What is the biggest red flag that a software vendor/partner will be painful to work with?
Posted by TheTechPartner@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 170 comments
What is the biggest red flag that a software vendor/partner will be painful to work with?
sambodia85@reddit
They can’t handle changing a username/email.
So many products over the years where they just can’t rename because they treat it like a primary key. Like nobody has ever taken a married name, or a company has never rebranded.
We implement SAML with an employee tracking software last year with this problem, they just create a new account on rename, when we raised it breaks the history they didnt see what the problem was. Then they double billed for the renamed users because they were active in the same month. Fucking useless.
NindieNation@reddit
That's how you know any product that claims to be "built from the ground up" is most definitely not.
autogyrophilia@reddit
Built from scratch doesn't mean applying all those hard earned lessons about desing .
Specially in this new golden age of LLM code plagiarism.
Raymich@reddit
Tableau online doesn’t let you change username. It was a nightmare to deal with permissions after UPN changed after merger.
Ill-Barracuda9031@reddit
Yep, we have to maintain multiple legacy email address attribute mappings when merging acquired companies into our okta tenant. There's no end in sight for changing all the apps.
Arudinne@reddit
Lol, we have that issue with our in-house CRM even though our Dev team moved it to use SAML (at least I think its SAML) a few years ago.
notcordonal@reddit
Their email addresses end in oracle dot com
Anonymo123@reddit
worse is broadcom dot com lol
vCentered@reddit
Citrix has Broadcom beat by miles
Hebrewhammer8d8@reddit
Can SAP dot com enter the chat?
TheDarthSnarf@reddit
I’d rather work with SAP than Oracle or Broadcom any day of the week… because at least I’ll enjoy the anger-filled German accent when I call in.
Xzenor@reddit
Worse? I don't know man... It's a pretty big fight for first place between those two
NindieNation@reddit
I just cackled. I worked at Oracle for a few years and good lord I bet that was a nightmare.
I remember telling customers "I'm your rep for CRM, now, I know Oracle has 45,000 sales reps and it likely seems like they all have you as an account..."
God that place sucked.
ShayGrimSoul@reddit
Bro, last time I worked with anything oracle related their software was literally outdated and only ran one outdated Java. Like what the fuck? Thought I was back in the windows up era.
Zeitcon@reddit
Those were the days!
Bogus1989@reddit
actually hilarious since its oracle themselves 🤣
Slottr@reddit
Documentation sucks
touchytypist@reddit
Also, documentation behind a login.
MenBearsPigs@reddit
This one drove me nuts recently. I was trying to make some dedicated software agents using documentation pulled from online -- which can be very useful.
But my god. Documentation behind logins (almost always serving zero purpose) and web design that is complete overkill.
The standard documentation layout works perfectly fine, no one needs all the "fancy" click to expand and iframe nonsense.
Logical_Sort_3742@reddit
Depends. Red Hat does this, and with them it makes sense.
touchytypist@reddit
How?
Logical_Sort_3742@reddit
For Red Hat, there is Rocky Linux and Alma Linux that both copy their OS. Fully legally, and I would argue appropriately. If you do not have a need for support, you can run either of those instead of RHEL. Also there is Oracle Linux, but... Oracle.
Basically Red Hat is mainly selling support. And for them to safeguard their support somehow seems to make sense.
Slottr@reddit
Oh my god 10000%.
The amount of pain and misery we've had changing off of AGPM to GPOADmin
AudaciousAutonomy@reddit
Yeah bad docs is #1 for me
Bose_Motile@reddit
Wait...you got documentation?
sysadminsavage@reddit
+1 if all the documentation links from more than a year or two ago in forum posts are broken.
Looking at you Citrix.
8agienny@reddit
If there's any.
stevey500@reddit
This is truly the best answer.
PAXICHEN@reddit
The vendor is called SAP
BWMerlin@reddit
No SSO and SCIM.
Verukins@reddit
"Our software doesnt support silent installation - why would you want to do that ?/Just use our click once installer"
Shows they have never worked with any client of any reasonable size before and dont understand application management - the same lack of understanding always shows up in the rest of the product too.
BWMerlin@reddit
I fucking hate software that doesn't have a silent installer.
It is like they think every end user is local admin.
The-Snarky-One@reddit
“We require a local admin account to auto-login and have SA access to this full local SQL server database that our application needs to run properly. We have not tested this on Windows ENT or in an AD or managed environment. You’ll need to disable antivirus or set exclusions for all of this. Oh, and we’ll need full remote connection access via Teamviewer to provide support.”
I wish I was lying or making this up. I was actually told this by a software vendor who was providing a tool for healthcare of all things. I laughed at them because I thought they were joking… they weren’t.
Amnar76@reddit
you just described every healthcare software product.
binarypower@reddit
they get 6 sales people on a call to show you the product but only 1 technical person "to confer with after the call"
EmptyM_@reddit
The presale meetings frequently reference the roadmap
skylinesora@reddit
You must’ve had many meetings within Palo Alto
EmptyM_@reddit
Nope, the Cisco Unified Comms team in 2011….
Specifically UCCX, there were features on the roadmap that influenced our purchasing that were still on the roadmap 6 years later…
Since then anytime I hear a feature is on a roadmap I treat it as vapourware
cbass377@reddit
"A lot of customers are asking for that feature, it is high up in the list and definitely on the roadmap. I am sure it will be in the next rev, or the one after that."
inbeforethelube@reddit
It reminds me of when I was on a team administrating an ERP system for a national company. We were a subsidiary of a Fortune 100 company so it didn’t take them long to figure out we were 80% of their revenue. “Their” roadmap quickly became ours and it was the best time I’ve ever had supporting a product.
WorkLurkerThrowaway@reddit
“Here’s our list of recommended implementation partners”
Jolly-Ad-8088@reddit
The flag of China.
SysAdminDennyBob@reddit
Their software does not come with an installer. Or it's a circa 1990's setup.exe.
segagamer@reddit
Figma does this - they charge extra for the MSI.
But you can extract the exe with 7zip to get the MSI lol
ZettaiKyofuRyoiki@reddit
Or the installer doesn’t have a silent option
Arudinne@reddit
Or the software can only be installed in the user's context.
Seigmoraig@reddit
Salesforce Dataloader installs with a .bin file and if you don't have the exact specific java dependancy it just flickers the cmd box for 1/4 of a second so you can never read what the error message is.
Salesforce has 40 billion in yearly revenue
ProgressBartender@reddit
You are the setup.exe
PositiveBubbles@reddit
Higher Education love those
Neo5454@reddit
If their company motto has the word "innovation" in it.
gr8bhere@reddit
Hiding SSO behind an even higher paid tier, just tell me they value min-maxing their profits over ease of use for everyone involved. If I’m on a paid tier just hand it over bro.
OldschoolSysadmin@reddit
I can tell you from experience that letting a customer use their own IDP is easier and less expensive than maintaining their users and groups for them. It's a pure profit grab.
thehuntzman@reddit
As someone who wrote my own SAML SP implementation in powershell for an internal web app (which also runs on a custom powershell web framework I developed) I have no idea why people charge MORE for SSO when it makes development SO much easier not having to do user and group management.
Arudinne@reddit
Lansweeper went to shit around the time they started rolling out their cloud platform and has basically left the on-prem software to rot.
We ran into multiple issues that their support couldn't or wouldn't fix and reaching an actual human at that company is too damn hard.
We ditched them 2 years ago and haven't looked back.
R3luctant@reddit
You're describing half of all software companies.
gr8bhere@reddit
I guess but SSO is not a feature of their product line. It should be a given access protocol to their platform. It’s crazy
diucameo@reddit
Hall of shame https://sso.tax/
DifficultyDouble860@reddit
Gaslighting that our onprem server crashes so often because our database (that they wrote) is too big. "Bitch, that's because we use the hell out of your software are you crazy??!?"
persiusone@reddit
Lack of transparency. If they paywall everything (looking at you, Broadcom), or refuse to provide open knowledge bases and documentation, run away.
childishDemocrat@reddit
No pricing on the website. Minimum license purchases - especially with long contract periods. Long contract periods in general. Trying to claim copyright or patent on everything you do using their tool or services. Extreme amounts of expensive training and testing to qualify to sell it. No free software for partners to learn the product and use it in their own practice. We never sold anything that wasn't an eat your own dogfood product. You learn by doing and using.
dabbydaberson@reddit
They have published API reference guide
hosalabad@reddit
Software requires Oracle Java.
Lonestranger757@reddit
Software requires Domain Admin
Bovie2k@reddit
This is way too common. I remember working with a vendor years ago who’s answered everything was we’ll just make it a domain ADMIN.
dhardyuk@reddit
On client devices ….
ProgressBartender@reddit
Claims it’s HIPAA compliant
punkwalrus@reddit
... and spells it "HIPPA" in a lot of the documentation.
dhardyuk@reddit
What about when it’s turned on?
PositiveBubbles@reddit
Or they want access to your network/ domain when their application doesn't work and the error says application issue.
LowIndividual6625@reddit
Read the arbitration clause…. That is how we discovered a Salesforce dev shop was registering their business address to an abandoned lot on a country road two states away from the homes the staff actually worked from. They wanted us to sign off on arbitration only occurring under their conditions and it was ridiculous.
Bose_Motile@reddit
They have sales reps. The companies that structure in a way that prioritizes having a human try to push product on you tells you everything you need to know. They do not care about the product and do not think it can speak for itself. They just want to rope you into a contract.
slippery_hemorrhoids@reddit
Your account rep says your renewal is 50% because they need to drive up revenue.
Exact quote, "we need to increase our revenue".
This was under the contractual "90 day nonrenewal notice period".
Affectionate-Cat-975@reddit
when they tell you to disable standard security measures to make the software work
FrivolousMe@reddit
Constant warning emails multiple times a day saying you haven't responded to the ticket yet but when it is their turn to give you a response on the ticket they take 3 business days minimum
slippery_hemorrhoids@reddit
The company name is "ivanti"
Literally increased all renewals by 50% because "we need to drive up revenue"
Sea-Aardvark-756@reddit
They do things without reaching out, especially things that could trigger alarms. Communication is key, and waiting until right before meeting to start making accounts and granting them admin permissions for your team is fine, but you need to let our team know so it doesn't look like someone potentially nefarious compromised the vendor and started taking over. Still can't believe that one. Like seeing a kid who forgot to do his homework writing it as fast as possible before class starts, except the company is paying that kid a ton of money.
Moistmedium@reddit
Nitpicky and confusing license criteria
gordonthulu@reddit
The support page is just a contact form. No phone number anywhere.
OzTm@reddit
Here’s the reverse perspective. If the customer says they fired the previous integrator - be very cautious about proceeding.
MrJacks0n@reddit
They have a database installer. Worse if it's part of the application install.
amotion578@reddit
When a SaaS vendor has more than one product you're buying and only shows you the admin portal of the flagship.
Companies buy companies, whitelabel their product, and resell it.
The support, documentation, general use of the product is reflected 20x over when it's flagship vs bought.
On day 1 of finally getting the admin portal to the -other- product we bought in a bundle, they hadn't even bothered to update the domain name. Oh, yeah, they bought -that- 7 years ago, slapped their logo on it, and then asked 6 figures annually for 3 years.
And it fucking sucks compared to the flagship. Wow we got taken for a fucking ride.
I now do all my research when vendor shopping comes up, if they're buying the competition and relabeling it, it's a no from me dawg.
vi-shift-zz@reddit
No prices listed, everything is a sales call
Greedy_Chocolate_681@reddit
This isn't always true- For simple seat based software pricing models it should be listed, but in services it's impossible to scope without discovery.
touchytypist@reddit
Let's be real. It's primarily to force a customer into their sales pipeline.
The could easily list retail pricing with can vary based on configuration/services/size/discount, etc. but they don't.
WBCSAINT@reddit
They can put numbers on their site, they just choose not to
Greedy_Chocolate_681@reddit
How would a services vendor put numbers on their website? Literally every job is different, and every scope of work has its own special intricacy.
GoodTofuFriday@reddit
offer an easy estimate. Im not looking to waste my time for discovery to then get a quote for 3x what i anticipated.
russianturnipofdoom@reddit
What if the estimate isn't easy? I'm on the vendor side and have a few companies i am working with right now where we are like 2 hours worth of calls and we still can't provide pricing.
They haven't said anything negative about it and we're likely to get pricing after the next meeting, but I still dislike this because we could be way out of their budget. At the same time, I don't think our contact necessarily knows his budget.
Any advice? What does an IT leader expect in those really complex quoting scenarios?
GoodTofuFriday@reddit
I'm very happy with receiving generic quotes. Like X amount of users for the basic service cost X for X hours.
Like just give me what the most basic version of your service cost, and then I can engage you with an idea of where im starting from. If you get someone that after discovery just wants basic, let them discover on their own they will need little more than just basic.
russianturnipofdoom@reddit
Thats super helpful! Our company is annoying because some stuff is per device, some of it is per user, and others is like flat fee + usage + service hours.
What that ends up meaning is a pretty significant price range, like 6 figures in some cases.
I wonder when companies will get advanced enough to allow prospective customers to just configure bundles without a sales rep and then the call happens once that bundle is built by the prospect.
Would save sales rep and buyer an immense amount of time.
pdp10@reddit
Nobody wants to waste time on a discovery and quote that they can't afford.
We once had a campus fiber run fully quoted by our usual vendor based on a newly rediscovered invoice for an earlier run by a different vendor, only for the final number to be more than 3x, and consequently out of consideration.
It wasn't the cabling vendor's fault. They thoroughly quoted us a top-notch job. The issue was that the earlier run hadn't been anywhere near the quality, and as it was done by the ILEC, might well have been tacitly cross-subsidized by other revenue attached to us.
japanthrowaway@reddit
They could publicly list their rates. Its bold, it's what the people want!
Benificial-Cucumber@reddit
In those situations, I'd expect to see some example solutions with a loose cost breakdown. I know they'll never publish their pricing formula but if I can't even tell how many digits will be on the invoice, I'm out.
Fuse1on@reddit
Starting a big project with them and they send you an excel spreadsheet to collect a shotload of data from their own system. Why are we doing this crappy leg work we are paying you ffs......
ProstheticAttitude@reddit
They have a license server.
dlongwing@reddit
Sales team/person is charismatic, rather than just being a normal person.
GreenWoodDragon@reddit
Lack of process, rigour, and engineering mindset.
michaelpaoli@reddit
Their software is utter sh*t.
Glittering_Power6257@reddit
Their software specifically requires Oracle Java.
gregarious119@reddit
Shiny sales demo that looks better than sliced bread.
Anonymity_Is_Good@reddit
Your non-technical manager seems to have an irrational love for this one VAR.
Mystre316@reddit
When I raise a Sev 1 support call, via phone (because sev 1) and they tell me 'Are you sure this is a sev 1, sev 1 means system down'.
punkwalrus@reddit
Nothing concrete explains what their product *does* or what problem is actually solves.
LibtardsAreFunny@reddit
You have to talk to sales to get pricing or you can't add / remove users without talking to sales.
Ive_seen_things_that@reddit
Vendors hate working with me because of my legal team. We are a nightmare to work with if a contract has to go to the lawyers
mumblerit@reddit
New Reddit account posting engagement bate
YouKidsGetOffMyYard@reddit
They have really aggressive sales tactics...
rxbeegee@reddit
The SSO integration requires the vendor’s support team to set it up
SuperfluousJuggler@reddit
There preview of the application is a client's live environment and they unhide the password when they log into check it.
mtesm@reddit
Have to contact them to uninstall the software.
TheGreatestJaggi@reddit
The ungodly amount of emails before acquiring. Bonus points if they email everyone on your team, even those who can't make decisions like L1
eddyb66@reddit
Separate apps / installer for each feature.
danekan@reddit
They want to do two calls a week because they are really just building out their product at your expense
Bogus1989@reddit
😆 this is so funny. I been there.
BoltActionRifleman@reddit
When their support techs have no idea how to VPN/remote into your network. One might remember how to do it but the next has no idea. This generally means their internal documentation and/or communication is lacking, or nonexistent.
ISeeDeadPackets@reddit
So this service account is going to need enterprise admin and we'll need a port forward setup....
TerrificVixen5693@reddit
They want TeamViewer as a back door on any appliance.
Xzenor@reddit
Only a chatbot for support
dlongwing@reddit
We find out about them because a business unit has signed a 10 year contract and is now involving us for implmentation.
Seriously I wish I could get the BOD to implement a policy that contracts cannot be signed without first consulting IT for business fit.
PositiveBubbles@reddit
Its worse when it's a large org, areas within IT sign off on it but don't want to do anything, including owning support for the application. We're that big where systems administrators can't support everything.
cubic_sq@reddit
“Ramp up”
Siallus@reddit
Project manager doesn't respond to emails
FrecciaRosa@reddit
My boss ignored my advice and picked it on vibes.
ZaradimLako@reddit
No official ticketing system and no one who is "assigned" to us.
rootofallworlds@reddit
On the other hand, we have vendors who do assign an individual as a contact point for us - and then do nothing whatsoever to provide cover when that person is on leave.
Neat_Ad_7635@reddit
Yeah, that sounds like a goodbye to me.
hisae1421@reddit
It can do it all. Magic product that solve every need you didn't ever spoke about yet
rootofallworlds@reddit
They make software for my employer’s industry, pretty much. One of those niche things where there’s going to be two off-the-shelf options, three if we’re lucky, and they’re all lousy.
mrbatra@reddit
Their software need admin/ domain admin / root access to work normally. Getting access errors? Let's give Everyone full access.
iamMRmiagi@reddit
onboarding engineer gets replaced a month in
981flacht6@reddit
They don't want to discuss the scope of work, which will be used against you down the line.
"Oh that wasn't in the SOW." And leave you high and dry.
PepsiOfWrath@reddit
Cant get an engineer on the phone to answer questions during sales call.
RainStormLou@reddit
I have this issue much less than I used to, but it's because the sales teams have been empowered to say YES when the engineers would normally say ABSOLUTELY NOT.
I've gotten pretty shitty with onboarding teams this past year or two because of how many times implementation has become something drastically different to what was advertised, demoed and sold to us.
PepsiOfWrath@reddit
I got to the final round of vendors once for a solution when we finally got an engineer on the line that corrected the sales guy and said "We don't support Entra, only on-premises AD" and it sunk the whole deal. That engineer is my hero. He saved both sides so much fighting and pain, I don't think that sales guy realized it at all, he was probably pissed, but he's also probably changed companies six times by now.
vbpatel@reddit
They have really good swag
Chane25@reddit
Schedule a meeting to schedule a meeting to schedule a meeting to schedule a meeting. Product MAY be worth it but man does it suck.
TundraGon@reddit
Related: viva la dirt league - endless loops
https://youtu.be/5UhYdLnn4V0?is=YRjnl2jQ8g6DWk5y
tarvijron@reddit
Only wants to talk to the executive level and not the technical.
azspeedbullet@reddit
SSO tax
LinuxJeb@reddit
They have no idea what the fuck they're doing.
jailh@reddit
All resources are on domain ibm.com and you can't find anything.
sgt_Berbatov@reddit
Will only refer to an SLA when you ask them what their response rates/uptimes were for the last 12 months.
JustAnEngineer2025@reddit
Look at how they treat you BEFORE you give them money as that is typically the best they will ever treat you.
PointyWombatReborn@reddit
Honestly, they all suck balls.
ITSec8675309@reddit
The management portal requires Java.
Intrepid-Watch6856@reddit
chatgpt your questions and paste exactly from the AI prompt without finding exact documentation for the product. not even changing the format.
endless software patch every quarter to fix the bug and end up with another bug
cant talk to their engineers with the reason 'we are not full force' during weekend but we already subscribed to the service and we need their help due to software bug.
hard_cidr@reddit
any technical question goes through three layers of clueless people and eventually lands at the same 1 person every time, and you realize there is only 1 person working there who actually has any technical knowledge of the product
Juan_in_a_meeeelion@reddit
Their name is Atlassian
Zieprus_@reddit
Unlimited leave…
iamliterate@reddit
We're testing a product and ran into issues with it not working in our environment. Their engineer did next to no troubleshooting and blamed it on it being blocked by our security software. They sent me a 400 word "support recap" that was straight up copy-pasta'd from ChatGPT. It wasn't even reformatted. I solved the issue myself and it absolutely wasn't our security software.
general-noob@reddit
It takes 6 months of meeting to get a quote that isn’t even close to your budget.
The_NorthernLight@reddit
If your account rep changes every month, their support is going to be just as transitive...
BadSausageFactory@reddit
trash questions that waste my time
Phreakiture@reddit
There's only one or two competitors ,,,, and they are all at least an order of magnitude smaller.
OneSeaworthiness7768@reddit
Posting in a subreddit for sysadmins to glean business info.
buzzy_buddy@reddit
LMAO real
Competitive_Run_3920@reddit
That they have anything to do with printer hardware.
Expensive-Rhubarb267@reddit
How often they refer to having a forum or 'community' for technical questions. Or if they provide 'training' it's totally geared towards sales/pre-sales people. Not technicians.
If you're paying thousands for software/hardware licensing. You should be able to get a straight answer to a question from a technical representative in a timely manner.
emptystreets130@reddit
When you can't reach a live person.
AnonEMoussie@reddit
They don’t use email, only meeting every two weeks. Sometimes Zoom, sometimes Teams, and some times Gotomeeting.
downundarob@reddit
Their email address is either yahoo.com, google.com or hotmail.com (and it isnt that company).
Hopeful_Promise_4872@reddit
needs local admin
casetofon2@reddit
Sending out software patch for an MDM Tool that ends up bricking an entire server and then charging you money for setting it up again ...
MonsterTruckCarpool@reddit
Your integration manager keeps getting replaced
Crenorz@reddit
high turnover.
juice-box@reddit
Not having proper documentation.
dude_named_will@reddit
Lack of a phone number
VG30ET@reddit
Can't talk to their "engineers"
No_Heat_6072@reddit
Everything is a sales call.
GeoSystemsDeveloper@reddit
Bad reputation from previous projects. Just ask around