Likelihood to Recommend Good for distribution organizations with warehousing. Can also support both Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable, although a more thorough Accounting package is recommended. Is strong when it comes to integrating bar codes and scanners, particularly for warehouse maintenance. Prophet 21 does include a basic CRM offering. However, it is very basic, and for any real Customer Resource management, a third-party tool is best (even recommended by Epicor.)
Read full review It integrates fully with the other Microsoft software we use daily, and this coordination speeds up our work and gives us the agility to run easily. For example, in a purchase inquiry, the customer, after submitting a request, identifies the teams that should work on the project, and if they need further review by other people, they are added to the process, and everything is managed seamlessly rather than the sales process. Get the result as fast as possible.
Read full review Pros The system allows us to pretty much design it to work the way want it to work. It is a very flexible system for the most part. The system doesn't let you make too many shortcuts with getting something processed. It forces you to go through the proper steps. The system keeps track of everything and can be easily retrieved through history searches. Detailed reports, graphs, .... Read full review Microsoft Dynamics AX's scalability to meet our regional office needs provide flexibility to the team's requirements. Combined with Citrix Xenapp, the application offers seamless access for users on high latency unreliable network connection to the application. Application maintenance and updates are easy which makes it possible for us to manage remotely considering the servers are located in a remote Asia site. Read full review Cons Prophet 21 could use better management tools for its own data. The database has a tendency to bloat and over time can grow exceedingly large without administrative intervention. The UI can be cluttered at times and the windows tend to jump into focus or drop from focus when it isn't expected causing user confusion and data entry errors. Branding on forms and the UI is almost nonexistent. Customizations of screen aesthetics and form layout options should be easier and not require custom programming. Read full review MRP can be slow to adapt to changes in actual production or supply chain transactions. Setting up number sequences seems a trivial matter, but these numbers ID transactions once they are in the ledger and are key--easy to miss this point in the implementation process. Bank rec being easily automated and able to quickly plug into a bank back end to get data is not the best. Payment processing can be 'clunky' based on checks, ACH, Wires...as some of these items are not triggered out of the box in AX, bur are easily added --talking ACH and Wires specifically. Jay Omdahl President and Principle Managing Consultant
Read full review Likelihood to Renew I've used Epicor Prophet 21 for about 12 years (in various iterations). It started out as CommerceCenter by Prophet 21 then became Prophet 21 by Activant and then Prophet 21 by Epicor. So frequently, when a software company is acquired, it stops being great. That has not been the case with Epicor Prophet 21. Over the years they've been under Epicor, the product has just gotten better and better, with major extensibility enhancements and new mobile components coming online.
Read full review Microsoft Dynamics continues to evolve by bringing more functionality to the customer. Also there are several independent software providers that offer a wide range of solutions for vertical markets.
Read full review Usability Overall, I love using Prophet 21. With a few rare exceptions, functions within the application have been streamlined so they can be used with as few clicks and key presses as possible. That's not to say they've given up any functionality. The platform is incredibly powerful; just easy to use.
Read full review Overall the product does what we need it to do in order for us to function as a company. While there are some concerns over ongoing costs, the belief is, once we have it fully acclimated to our business the cost should settle into alignment with our original expectations. The new features that are consistently being added do add value to the product as they are usually customer request directed.
Read full review Reliability and Availability When hosted locally, you don't have to worry about outages unless the power goes out and the battery backups fail. It can also be hosted in the cloud which is as reliable as your internet connection. There's really no concern for outages in the software by itself. Outages are controlled by external factors.
Read full review Some integration and high volume ramping challenges, particularly with BizTalk and SQL Server, but getting sorted out. Outages over time appeared to be more dependent on integration complexity than AX MES.
Read full review Performance I do feel like there are some screens and reports that could be streamlined. Prophet 21 likes to load features all at once when going into a program but a quicker load time into order entry, for example, is worth having a little latency while a non-essential tab that doesn't get used very often is opened.
Read full review Some integration and high volume ramping challenges, particularly with BizTalk and SQL Server, but getting sorted out. Outages over time appeared to be more dependent on integration complexity than AX MES.
Read full review Support Rating The support is some of the worst I've seen across all the 122 software vendors we work with. Everything is offshore and it is always vague answers, links to wiki's that don't apply, and when we pay for project support they charge $200 an hour for someone who works remote from Mexico to call you on a poor quality VoIP connection that isn't all that well trained and often doesn't have basic IT skills
Read full review We use a 3rd-party Microsoft Partner for the system. They are responsive and very knowledgeable. While costs have been mentioned several times in this review they are very aware of costs and have developers who are more economical they use to help offset the level of work required to meet our changes and fix our issues.
Read full review In-Person Training The on-site training was great. I give it a 9 because the trainer was a chain smoker who had to excuse herself a lot to smoke. Kind of unprofessional. She was a very good trainer though.
Read full review It took a lot of work, but Microsoft ultimately did a good job with in-person training, including being onsite in multiple global locations for extended periods.
Read full review Online Training I had a great time with the online training. Most of the online trainings were live which meant you had opportunity to interact with instructors. I liked trying to derail them by posting funny comments to the chat window. The only complaint I had about these is they weren't recorded for later use. Well, another complaint is that they were sometimes too short.
Read full review Our solution deviated from a number of key out-of-the-box standards that were included in Online training. We just used that for introduction to the general functionality.
Read full review Implementation Rating The overall implementation is smooth. Prophet 21 sends someone on-site for as many days as you need them to step through the initial implementation. Data conversion is the biggest trick. Make sure you get help with that portion of implementation. Also, be sure to offer plenty of training incentives to keep people coming back for more training. A little money spent up front will save you tons of headaches later.
Read full review Some rough spots, but ultimately worked out. The contract didn't appear to be structured to support the level of overlapping facility deployments required to meet timeline commitments. Merging cultures on the program was also challenging. Overall, not an easy implementation by any stretch. Everyone did the best they could.
Read full review Alternatives Considered I have not looked at them in detail, but have received a lot of positive comments through out the industry, we're on the fence in regards to viability of cloud based solutions, but from the information we have received it seems like
NetSuite has developed a good solution for the industry.
Read full review I was not part of the decision making process to select Microsoft Dynamics AX, however, I do know that an exhaustive search was done and many options were considered alongside Microsoft Dynamics AX and I feel that the right decision was made in choosing this solution.
Read full review Scalability Prophet 21 is very reliable. The database is robust and well designed. The application is also hard to break. If there's one feature I don't like, it's that they haven't accounted for the dreaded single quote. That's kind of the bane of Microsoft SQL's existence. They need to escape that character in every field that will accept it in the system. Otherwise, the system throws all kinds of errors and many times will crash.
Read full review Return on Investment P21 has been very good with how we handle cash collections and had a positive impact for us. P21 user interface saves time and thus makes people more efficient by allowing customizations. With ordering, inventory, customer information, and CRM all in one location it makes the need for other programs like goldmine become obsolete. Read full review With the robust built-in reporting we were able to drop an external reporting platform that costed about $40,000. API integrations have saved manual entry and reduced having to hire 2-3 people to manage data. Several administrators and developers are required for this which costs about 200-300 thousand in employee costs. Read full review ScreenShots