Epicor Prophet 21 is an ERP for distributors, allowing companies to manage their supply chain with one ERP, with industry-specific functionality, cloud-based applications to modernize operations, connected ecosystems to ensure visibility across the organization and AI-infused solutions to drive efficiencies.
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Viewpoint Spectrum
Score 7.9 out of 10
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Viewpoint Spectrum is a cloud-based construction ERP suite with project management, accounting, resource management, and reporting and analytics. Key features include workflow automation and collaboration tools, document imaging and sharing, cost estimating tools, and RFI management tools.
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Pricing
Epicor Prophet 21
Viewpoint Spectrum
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Epicor Prophet 21
Viewpoint Spectrum
Free Trial
No
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
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Prospective buyers may contact vendor directly for a price quote.
Epicor seems to handle order management very well. The process flows from start to finish smoothly and is easy to learn. Regarding service orders and related jobs, the process is not intuitive and is very clunky. Locating all the details of a service order is difficult and definitely requires training from someone experienced with the system to learn how to navigate it. Ensuring everything is entered for billing and/or follow-up needs for service orders isn't always easy, from what I have seen. I don't work much with the service orders side of our operations, but what I have seen has given me the solid impression that there are areas for improvement.
The Installation team is amazing. They provide clear guidance at the beginning of the process regarding what is expected and what needs to be done. The implementation manager follows up monthly with you to make sure you are on track and if you need additional help. They are very helpful and responsive in resolving issues.
Some background technologies are still a bit behind the current development technologies in the market.
Only started offering a Web-based front end to Prophet 21 in the past year, and it still has a number of limitations not present in the client-based program
When new iterations/version are released, there are often significant bugs that require opening Support Requests
Epicor (P21) Support is still not the most responsive or efficient
Support isn't readily available. You can submit a ticket and wait days before it's picked up. Even critical issues (system outages) can wait an hour or two before someone responds.
Large companies will feel limited. This product wasn't designed to handle large amounts of data, and performance seems to slow when there are more than 80 concurrent users.
The new developments are limited. HR Management is less robust than a third-party product specializing in HR Management. Viewpoint Analytics is nowhere near as robust as Power BI or Tableau.
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.
Too many tabs and hard for users to understand where to click - took a year to get comfortable entering sales orders, and I'm pretty good with technology - I can't imagine for others who aren't as comfortable. Not clear who to go to for help - limited help files, especially for process transactions.
There's a little bit of a learning curve, but once you've been working in the system for a while, it becomes second nature. I would say that out of all of the other software that I've personally used, Spectrum has been the easiest one to pick up and learn quickly
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.
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.
For the most part the product is very reliable. Since we are hosted we sometimes have connectivity issues but I would say that is more our ISP than Spectrum.
Many times, I am asked the same questions I already put in the case. Or am given a KB to look at that I've already tried. Or other times I do not understand what the technician is asking me to do so I will ask for help repeatedly going back and forth. Contacting us and setting up a call is easiest but sometimes the scheduling takes time and the case just sits there stagnant. They have usually solved most of my cases though
The support has recently changed. Last year, you could call in and get an immediate response. Now that doesn't seem possible unless you have an urgent situation with access to the software, payroll or payables. I have found that using chat or e-mail works nicely for the most part, but sometimes I feel it would be easier if someone from support would jump on our site and take a first-hand look rather than going back and forth
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.
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.
Our trainer was excellent and navigated the time zone differences expertly. She gave us test assignments to complete and was available for questions at any time.
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.
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.
I have previously used Sage Masterbuilder, another construction industry software. This has been a number of years ago. The company I am working for already had Spectrum and have been using it for as long as it has been around when it was known as Forefront. Based on conversations I've had with the personnel that were here at the time of purchase, Spectrum clicked off all the boxes they were looking for.
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.
You can grant user specific access which is nice. Project managers do not need all the same modules as Accounting. But Accounting does need access to PM modules as well
