Been a while

Sorry there has not been any post for a while, been tied up with vacations and work.

With the 5.9 support deadline only a year away (that is for new HF / SP, and will probably move) I still don't see any of my clients moving to Sedna. Not sure how it is in the non-partner world, those supported by Pivotal directly, but there does not seem to be any push from us to get the upgrades going.

Most are taking the opportunity to re-evaluate CRM in general, and whether Pivotal is consider depends on the history between the supplier and client a lot of the time, rather than any technical considerations. If people can remember the poor service / support response they got, then they are blaming the product rather than the partner / Pivotal.

I am hoping Pivotal is marketing Sedna heavily in all communities, but I have not seen any.

Generally Available

Sorry for the delay since the last post, the real world caught up with me for a month.

After attending the CDC Connect conference in the Williams Conference centre (what a venue, never mind all the cars etc, as a conference centre for that many people, it would be hard to beat) I was bouyed by the number of clients their for CDC in general, and Pivotal in particular. A good mixture of both clients I knew about and I did not.

Mathieu and Scott did a good job presenting Pivotal 6 again, but nothing new, apart from it was using the GA release. I think Mr Booth lost alot of people with his upgrade stuff, but it was good to hear my views echoed by a seasoned consultant such as him. He really made it clear that for WAM users it will be a big leap of faith for going to Pivotal 6. I am not sure that the investment needed gives you the benefits.

Maybe I am wrong, what are the views out there?

Cheat Sheet

Think I am moving forward with Sedna now, thanks to the Cheat Sheet, which I found invaluable when rebuilding my demo systems.

Cheat Sheet

This document is essential for all of us whilst we are still learning how to get the new version up and running.

I have finally taken the plunge and gone with a separate Sharepoint VMWare, which is also my domain controller, and this configuration works really well. You do need a sizable machine (I am running on a dual core Dell with 4Gb ram) but the domain controller / sharepoint server makes it more like real life.

I am a little concerned about the numerous versions that seem to be flowing out of R&D recently, the second one released end of last week, 25th, with versions release on 8th April and 17th March. I would prefer to see these as hot fixes, as I don't want to go through the pain of installation again, and want a stable base to start really selling this stuff.

Pivotal 6 thoughts

Well, I finally have a demonstrable version of sedna up and running.

My Thoughts....

Pros...

• One click install - an improvement over the install nightmares I have seen in Windows clients.
• Smart Client interface - very clean, very useable, very customisable
• Forms - well, they could not get much worse than in Active client
• Client / Server Tasks - once I have got my head around it all, I am sure, as we are in the .NET world, we can really take huge strides to produce efficient, complex solutions.
• Ability to use vbscript / VB dlls
• Sharepoint Portals - What a luxury!
• Outlook integration - I think this is going to be the killer part for people to upgrade.
  

Cons

• No Pivotal agents - The import utility is useful, but not a patch on what could be done in Pivotal agents on the fly. Leads to more work for customisers to do the bespoke import jobs.
• Documentation - still pretty poor.
• Need CMS 6.1 desperately.
• No pretty looking Portals OOB, would prefer to see several graphs etc being used.
• No undo in the form designer
  

Fustrated again

Still in the middle of getting Sedna up and running.

First things first, the documentation still sucks.

I wanted a document which was - do these steps to get Sedna up and running using the OOB CMS as we have it.

What I am doing is going across many documents etc which are not clear which steps to do first, which are essential etc etc.

The client seems slow as well, but then I am running on VMWare, on a laptop, so will reserve judgement until I see it in production, well a better spec machine anyway.

Does look good though, I am still working on it, and will do a full review if I get time by the end of this week.

Sedna (Sorry Pivotal 6) at last

Just a step away from getting the new release up and running...

Only taken me all day, last stumbling block was no SQL 2005 SP2.

Will let you know how I get on later

MIA Still

As I have been MIA for a couple of weeks, I thought that when I came back to life Sedna would be everywhere. But it has not been released yet!

13th March is the latest release time, but I won't hold my breath.

Wonder what last minutes bugs / features they are fixing?