JDE Support Alternatives

[Suni]

Due to major cost containment issues at our company, and the spiraling cost
of JDE support maintenance, we are looking for alternatives to JDE
Maintenance Support. I am not aware of any companies that provide support
for JDE, but would like to know if any exist?

We are currently under JDE's SILVER maintenance plan and are looking at what
it would mean to drop down to the BRONZE plan. (The basic difference
between the two as I understand it, is both provide access to the KG, but
under the Bronze plan, I could not log a call or actually talk to technical
support. This is available under the Silver plan). There have been times
when we search the KG, can't find a resolution, so we log a call and they
say, oh yea, see SAR# such and such. The information is there, but we
couldn't find it. This makes me nervous that I would no longer have that
basic access, let alone if something major came up but I couldn't get the
support I needed from JDE. On the other hand, its hard to justify thousands
of $$ for this insurance.

I have checked all forums in the JDELIST archives, but found little
information beyond one thread where maintenance was totally dropped and
there were issues a few years later, and so they re-instated maintenance by
paying all missed years of support.

Is there anyone out there who is on the Bronze plan and is willing to talk
about pros/cons, or who is aware of alternatives to JDE support and how it
is working for them?

Thanks very much!

Suni Sommers
Foss Maritime Co
Seattle, WA
World A7.3 Cume 11

 

[privet]

Under the bronze plan, you can log a call through email. This is the way I prefer to log a call anyway. They get back to you within 4 hours which is the same as when you call and I didn't even have to sit on the line waiting to be helped. There email help is great. If you are concerned. Log your new issue that way before you switch!

Hope that helps!

Paula

A7.3 Cume11 V4R5

 

[Suni]

Really!! In the documentation we were provided "NO APPLICATION OR
TECHNICAL SUPPORT IS PROVIDED EITHER VIA TELEPHONE OR INTERNET." Logging a
call via email would be satisfactory.

 

[TonyBrackett]

Be very careful treading down the path of alternate support. Reference GEAC
who successfully took a customer and support company to court and won.
Apparently the support company was using their licensing to access support
while supporting the customer, thereby consolidating the cost for
maintenance. Most software companies have in their license agreement points
restricting this. You can probably track down GEAC's case through a stock
search under their news...
----- Original Message -----
From: "suni" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, March 15, 2002 11:57 AM
Subject: JDE Support Alternatives


cost
what
technical
thousands
by
http://www.jdelist.com/cgi-bin/wwwthreads/showflat.pl?Cat=0&Board=W&Number=3
0722

 

[JCelestino]

Suni,

Our company dropped to Bronze support last summer for the same reasons your company is considering the switch. (In addition, the "support" we were getting didn't warrant the high cost.) We are managing to get by. We have 5 programmers on staff for JDE on the AS/400. We use the Knowledge Garden extensively. When we don't find answers, we tackle the software problems ourselves. Our biggest challenge came during the Payroll/Payables year-end process. We have never installed A7.3. We're at A7.2 c9, and this was the first year for which a year-end tape wasn't provide at the A7.2 level. We had to do a lot of analysis on the A7.3 programs to fit them in with our existing ones. It was a nail-biter, but we got through it. We've also found quite a bit of luck with getting help from contacts here on the JDEList.

My understanding is the same as yours--that we cannot call Response Line or log requests via e-mail/internet (with the exception of getting SPCs and the like).

That's our experience in a nutshell. Feel free to e-mail me off-line if you want to discuss more detail.

Good luck!

Janet Celestino Leppo
[email protected]
Sr. Business Application Developer
NJR service Corporation
A7.2 cume 9
V4R5M0

 

[cgraves]

We are considering dropping maintenance as well. As best that I can
figure it, last years maintenance cost about $15,000.00 per phone
call...I won't pay that this year. My only concern is: What about the
annual 1099 updates? How much will they charge for that? Otherwise, I
have a consultant who knows JDE inside and out, and I use this person as
needed....We have source code, so we can fix whatever ourselves.

A73, cum 12

 

[markj8]

We have the bronze plan and I was surprised that you can log a call through
email. It says on the KG that this is not allowed. So after reading the
response from Paula, I gave it a try and got a rejections reply to my
e-mail. I had sent my e-mail to [email protected]. This is the
Global Support Service e-mail. Is this where you send your e-mail's to?

Need e-mail support!

Mark

A7.3 Cume10 V4R5

 

[John_Dickey]

I would be very careful about dropping JDE maintenance. Unless you are
committed to start doing all bug resolution, bug fixing, and program
modifications yourself, dropping JDE maintenance could cause problems down
the road. I look at vendor support fees the same as disaster recovery - you
hope not to need it, but if you run into big problems, you probably will be
glad that you have it. If you do not like what you are paying, try to
negotiate something with JDE, or work through Quest/Focus. Maybe push for
other choices, such as a per support item fee, instead of a fixed fee. Be
creative.


John Dickey
JDE Financial Systems Administrator/Programmer/Analyst
White-Rodgers, Division of Emerson
St. Louis, MO
314-577-1466

 

[privet]

OK. In the documentation I have regarding Bronze it says electronic only support. I mistook this for logging issues. I am glad the list pointed this out to me because I was going to switch to the Bronze myself.

I spoke with JDE about this. They said that logging issues electronicly is not covered in the bronze service agreement. They also said that you are not prevented from logging an issue electronicly but there is no guarantee that you will get a response within a time frame or at all. But the bronze plan does save 15% over the Silver.

In addition, the Bronze plan is only 1 year old and it will be reviewed. If we push for email issue logging to be added through our SIG groups, it could get added to the service level.

Anyway, sorry for raising some of your hopes. I am planning on staying at the Silver level for the time being.

Paula
A7.3 C11 V4R5

 

[Luke_Wong]

Are you saying "Might as well just do it myself". I tend to agree.

Most of the time, it is easier to just find the solution ourselves.