JobBOSS² is the evolution of E2 Shop with the addition of features of the JobBOSS manufacturing software, since the acquisition of E2 Shop's developer Shoptech Industrial Software by ECI Software Solutions in 2020.
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Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
Score 7.8 out of 10
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Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (formerly Dynamics NAV) is one of the ERP products in the Dynamics family.
The technology is based on the Navision product acquired by Microsoft in 2002. This product is the best-selling Microsoft ERP platform, and is often used by companies in the manufacturing and distribution verticals.
JobBoss is much more user-friendly and cost-efficient. JobBoss also allows for greater shop visibility by enabling shop employees through mobile devices to track costing. JobBoss seems to be a better fit for us as a fabrication firm to be able to plan and track shop functions.
I would recommend JobBoss to any colleague in small—to medium-sized manufacturing firms. Although I am not convinced that it will be able to handle advanced data from larger firms, it should be able to handle everything small—to medium-sized businesses require. JobBoss is great.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is well suited for inventory management in all aspects. Its accessibility, along with my other apps, when out of the office is unparalleled. I find it easy to work with on a desktop or laptop; however, it could use some work on a mobile device.
Estimating is great once you learn how to use it, and it makes repeat estimates easier than ever.
Time tracking is amazing for us. It has taken some time to figure out exactly how we want to use the tracking parts, but it's only because it has multiple ways to do the same thing and finding out what works best for us took some time.
Billing and Purchasing are a breeze. The full package is worth the money to fully integrate the entire business into JobBOSS² since it can handle it all.
Automate the creation of bills of materials for production. We can now generate a BoM from a sales order.
Organization of all data pertaining to thousands of parts, assemblies, and finished goods. Engineering and purchasing have a common portal.
We can create sales orders from quotations instead of re-entering them (this did require some bolt-on software). Less redundant work with fewer entry errors.
Accounting can provide reports based on specific criteria stored in NAV. We can pull better and more detailed intelligence.
costing of jobs and parts - there is very limited information on how their calculations work and limited customization of costing. Most of the job costing or margin reports are inaccurate. Costing is a black box with Jobboss2 that doesn't allow you to better understand how they are calculating nor the ability to tweak the variables of those calculations to align their reports and models with the way your organization costs and prices jobs.
Raw material inventory and resource tracking for jobs - we don't even use the raw material function because it's inflexible. When you quote raw material, oftentimes you ask for one size diameter of raw material...but the vendor may not have it and often the next best size instead. When/if this happens, you'd have to delete or re-add the raw material to jobboss2 and re-assign that size to every part that's used. You'd, in theory, have to have every possible size of raw material and every spec of raw material that you use in Jobboss2, and you'd still have to re-assign it all of the time to different parts when you couldn't find the ideal size of material. This is a huge gap.
Automatically logs you out while using the platform, even with only one tab open. We'll be actively using jobboss2, and even within a minute of login, you click on a module of jobboss2, and it will ask you to log in again. Very frustrating.
Inability to open multiple tabs in Jobboss2. We need to crossreference information all of the time, comparing inventory, last jobs routings & dates, and costs which we try to pull up multiple tabs in jobboss2, but it does not effectively allow you to do this. It's slightly possible, but oftentimes will log you out of your session as soon as you open a new tab.
Blanket orders and consignment - Jobboss2 is ineffective at allowing efficient tracking of blanket orders or parts on consignment. There's no functionality for consignment tracking of parts as you try to track replenishment buckets.
Customizable reports with more field and table selections - reports can be customized but only with the fields that Jobboss2 provides for that specific report. We need to link other tables from the database to be able to see the information that we need, and jobboss2 does not easily allow you to link a new table into reports to add additional fields that you want or need to see. For example, in Salesforce...you can pick specific tables that you want to link together and pull any field that you need. Jobboss2 only allows you to see the specific tables that they pre-built for reports. If you need another field that's missing on the report, you'd have to know SQL in order to add it vs. a user-friendly report builder that anyone non-technical would be able to use, which is standard in most other software platforms for ERP or CRM.
material/inventory forecasting to plan when you need the next job - this is incredibly limited. We typically look out for 2-12 months to plan when we'll need the next lot for a particular part. Jobboss2 material forecast will only let you look at the next 4 months as 4 columns and then it groups any months beyond that into one 5th column. You should be able to set a specific time horizon (i.e. from today to 12 months out and see the stock level and orders needed for each of those next 12 months. As a result, we still have to use manual spreadsheets to plan our production and scheduling jobs.
jobboss2 upcharges for most new features or modules that you want to add. For example, they've built reports that would be incredibly useful for the majority of their customers, but they charge to add one simple report because it's considered a customization.
Jobboss tends to have a very steep learning curve and isnt always useable for a lot of manufacturing staff. Buy-in to utilize the software was and continues to be a challenge as staff needs to track & input components so that info on Jobboss is up to date and reliable
We've already decided to continue using this software. It is too expensive for us to upgrade so we made a workaround by using the virtual computer with Windows XP installed on it. We did research replacing this software, but it was a better financial decision to keep what we had instead
It is extremely easy to learn and use E2 Shop System. It provides everything a manufacturing company might be looking for, starting from entering a new PO to shipping parts. Routers that get created from E2 Shop System also help track parts on the shop floor and is accessible from every where. E2 Shop System also now has an app, which is great when it comes to scanning router steps directly from your phone.
Best in terms of reporting or coming up with a great dashboard. Seamlessly collaborated with teams without depending on particular device as its web version is the buddy for people with work flexibility. Licensing price and integrations can be the areas of improvement and can simplify the interface which will be easy for a new user.
The initial training leaves a little to be desired because it's done by people who know the generalities of the system. However, once you get into one-on-one trainings and tech support calls, they do a tremendous job in these aspects. They go above and beyond to make sure you get what you need.
It provides one to efficiently be able to manage bookkeeping and inventory without much challenges. One can easily navigate through workflow processes while managing usages and budgets. Being able to produce reports in Word, Excel or PDF means one is able to have a working document to produce trends and graphs or produce pivot tables.
I assumed there would be more assistance from JobBoss for implementation of the software. I felt it was very independent on my part and I felt unsure a lot of the time
We really didn't compare too many other ERP systems. Unfortunately, I was not involved in the decision at the time it was made. We used to have E2 but we were kind of forced into upgrading because E2 would no longer do software updates. Very fluent transition from E2 to JobBOSS².
I have personally supported all of the Dynamic family of ERP systems and made the decision to concentrate on NAV as the solution of choice. From a support and development standpoint there are few if any packages that can compare. It is not uncommon for most of the companies that I support to only call me once or twice a month after the first year. This is due to the ease of tracking down problems and errors and the ability for a developer to provide the end-user with routines that automatically correct the most basic kind of error
