Do you pay separately for documentation from a partner?

We first started with SugarCRM in 2018 and worked with a partner, MasterSolve. They were recently acquired by and Faye BSG.

Over the last few years MasterSolve did a few customizations for us.

Recently, our Sugar Sell upgrade ran into a problem with a customization.

This prompted me to reach out to our CSM, , to find out if I could get documentation on the customizations.

Yesterday I was told that if I wanted documentation, I would have to pay for that.

Really? Pay for the documentation for the customization I already paid for?

So... do you, or would you expect, to have to pay for documentation separately from the customization?

Not sure if this plays into it, but I also recently decided to do a partner change from Faye BSG.

Parents
  • Unfortunately, what I was afraid of, is that  has chosen to tell me to pound sand on getting that documentation if I do leave them as my partner of record.

     is this really the type of partners you want associated with Sugar?

    Personally, that is just bad business.

     it seems you can't actually help as you thought you could.

    This is what I got from . He also said he is not even sure development made any notes about what they did.

    "If you pause your partner change, we could work with Sugar on your behalf to resolve the current issues, currently the Jira dump I can get you probably won’t be the most practical form to work with to see what works been done.

     As things stand now, support won’t let us work with you with this pending."

    If you have someone do anything for you - GET DOCUMENTATION!!!

    maybe you care too

Reply
  • Unfortunately, what I was afraid of, is that  has chosen to tell me to pound sand on getting that documentation if I do leave them as my partner of record.

     is this really the type of partners you want associated with Sugar?

    Personally, that is just bad business.

     it seems you can't actually help as you thought you could.

    This is what I got from . He also said he is not even sure development made any notes about what they did.

    "If you pause your partner change, we could work with Sugar on your behalf to resolve the current issues, currently the Jira dump I can get you probably won’t be the most practical form to work with to see what works been done.

     As things stand now, support won’t let us work with you with this pending."

    If you have someone do anything for you - GET DOCUMENTATION!!!

    maybe you care too

Children
  • I suppose I need to be clear about something here.

    I am not asking for any code, or any IP, or anything like that.

    For example, they did this customization. KSS-21 means nothing to me. Plus I have no documentation about what they did.

    That's what I am asking for. Documentation of what the customization was, what was done, and some details that can be used if anything needs troubleshooting, or otherwise.

  • Hi

     

    Thanks for raising the awareness here, I’ve seen this situation arise throughout my career with different CRM (and ERP) vendors and partners.  The headline always seems obvious (“What ! there is no documentation), but as with most things in life there is often more below the surface.  It broadly comes down to paying close attention to what was agreed in the initial Statement of Work (SOW), and checking assumptions; i.e. are you buying i) a Customization or ii) a Customization+Documentation.  I agree with you that KSS-21 on its own means nothing, but hopeful either you or Faye have a copy of the original proposal or SOW describing what you wanted it to achieve.  I would not automatically leap to a notion of bad business or poor partnership, these situations typically arise as a consequence of downward pressure on partners to produce customizations for cheaper and cheaper prices.  Producing the associated Documentation takes time/effort and hence cost.  Even though producing the documentation at the time is a cheaper exercise, I’ve seen customers delay the purchase of documentation indefinitely – or until such time as they absolutely need it (such as your case).  It’s a balancing act, do you pay for documentation upfront that you might not need or pay more dollars down the track and have the developer recreate the required material.   In this situation, since no documentation appears to have been purchased originally, it needs a developer (any developer) to look at the code to determine its use.  Faye maybe able to cursorily review the code and give you a sense of what the code is intended to do, without needed to go to the effort of producing full-blown documentation.