Selling Schedule Plus version 4

Hi,

It seems we cannot upgrade old and current versions of schedule plus to the new version 4, which requires the USB software key to operate.

Does anyone else have the feeling this will lead to us having to inform all our previous schedule plus customers that their software is now unsupported and they will need to buy this new version if they wish to have ongoing support and maintenance of their system?

Steve Laidler
ECOsystems NZ

 

1) By unsupported perhaps I used the wrong wording, what I mean is that if you have schedule plus version 3.X, and you want the current version of schedule plus - i.e.- the one which is compatible with the current version of toolkit and cgate, you can't download the update anymore. It seems you instead have to purchase the new version.

2) We appreciate Clipsals goodwork in quickly dealing with showstopper bugs, are the concern does not relate to minor issues which appear in one version but which are addressed in the next

3) The concern is, that as a major ( as major as you get in little old NZ ) representative of the clipsal brand, our technicians need to keep their toolkit software up to date. We often find when we go back to an old site we are informed that the version of toolkit on the site is older than the one we are working with, and we need to update the toolkit project files.

When we do this, it updates C-gate as well. The next message we might get is that schedule plus doesn't recognise the new version of c-gate, and we need to update schedule plus. Up until now, this was a free download from the net. Now it seems to be - purchase the new version. We expect that if this happens again, and we download the update, we will next be informed that there is no USB security key present, and the software is operating in demonstration mode only.

We are told that the change has been made as too much software piracy has been occuring. The dilema of this approach is that if somebody was intent on hacking software, it is difficult to imagine the USB key method being much of a barrier.

We are not in any hurry to antagonise our customers, more we need to be seen to be representing their interests and concerns. If we have read the situation wrongly, we hope to be corrected.

So in short, the question remains;

Should sites with Schedule Plus version 3 now purchase version 4?

Or can we assume future varients of toolkit and cgate will be reliably backwards compatible with Schedule Plus version 4.

Gripes aside, we think Schedule Plus is a great piece of software and the Clipsal team does a great job in maintaining it.

Steve

 

Hi Steve, the latest release of 3.x S+ should work fine with the current Toolkit and C-Gate. One of the major enhancements announced with Toolkit 1.7 was that the tight version matching issues with other clients (S+ etc..) was resolved.

There should be no issues using a fully patched S+ 3.x with the current C-Gate. The only reason to upgrade to S+ 4 is if you want new features. If you have any issues with S+ 3.9 it is supported by Clipsal.

 

Thanks

Thanks for the feedback

 

V4 Scheduler Plus

I have to disgree with some of the comments made.

I have had several discussions with management within Clipsal and have been advised that no "free" upgrades will be available for existing V2 and V3 sites to the new V4 platform due to the change from a parrallel port dongle to a USB key
I have a large number of Scheduler Plus projects around the country and keep contact with all of our clients to upsell new products whenever they become available i.e Monochrme C-Touch with logic.
However, with C-Gate the common platform for all C-Bus software, each major upgrade requires an upgrade to C-Gate, which in turn, requires an upgrade to Scheduler Plus.
So from now on, i am less inclined to attempt to upsell a new product to one of our Scheduler Plus clients due to complexity and cost of selling C-Bus product on behalf of Clipsal.

I know Clipsal have used the excuse for this is due to the hacking of the current dongles by users. As an organisation, we have always purchased complete software versions with Dongles each and every time. However, I HAVE seen on more than one occasion Clipsal employees giving away software dongles.

Perhaps a more customer focused solution would be offer a "Dongle Exchange" program whereas a new USB dongle is supplied free of charge on the provision the old donlge is returned to a Clipsal representative with 14 days.

I would welcome any feedback or suggestions

 

This is no longer the case. Although it is likley at some point in the future that C-Gate will become incompatiable with old S+, this should not be the normal case anymore. System were put in place to have all CIS software query c-gate for its capabilities, rather than just version number, to determine if it is able to use it.

This is very different to the previous scenerio where updates to C-Gate caused old software to fail.