Infor VISUAL vs. Oracle E-Business Suite

I struggle to identify a scenario where VISUAL is an appropriate solution. We used VISUAL because it was a legacy system and the cost/complexity of changeover seemed daunting. The user interface is poor as is the interconnectedness of the various screens and menus. This might be an acceptable piece of software for a continuous manufacturing environment with little variation of basic design, but we have had to write multiple add-on macros in order to get VISUAL to work effectively for us.

Incentivized

Oracle Cash and Treasury Management fill the gaps in treasury management with features that are very helpful in building the modern financial system that we so desperately need. It may not be the most intuitive tool on the treasury market, but with a little more practice time, important expense analysis can be achieved. I am confident in this treasury tool for this year 2022 and I would like to recommend it to other companies so that they can also have a better administration.

Incentivized

• Infor Visual has a standard way of addressing business operations: sales orders, invoicing, reporting. It is easy to train operators used to using a manual or other ERP system.
• Material control is easy for production runs, R&D material lists and repairs. The process of receiving, issuing and returning material to inventory is facilitated by standard interfaces that are easily learned by material control operators.
• Engineering changes to bills of material are facilitated by the "engineering Master" flexible editing capability. The version control for the BOM's can be as detailed or vague as the process designed dictates. One item of a BOM or the entire BOM can be changed quickly and approved for production that day.

Incentivized

• The EBS Oracle Order Management and Shipping Execution solution allows the creation of an integrated, seamless order-to-cash process and accurately capture of customer orders across multiple channels.
• Orchestration of order details for seamless fulfillment execution.
• Efficient shipment planning and confirmation.
• Communication of order status information to customers throughout the order lifecycle.

Incentivized

• VTA has been extremely unreliable. I would not recommend it. It is not customizable at all. There is no logical way to handle shift differentials which is a huge issue with a company that runs 24/7.
• If you do not have a schedule set up, they cannot clock in. This poses a problem for anyone that gets called in on a shift they don't normally work on.

Incentivized

• Learning cure is a bit high for this product if you aren't already using a tool set like it.
• finding where documents are stored can be tricky but once you find it you are golden.
• Since I need a third one some of the API's need to be improved.

Incentivized

Good Technical and Customer Support during and after implementation tasks. Good Project Plan and Management support for implementation and post implementation. Financial functionality could be more comprehensive particularly with Budgeting and Cash Management. Inventory Management capability was adequate but could be more comprehensive as well. "Out of the Box" functionality was adequate but requested add-ons and enhancements seemed to be a bit pricey.

After almost 5 years, we have a full control of this ERP System. We are able to implement new functionalities and modules without any major "consulting" expenses. As of today we are making almost 90% of the personalization/customization and implementation all in house. Once [it] is tuned, [it] keeps running very well with no major issues.

Incentivized

Because of use cases and easy implementation and the vertical and horizontal scaling.

Incentivized

The various forms - like order entry forms that allow the uses to enter sales orders and the ability to personalize the views based on end user needs - are easy to use and follow standard business processes. The new release has a big focus on usability and forms now have a familiar web look and feel which has increased usability considerably.

Because of the transactional nature of the system this software is available 24 X 7, and IT is responsible for making sure the system is available during normal business hours.

The performance of the product is very good. Given the transactional nature of the system one of the key focus areas for IT is to make sure performance is not affected for internal reasons. This can also depend on the server configuration and setup. For example, performance on Exadata machine is far superior to other Linux custom systems that companies choose to deploy. In general though, as already pointed out, the platform is now very stable and has few bugs. Whenever there are any issues, the cause is usually customizations that we have made to the platform, rather than out-of-the-box standard functionality.

As we have seen the live environment and the use cases where we implement.

Incentivized

In general, support has not been great - particularly standard (non premium) support . The main issue is that our IT staff has been using this platform for years and is very knowledgeable Whenever something goes wrong, we usually have a very precise idea of what the problem is. We are skilled at problem diagnosis. But the Oracle support process is very rigid and slow. Typically, we are required to go through a lengthy diagnosis process where they ask us multiple questions sometimes over several days and we are obliged to talk to different people with differing levels of knowledge. Since we already know what the problem is, we really just want a patch or a bug fix, but it takes days to get there instead of minutes. This can be very frustrating. This is a big part of the reason why we pay for premium support. But it's still a bit disappointing.

The instructors are usually precise and knowledgable, and it's convenient to take online classes whenever available any day of the year.

Could have used more hands-on approach. There are multiple webinars and information sessions but until you actually use the system, these are not very helpful.

Incentivized

The key success factors for the implementation was project management, in-house expertise in IT and time. The implementation process started with the initial evaluation with the initial upgrade on a test system and mapping out the gaps and requirements. We did work with Oracle to understand the new functionality R12 had to offer and did another upgrade and researched solutions. With the use of software development cycle procedures there were conference room pilots with IT, business users. We then refined the project plan to the core key details, performed mock go-live implementations and finally upgraded the software. Overall, this was a very successful process.

We unfortunately did not evaluate any other ERP software. VISUAL was a legacy system and we determined that changing systems would be too difficult, and not cost effective. We reached out to our local VISUAL rep who knew how the software functioned, but not how to apply it more appropriately to our business model, so we continued on with what we had rather than looking elsewhere.

Incentivized

Oracle e-business suite is better than any other ERP because it is more user-friendly and can be operated by anyone even those who don't know how to run it. Also it has better APS, allowing you to better track costs and allocate resources more efficiently. Also, it has better event management, tracking, and Reporting.

Incentivized

As I mentioned, it's a good tool but not the best

Incentivized

• I cannot comment on business impact.

Incentivized

• We recently implemented Supplier Portal and Invoice Imaging Solution. This has reduced manual effort and increased speed and accuracy. There is no need for people to key in invoices manually now. Suppliers can flip a purchase order into invoice and Oracle will do all the validations and put the invoice on hold in case of any discrepancy.
• Suppliers are very happy with the supplier portal as they can track the entire lifecycle of the invoice online.
• With automation, we could bill all our customers on time. Oracle collects all the possible costs like payroll and expenses, adds markup, and bills our customers. We could track profitability and margins by project.
• The period close and reporting has become easier and faster with this software. 3 people can close the periods now as opposed to 10 before.

Incentivized