ECI Software Solutions offers e-automate, an ERP for office technology companies to automate business workflows and increase contract profitability.
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IFS Field Service Management
Score 9.2 out of 10
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IFS Field Service Management (formerly Metrix) is the field service management application from Industrial and Financial Systems (IFS). It is built around features such as a contact center, dynamic scheduling, and service contract management.
Based on my experience, e-automate is a must have for equipment sales and service industry - no matter what the product. I do use it for IT contracts as well, and they have made updates over the years to accommodate this. As for less appropriate uses... businesses that don't need all of the functionality it provides. It doesn't mesh well in the food service industry (I know a few people who have tried) But you can use whatever areas of the program you need, you don't have to use what you don't need, but you will still have to pay for the entire program.
IFS Field Service Management is well suited for ad-hoc reporting and querying of your dataset(s). It also is great for inventory management, processing orders, and handling EDI transaction sets to third party partners and suppliers.
I like the way I can create a sales order and right click and instantly create a purchase order for that sales order, and the process continues when I clear the PO, it releases the items on the Sales order for shipment.
Order Placement - IFS makes placing orders quite easy. From the simple interface down to selecting inventory, the experience is simple and clean
Reporting - Querying database records is straightforward and easy to do. Queries can then be drilled down to individual records or exported to excel for further manipulation and analysis.
Customer Creation - Creating new customers and managing and maintaining existing records is a simple and easily repeatable exercise
When attaching related items to equipment, it seems that you have to jump through a bunch of different hoops to make sure it shows up.
Customer service is slow and can sometimes takes weeks to respond to issues that need to be addressed, and that is only to get the ball rolling for a call to take place.
With every update, it seems that instead of just adding features they change old features so then you have to go back and relearn everything. This is especially difficult when it comes to clocking specific buttons that have moved or when words change. For example, when adding contracts, it used to say include in expiring copies and now it says exclude.
PLEASE CREATE A FUNCTION WHERE YOU CAN HAVE MORE THAN ONE TAB OPEN AT A TIME. i.e. dispatch and sales orders split screen to one another. So, you don't have to lose your spot closing out of sales ordered to put in a service call.
Field Customization - Adding fields or inputs to particular entities is not very easy. In a world of point and click development, IFS is behind the curve
Order Automation - for bulk order placement it would be nice to have an easy mechanism to upload orders via an Excel or csv template. We've written some custom programs to perform this, but a more user friendly, "out of box" solution would be welcomed.
Sometimes when you need answers quickly, a voice on the phone is far better than having to wait for email support or a callback. I have found this to have delays and feel ECI e-automate should invest more in its support infrastructure.
D3M allows for granular detail with diagrams, pictures, plans and layouts. The template for sales quotes in D3M are very helpful to save time. D3M is easy to manage and use. Ideal for smaller organizations and teams. D3M will allow for customization with company logo, phone numbers, pictures, margin analysis, etc.
Positive - streamlined order processing has allowed our business to scale without requiring additional bodies for that specific need.
Positive - Reporting has allowed valuable insight into historic business trends which has allowed us to be proactive instead of reactive in many areas.
Negative - Customizations have proved costly and cumbersome when upgrading to the next version of the software.
