FastPIPE vs. Microsoft Dynamics AX (discontinued)

It's absolutely well suited to anyone needing accurate piping takeoff and laboring estimates, with great reporting and up to date pricing. I love that I didn't need to spend time trying to update the price logs. It's easy to learn, and works well in a large or small environment, and lends itself to more than just estimating, but becomes a good project management tool as well. Fantastic software.

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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.

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• FastPIPE was very fast to learn, very straight forward and user-friendly. It's easy to use and teach new interns and project engineers how to quickly takeoff sections to backup change orders or assist in heavy bid load.
• It's fantastic at keeping up to date on price changes. I'd get updates often, and they were usually within 2-3% of our discount prices with local vendors. In the few instances it wasn't, FastPIPE was very easy to adjust or factor for project costs.
• Is great at being able to pull up reports and graphs and track different materials and labor costs for factoring. We bid on a lot of high rise residential buildings, so we do takeoff by floor. It would give detailed reports per page as opposed to just a lump sum. Very detailed so it was easy to adjust per our project approach.

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• 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.

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• It was a trick or two learning how to upload prints correctly, I think that interface could be a bit easier, but it's already better than most of the competition.
• Might be nice to have easier labor factoring, in case we want to pre-load our own instead of MCA time factors for piping labor
• It would auto update upon opening occasionally. It's fairly fast, but I prefer to OK that in case I just need to come up with something quickly and don't want to wait.

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• 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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.

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.

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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.

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.

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.

I've used the quote soft piping takeoff as well, and it's just not as easy to use or update. Basic methodology and interaface is similar, but it's more 'clunky' to use, is harder to keep updated and to upload PDF's for takeoff, and it's just not as streamlined or user friendly. Akin to comparing driving a truck to a sports car. The Fast Pipe is really smooth and easy to function in.

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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.

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• Best impact is time saved. It's so much faster to do bid takeoff and hit the ground running
• Being able to 'draw in' on design-build and being able to print my takeoff has been helpful when turning the job over so the field install understands the approach taken to get the job.
• Ease of use and learning has made it much more cost effective to bring new people up to speed.

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• 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.

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Independently Invited by TrustRadius

A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info