Sage 300 2020 – Product Update 3 Release Notes

What are Sage 300 release notes?

So, you may already be familiar with Sage 300 Release Notes. If not, here is a brief overview. Release Notes provide updates on the Sage 300 product that are not included in its Documentation section. From time to time, Sage product updates are effective until they are overwritten by later updates. Keep in mind that certain features mentioned within Sage product updates may not be applicable for all versions of the product.

Product Update 3 overview

Now that we covered the concept of Sage 300 updates, let’s dive into the latest update- Product Update 3. Product Update 3 contains fixes to the following:

• Web Screens Performance,
• Printing Reports in Web Screens
• System Manager
• Accounts Receivable
• Accounts Payable
• General Ledger
• Inventory Control
• Purchase Orders
• Order Entry
• Payment Processing
• Sage CRM Integration
• Ops Inquiry
• Sales Analysis
• Customer Number change
• Vendor Number change
• Sage 300 Intelligence Reporting.

Whether you have been having issues with any of the previously mentioned content or not, it is important to stay up to date with Sage 300 features, so please read along.

Web Screens Performance, Printing Reports in Web Screens & System Manager

I’ll start off with Web Screens Performance. A noticeable issue here was a lag occurring when signing in or signing out of Sage 300cloud web screens. With Product Update 3, this issue has now been fixed. But what caused the wait time? It turns out the root of this issue is having many companies set up in Sage 300.

Also, Printing Reports in Web Screens. With Product Update 3, you can now print and export reports to files from Sage300cloud web screens. For this, your browser would need to be either Chrome version 83 or newer.

For System Manager, two fixes have been applied.

1. Usernames consisting of Thai characters are now shown properly on the Current Users screen.
2. The issue that wrongly caused Windows Event Viewer to display Sage 300-related error messages has been fixed as well.

Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable

Next up, we have fixes for Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable within Sage 300cloud web screens.

For Accounts Receivable, a fix was made on the Detail Taxes screen when editing invoice details, which triggered an error message to incorrectly show if you changed the Tax Class or Tax Included fields for a detail.

As for Accounts Payable, issues related to entering and changing tax information for Invoice details on the Invoice Entry screen were resolved as well. You now have the ability to change tax classes for multiple invoice details, and the Taxes screen now shows the tax information for the selected invoice detail rather than showing tax information for different invoice details as it sometimes did.

General Ledger, Inventory Control & Purchase Orders

Not just a fix but a noticeable change in General Ledger. Instead of entering the session date when creating a new year (on the Create New Year screen), the year-end date is now automatically entered as the document date and posting date for the transactions that are created to close income and expense accounts.

Inventory Control also had a fix of its own on the I/C Transfers screen in Sage 300cloud web screens. Previously, users weren’t allowed to enter special characters (i.e., “-“ or “/”) in the Item Number field.

Purchase Orders fixes centered on the Requisition tab of the Requisition Entry screen in Sage 300cloud web screens.

1. The first fix applies to an issue that prevented users from entering more than two details. This issue was caused by users not using the Finder to enter item numbers for details.
2. The second fix focused on an issue that occurred if a user selected the Item Number field for a detail and then pressed Tab, which would cause the previous field for the detail to be selected. Now, pressing Tab allows the next field for the detail to be selected.

Order Entry & Payment Processing

Another issue in Sage 300cloud web screens could be found in Order Entry. Users were blocked from posting orders that had previously been posted. This issue was frequented if users deleted and then inserted optional fields for the order, and then tried re-posting the order.

Payment Processing had its share of fixes in Sage 300cloud web screens as well. The first fix approached an issue in which users were blocked from credit card payment-processing if the Card ID had any spaces within. The second fix approached an issue that blocked users from processing payments from customers with zip codes containing more than 9 characters. The third fix allows users to now set up credit cards and process payments while using version 84 (or newer) of Google Chrome.

Sage CRM Integration

In this section, we’ll cover fixes on Sage CRM Integration.

1. When promoting a quote to an order, any information in the Order Description and Reference fields now remains rather than being removed as previously done so.
2. The second fix touched on an issue frequented by users when posting a new quote/order for a customer with a customer number that includes an ampersand (&), which blocked the new quote/order from appearing in the Quote Summary or Order Summary screens.
3. The third fix resolved an issue in which Sage CRM was unresponsive when posting an order or printing an order confirmation from Sage CRM. The cause of this issue was due to multiple users posting orders from Sage CRM simultaneously.
4. The next fix allows users to specify a customer number that includes spaces when promoting a Sage CRM company to a Sage 300 customer.
5. The following fix resolves an issue that users frequented when posting a customer number change or vendor number change, which caused the customer/vendor number to be modified in Sage 300 but not in Sage CRM.
6. This next fix resolves an issue that blocked users from opening Sage 300 screens in Sage CRM if Sage 300 and Sage CRM are installed on separate servers.
7. Lastly, there is a fix that touches on an issue that blocked users from using Sage 300 screens in Sage CRM while using version 84 (or newer) of Google Chrome.

Ops Inquiry, Sales Analysis, Customer Number Change & Vendor Number Change

Ops Inquiry has the following updates:

1. There is a fix on an issue that blocked shipment details from appearing on the Detail tab of the OE Shipment Inquiry screen.
2. There is a fix that allows users to open Finder and view the same criteria specified the last time Finder was used. This fix also applies to the update in Sales Analysis. Customer Number Change and Vendor Number Change also share an update. Both sections have a mutual fix on an issue that blocked users from importing change list entries. Meanwhile, users can now use Sage 300 Intelligence Reporting on its own (outside Sage 300) without affecting Lanpak usage in Sage 300.

This concludes the overview of the Product 3 updates in Sage 300.

General Information

The following will cover General Information provided by Sage 300.

1. Sage 300 2020 supports upgrades only from version 5.6 or later.
2. If users use workstation setup, they must also run Sage 300 Intelligence Reporting workstation setup (this can be found in BX66A\WSSetup) on every workstation where users could view and user Intelligence Reporting screens.
3. Users need version 2020 (internal version 6.7A) of all core programs that are planned to be used.
4. If using Canadian Payroll or US Payroll, users need version 7.3 of these programs with the most recent tax updates. [Note: Sage 300 must be installed before installing payroll programs].
5. If upgrading from an earlier version, users must upgrade all Sage 300 programs to 2020 simultaneously. Sage 300 2020 programs aren’t compatible with programs from previous versions.
6. Should the following programs (required to use Sage 300) not be installed, users should have them installed:  MSXML (Microsoft XML Core Services) 6.0, Microsoft SQL Server Native Client 11.0, and Microsoft.NET Framework 4.6.2.
7. For users to access Visual Process Flows, they must have Adobe Flash Player, which is no longer installed with Sage 300; so, users will need to install it separately.
8. Should users need to access the Sage 300 .NET Remoting Service, they must run the Web Deployment Wizard.
9. Sage 300 2020 includes SP23 for SAP Crystal Reports® runtime engine. If using Sage HRMS or Sage Fixed Assets integrated with Sage 300, users should refer to the Sage 300 2020 Compatibility Guide for updated information on compatibility with Sage HRMS and Sage Fixed Assets.
10. To view the most recent technical information about database and report changes, and about parameters for customizing printed forms, see Sage 300 Database and Report Changes, Sage 300 Parameters for Customizing Printed Forms, or Sage Knowledgebase article 68834.
11. Product documentation for Sage 300 is available from the Sage 300 Product Documents website.

Sage 300 compatibility with other programs

This section covers Sage 300 compatibility changes with other programs.

1. Internet Explorer is no longer a supported browser for Sage 300cloud web screens.
2. Users can no longer import and export data in the following formats: Older versions of Access (versions older than Access 2007), Excel 5.0, and dBase 5.0. To review the list of compatible programs, database platforms, and operating systems, see the Sage 300 2020 Compatibility Guide, available from Sage Knowledgebase article 26777.

Known Issues by Sage 300 pt. 1

The following covers Known Issues by Sage 300.

1. This first section focuses on issues users encounter when using the Notes screen on the Sage 300 classic desktop: (a) When adding/editing a note, the text editing area and toolbar display only if users have enabled active scripting and scripting of Java applets in Internet Explorer security settings. You can find more on this in Sage Knowledgebase article 76898. (b) The Notes screen does not display correctly if users use the Medium-125% display size (specified in Windows Control Panel). You can read more about this in Sage Knowledgebase article 76926.
2. Information in certain reports is not aligned correctly when previewing reports in web screens. To resolve this issue, users should export the report to PDF format. For more Info on this, see Sage Knowledgebase article 76337.
3. Chinese language characters can’t be entered in certain fields. 4) When reversing a payment on the Bank Reverse Transactions screen, the offsetting tax tracking record and the offsetting update to 1099/CPRS statistics aren’t created if the payment includes withheld tax amounts.

Installation for Sage 300

This section covers Installation for Sage 300.

1. To find specific instructions on installing Sage 300, read the Sage 300 Installation and Administration Guide.
2. In order to prevent potential data corruption, if users upgrade to a later version of Sage 300 or Sage 300cloud, they must install all released product updates for that version prior to activating their data.
3. If users access Sage 300cloud web screens, they must also activate data for all company databases that use the same system database before signing into web screens and run IISRESET as the Windows administrator user.
4. Sage 300 Payroll 7.3 is compatible with Sage 300 2020, but it should be installed separately.

Post-Installation of Product Updates

The following covers approaches users should take after Installing product updates.

1. If using Sage 300cloud web screens, users must use Database Setup to configure the Portal database again.
2. If using Sage CRM integrated with Sage 300, users must upgrade their CRM integration as follows: (a) Install the Sage CRM integration for Sage 300, which can be found on Sage Knowledgebase article 45434. (b) Uninstall and then reinstall the Safe CRM Synchronization Component [Use the Sage CRM Workstation Setup screen in Sage 300 to install the Sage CRM Synchronization Component]
3. If using Sage Intelligence Reporting Cloud, users must customize certain Sage 300 program files, and then reset IIS. To read more about this, see Sage Knowledgebase article 84722.
4. Users should clear their browser’s cache as some fixes in the update may require this to be done in order to be effective
5. On any active workstations, users must reinstall workstation setup as Windows administrator if the product update consists of changes to workstation setup, or if an earlier product update that consists of changes to workstation setup has not been previously installed or any other product update that followed. [Note: Product Updates 2 and 3 consist of changes to workstation setup].