code has lined up. I'm going to continue testing in a CRONUS database to see, but I think I've found a bug in the base code.

So for your reseller to be charging you for testing is perfectly valid. But you can regain control of your relationship if you choose, by electing to do that testing yourself.

On a personal note, if they charged you any more than an hour of their time on that margin issue, I would find it suspect. I had the same bug issue after an upgrade with another client and we resolved it on our own dime! First I thought it was something I'd coded incorrectly during the upgrade of the object and was working on the basis that I'd errored (and so I wouldn't charge the client for my own mistake). But after reading the knowledge base article and applying the fix to the EXE, I still refrained from billing the client anything because the actual fix was literally 5 minutes of my time, and how can I bill for something that Microsoft broke? Client wouldn't like that!

If there is a trust issue with your current reseller, you should feel free to ask questions and get answers you can live with from the reseller. If you cannot reconcile these differences, then you need to decide what you want to do to change the nature of your business relationship, including considering moving over to another reseller if absolutely necessary. Just be advised that if you switch to another reseller, you may not save any money. They will require time to get up-to-speed on your database and business, which they will most likely charge you for. And nothing says you will like them anymore than your first reseller. Do your research and make informed decisions, do not base your decisions on emotional responses.

Good luck!

DenSter

24 hours is just 3 days. For a full upgrade that is not very much time. Regardless of whether you like it or not, testing takes time. Three days to upgrade all the objects, and test out the whole system is a fair amount of time in my opinion. Before you know it, you spend a whole day doing object upgrade, checking all object differences and installing new clients. This leaves just 2 days to test the system, and that is assuming you don't find any issues.

I don't think it's an outrageous estimate. Of course I don't know what your solution center has done in the past to make you suspect, so maybe your suspicions are justified. I just don't think that 24 hours for an upgrade is a lot of time.

Saint-Sage

We just performed an upgrade from 3.1 to 4.2, it cost the client around 20,000 dollars. :shock: Consider yourself lucky.

themave

It is highway robbery, supported by Microsoft, to pay for maintenance and then have to pay to actually get the service pack applied is a rip off.

sorry, as an end user this is terrible. $3500 to apply a service pack, after you have already paid probably $15000 for the maintenance agreement, for the right to get the serive pack.

sorry that is terrible.

Now before all you developers start to complain, think about it from a user prespective. Yes, I know you are not getting paid by Microsoft to do the work, but that should be a complaint solved between the developer and Microsoft, not the customer.

Captain_DX4

DenSter wrote:

24 hours is just 3 days. For a full upgrade that is not very much time. <snip>

I agree with your thoughts in principal, but the issue is that I don't feel that customers should be relying on their resellers to do the testing. They should be doing it themselves. Only the client will know what reports to run and how to validate what their own numbers mean. So in this case, the reseller should only have to perform the steps to convert the objects. In the instance being described, it almost sounds like no changes have been made, really. So there shouldn't be much for a proficient developer to do in terms of comparing and merging the objects in a circumstance such as is described.

allan1956

Folks, thanks a ton for the thoughts

A bit more on our issue.
Firstly we have a 3 person accounting department and they all rdp to the one server - that has client, server and database. The company is small <30 employees

I wish I could quantify our level of customization - In object designer there are 1 Form, 6 tables, 5 reports, and 2 codeunits that indicate being modified. I don’t know if this is considered light, medium or heavy in terms of customization.

From the posts no one is saying this in fact outrageous cost and it could be legit, but I got to tell yeah the cost stack of Navision in terms of hidden costs / nickel-and-diming costs, as I am learning seems to be - well disappointing at least

I know its tough to speak about other brethren partners, I appreciate the honest input.

We have spent over $120,000 for the first instance of this product, when the original plan called for that much to do a four phased implementation and this first phase was suppose do to be the lowest risk, least amount of customization. The CFO unfortunately did mostly of this without to much involvement by the companies tech guys (me) - and they seem to have abused and confused the accounting guys is a rough way to put this. We also did a poor job of managing them, not saying we couldn't have done better at some level. The CFO just trusted them, way to much

For example, I'm now involved and in reviewing the detailed we just received for to date billing we are finding some pretty obvious double billing, and other things though we haven't started a dispute process on those items, and they could be mistakes, not planned, but still.

I found the SP2 Update1 margin fix issue, they told the CFO some of the Navison native reports were bad, just the way it was, and he needed to pay them to customize the failing reports. Just as one example that questions their credibility.

I’m not saying that everything they have done is bad or overcharged, but their expertise level, their credibility and trust has gone pretty much out the window.

We are out of money for this project / contract and have only the basics of what their proposal called for. We are going to consider our options for going forward and partnering strategy.

That all said, I wanted to get the update to SQL Server done, using database authentication initially, and we are also installing Targit (another thing this partner recommended is starting to be look very questionable). The goal is to get this phase done so we can sit back

I pushed for SP3 now because of all I have read here about SQL Server issues, though they appear mostly to be about windows authentication.

At this point, to move forward, I’m going to not do SP3 and then take a breather and figure out what to do next.

Just curious, are we locked into this partner because of any silly Microsoft rules?

themave

allan1956 wrote:

.....
Just curious, are we locked into this partner because of any silly Microsoft rules?

No, contact Microsoft and request a list of recommended partners, they will send you some references, and you can switch to anyone you want. there is a small form, that you sign, and it will switch who your partner is.

ara3n

You can just do an executable upgrade, which will not require the NSC.
Looks like you only doing this for sql 2k5 upgrade.

They will just provide you the executable and you can upgrade by youself.
All it involves is uninstall the old client and install the new client.

Saint-Sage

themave wrote:

It is highway robbery, supported by Microsoft, to pay for maintenance and then have to pay to actually get the service pack applied is a rip off.

sorry, as an end user this is terrible. $3500 to apply a service pack, after you have already paid probably $15000 for the maintenance agreement, for the right to get the serive pack.

sorry that is terrible.

Now before all you developers start to complain, think about it from a user prespective. Yes, I know you are not getting paid by Microsoft to do the work, but that should be a complaint solved between the developer and Microsoft, not the customer.

I see where you are comming from themave, and the situation is complex because Navision can be customized. If it were a normal binary then they could release something like the Windows Service pack that just runs and installs in a few minutes for free. Because of the ease of this, it is the understanding of most people that all software should be upgraded like this, and it is the prevailing attitude of society.

The truth is that if you have an IT/IS/CS system which you have paid money for, it is very likely doing a great deal of work that would normally have to be done by hourly/salary employees, and generally does it in much less time. Over the long run, software can save huge labor costs which most end users forget.

If you have dumped a large amount into a system, unless you HAVE to have new functionality, don't spend money to upgrade, get the best return on your intial investment possible.

If you don't have the money to upgrade, then you shouldn't upgrade. It is costly to run a Navision system, it is also costly to run Sage or any other medium to enterprise package. However, it costs much less than hiring a team of developers, and buying Rational Rose or some other authoring tools, and then trying to create your own application to serve your needs. Thats why people do it.

Most businesses today cannot live without the systems that support them, the problem is that most companys don't realize how important and don't budget for maintenance and new development.

allan1956

From my perspective we are not being workled with as a partner, with the NSC. It feels like stonewalling and power of information being weilded when we ask about doing some part of this ourselves - bascailly using our own resources where it makes sense and spending $160 hr or so when we need to, or choose to.

For example, Im not being offered, even though asking, that I can do an executable upgrade, (thanks), or being offered we can do testing ourselves, things like that. In the past two days we have shot across the bow because of installing the SP2 Update1 (executables) ourselfs and fixing the margin issue they were telling CFO was a charge.

Part of this was our fault by letting them only work with the end user (CFO decision) and trust as sorta of an outsourced IT resource. Its there mistake for taking advaantage of this.

ara3n

You are welcome.
It always helps to research, learn, and educate.
It should be the client that needs to lead and take ownership of the project. If you let it loose, some NSC can take advantage of it.

Alex_Chow

It goes both ways.

Sometimes, it's better for a company to turn it loose to their NSC. Basically, outsourcing all of their IT work to the NSC. But nonetheless, the end user will need to understand what is being billed by the NSC.

The case that Allan brought up doesn't apply to all NSCs. There are NSCs that does legitiment work with honest billing. The amount of hours used may be subject to debate, but that doesn't mean the hours quoted aren't actually used. And maybe the additional hours quoted is being used for more extensive testing to ensure absolutely no possibility of defect.

The reason why Allan has doubts is because their NSC lost their credibility with Allan's company. IMHO, the question posed here is not a technical problem, but is a business problem that Allan needs to resolve himself.

Asking the same project to 10 different programmers will yield you 10 different quotations.

Business 101. Credibility takes a lifetime to build, and 1 instance to destroy.

Savatage

allan1956 wrote:

I wish I could quantify our level of customization - In object designer there are 1 Form, 6 tables, 5 reports, and 2 codeunits that indicate being modified. I don’t know if this is considered light, medium or heavy in terms of customization.

personally I think that is light

allan1956

thanks, I thought so but in foriegn territory