Likelihood to Recommend 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.
Read full review Oracle eBusiness Suite is the best combination of CRM and ERP. Oracle helps us in managing the entire process of Sales and Marketing. The best feature is that it is highly user-friendly. We can easily manage the entire process of marketing from running a campaign to managing it and getting an interesting prospect than making a lead to making an opportunity by recording each and every conversation from day 1 to last day so that customer feels its valued by the company after that finally getting a business from the prospect.
Read full review Pros 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. Read full review 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. Read full review Cons 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. Read full review Because the application is working globally, it sometimes hangs and the connection is dropped. It should have more shortcuts to make it easier to develop macros. I create many macros and use the "sendkeys" command in VBA, due to the lack of these shortcuts, it is not possible to automate the process. For now I can not think of other areas that require improvement. Read full review Likelihood to Renew 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.
Read full review 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.
Read full review Usability Because of use cases and easy implementation and the vertical and horizontal scaling.
Read full review 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.
Read full review Reliability and Availability 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.
Read full review Performance 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.
Read full review Support Rating As we have seen the live environment and the use cases where we implement.
Read full review 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.
Read full review Online Training The instructors are usually precise and knowledgable, and it's convenient to take online classes whenever available any day of the year.
Read full review Implementation Rating 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.
Read full review 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.
Read full review Alternatives Considered 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.
Read full review We explored
Coupa , SAP, PeopleSoft, Salesforce. We chose Oracle based on value for money, features it offers and the easy availability of vast talent pool in the market. There are many trained Oracle product specialists readily available in the market. This helps us to tap experts when needed easily.
Coupa does not have a Project Accounting module. SAP was too expensive. PeopleSoft is more catered towards to human resources software, while Salesforce is for CRM.
Oracle has better financials and project portfolio management suite when compared to the competition and this what we needed.
Read full review Scalability As I mentioned, it's a good tool but not the best
Read full review Return on Investment I cannot comment on business impact. Read full review The tremendous amount of testing and time by the technical folks has a negative impact. We find we need a tremendous amount of customization within the standard functionality having a negative impact. Oracle certifications of related products such as the database, Demantra, JRE cause disruption having a negative impact Read full review ScreenShots