Brightly Asset Essentials™ vs. IFS Cloud vs. Microsoft Dynamics SL

SchoolDude has been great for us to easily submit maintenance requests, keep them organized for tracking, and simple for staff to view and respond to.

Incentivized

The IFS Cloud has well suited to keeping track from beginning to end and engages from the internal team to the external team very well. It takes everything with them and helps them to grow at a wide pace. It creates a systematic workflow process which helps in achieving the goal more fast and friendly environment

Incentivized

For a small to mid-size business, MS Dynamics SL is effective. We are capable of managing our finances with a very low risk of error. We have worked with MS Dynamics for almost 15 years and have more than doubled the size of our business in that time with very few issues from the program. We have exponentially increased our revenue and reporting demands and have found SL to be very dependable and stable. The program does have the occasional glitch and those are sometimes outside of the realm of expertise of our IT department. SL support is excellent, but their timeliness is not as urgent as ours.

Incentivized

• For maintenance requests, Dude Solutions Help Desk documents the request and then allows the custodial staff to record updates for the staff member to see. So, the request and solution are available for all parties involved.
• For building use, I find some of the features helpful including the ability to see if what you are looking for is available before you book it.
• Overall, Dude Solutions Help Desk is not difficult to use.

Incentivized

• Store data from different domains
• Integrates efficiently with other systems
• Easy to migrate data from different systems. Provides good API Documentation.

Incentivized

• Provides flexibility for complex project based cost accounting
• Strong and flexible allocation processer for cost allocations, markups, and pricing
• A "Flexible Billing" module under the project controller series that allows for multiple billing formats ranging from fixed price schedule of values, T&M or Cost Plus, and scheduled billing.
• Flexible reporting with options using Crystal Reports, SSRS, a Quick Query tool, and ability to tie into MS Office tools such as MS Access and MS Excel
• Tight integration with Financials, but also the ability to integrate with modules such as Sales Order, Inventory, and Field Service
• Customization abilities ranging from a VBA (visual basic for application) foundation to allow customizing existing forms to the ability to use the SDK (Software Development Kit) to build more complex customizations that integrate with Dynamics SL.

Incentivized

• The overall user interface is bland.
• Switching to the IT application takes opens in another tab.

Incentivized

• Rich look of user experience of the web-based interface
• Some areas like HR and Payroll are not fully-suited within the solution
• Error and issue handling/debugging is difficult

Incentivized

• Reporting in the Project module is lacking functionality. I understand that most companies have specific needs when it comes to tracking project information but the standard reports are not good.
• I would recommend a product like Management Reporter that is for Projects only. Project Reporter should allow users to pull in all Project related data into reports.
• Fixing suspended batches. Obviously all of us users have experienced this mess. SL knows what needs to be corrected and there could be some step by step fixes in a separate repair module to do the steps we do in Query Analyzer.

Incentivized

Unfortunately, Dynamics' lack of ability to smoothly integrate with our CRM system is causing us to look at other solutions. The efficiencies that we gain by using Dynamics for our day to day accounting are lost in the constant headaches of getting sales quotes to import properly into the system for invoicing. Another major issue for us has been budgeting and reporting. We currently do all of our budgeting and board reporting in Excel, which is too time consuming and inefficient, especially when a system as robust as Dynamics should easily be able to handle this relatively simple task.

Incentivized

The overall functionality, the feature set that the IFS Cloud offeres is really good (even though it has some flaws / cons), which reduces the time / administrative effort in managing multiple systems to achieve the same goal / to store the required data.

Incentivized

I rate it a 10 because we have removed the fields we don't need so users can really crank the data into the system. The software was designed for the professional services firm in mind but does a tremendous job for construction firms and "blended" companies that are both distribution firms but project centric as well. Perhaps they drop ship inventory to a project where their employees or subs need to work on a project for example.

Incentivized

We have had only one unplanned outage for 2 hours in the last 30 months. We shut down for 30 min to 1 hour once a month, but that is for Microsoft OS updates to the servers. Being a 24/7 world wide operation, the reliability is really important. We do get an 8 hour window on the weekend that we can be down for a short period to install Microsoft Dynamics SL updates, but we do not have many of those. On our last version upgrade, we shut the users out at 9:30 am and were fully operational in less than 6 hours. The upgrade was New SQL server, New SL server and 2 new Citrix servers.

Incentivized

I find the basic concept and use of Dude Solutions Help Desk to be good, but I think it could use an update to look and work more smoothly. The maintenance aspect of Dude Solutions Help Desk is definitely better than the scheduling tool. The maintenance request does have a decent set-up and does offer clear communication between the staff member and custodial staff. The scheduling tool needs a calendar feature and the ability to receive a notification in your calendar. Both tools do have an email service that directly sends updates to your email.

Incentivized

The overall support is perfect and efficient.

Incentivized

Support is only used when needed, so unfortunately ,they get all the odd issues. It's a difficult business, but Microsoft and our firm do a great job of meeting customer needs. We get routine feedback that our support services are very good.

Incentivized

Just to let it take its course. The implementation for me once I became a part of my former organization was pretty seamless. Just get to know the basics and call the support team to ask questions if you need help on an issue, should they arise. They are ready, willing, and able to help!

Incentivized

I have used a ticketing system through FirstClass that does not come anywhere close to where SchoolDude is in ease of use and quality of a program.

Incentivized

IFS Cloud is an upgrade of IFS Applications. IFS Applications solution is under extended support and would eventually be replaced by cloud solution in coming years.

Incentivized

Of the comparable mid-range ERP systems, Dynamics SL competes at the lower end based on price, but also above the high-end based on flexibility, data, and reporting. Being able to stay with the same core accounting from a $100 million dollar company to a $3 billion dollar company shows the range of capabilities.

Incentivized

Since the backbone of the database is MS SQLServer, the database can be easily scaled.

Incentivized

• We can calculate the need for IT workers based on work orders.
• We can track issues at buildings and what buildings may need more help.
• A simple approach where it makes it easy to get work order information rather than emails and phone calls.

Incentivized

• Reduced the time taken for the users to prepare and generate reports since most are automatic with IFS Cloud
• Increased the reliability and visibility of the inventory of the products from procurement of raw materials through the manufacturing of final product to delivering to customer's place
• Took a considerable time configuring the roles and access of the users while implementation

Incentivized

• More time is spent on manipulating reports which can and should be automated.
• Lack of electronic invoicing process and other green technology features creates more cost on printing and storage costs.
• The lack of a user friendly interface requires more training and a bigger learning curve for staff.

Incentivized