Microsoft Dynamics SL vs. Newforma Project Center

For a small to mid-size business, MS Dynamics SL is effective. We are capable of managing our finances with a very low risk of error. We have worked with MS Dynamics for almost 15 years and have more than doubled the size of our business in that time with very few issues from the program. We have exponentially increased our revenue and reporting demands and have found SL to be very dependable and stable. The program does have the occasional glitch and those are sometimes outside of the realm of expertise of our IT department. SL support is excellent, but their timeliness is not as urgent as ours.

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Newforma is a great tool to collaborate with large teams and between firms. It allows for great documentation of transfers, activities, and other procedural aspects of projects that require collaboration between disciplines, for example, MEP, electrical, architectural and technology. For internal use, Newforma has been great for communications tracking and archival, as well as for record-keeping of all the users in a team or number of teams. Many great options are features are unused due to a lack of training or exposure to them, for example, the graphical viewers that can preview CAD, Revit, and other formats, or the markup tool available with the desktop client.

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• Provides flexibility for complex project based cost accounting
• Strong and flexible allocation processer for cost allocations, markups, and pricing
• A "Flexible Billing" module under the project controller series that allows for multiple billing formats ranging from fixed price schedule of values, T&M or Cost Plus, and scheduled billing.
• Flexible reporting with options using Crystal Reports, SSRS, a Quick Query tool, and ability to tie into MS Office tools such as MS Access and MS Excel
• Tight integration with Financials, but also the ability to integrate with modules such as Sales Order, Inventory, and Field Service
• Customization abilities ranging from a VBA (visual basic for application) foundation to allow customizing existing forms to the ability to use the SDK (Software Development Kit) to build more complex customizations that integrate with Dynamics SL.

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• Newforma sits on top of our previous filing system (Windows Explorer). This was very important to us because we didn't have to change the project numbering system in order to fit Newforma's design. Also, if we were to decide we didn't like it, we could easily revert back to our previous methods.
• Newforma does a great job of indexing information, making searches much easier by being able to use keywords instead of knowing the exact file location. No more traversing through countless folders before finding what you need.
• Newforma keeps a read receipt for everything that you submit through it for issue tracking, and keeps an easy to read record of your workflow.

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• Reporting in the Project module is lacking functionality. I understand that most companies have specific needs when it comes to tracking project information but the standard reports are not good.
• I would recommend a product like Management Reporter that is for Projects only. Project Reporter should allow users to pull in all Project related data into reports.
• Fixing suspended batches. Obviously all of us users have experienced this mess. SL knows what needs to be corrected and there could be some step by step fixes in a separate repair module to do the steps we do in Query Analyzer.

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• I have found it difficult to locate audits.
• Some users have issues while uploading project data.

Unfortunately, Dynamics' lack of ability to smoothly integrate with our CRM system is causing us to look at other solutions. The efficiencies that we gain by using Dynamics for our day to day accounting are lost in the constant headaches of getting sales quotes to import properly into the system for invoicing. Another major issue for us has been budgeting and reporting. We currently do all of our budgeting and board reporting in Excel, which is too time consuming and inefficient, especially when a system as robust as Dynamics should easily be able to handle this relatively simple task.

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I rate it a 10 because we have removed the fields we don't need so users can really crank the data into the system. The software was designed for the professional services firm in mind but does a tremendous job for construction firms and "blended" companies that are both distribution firms but project centric as well. Perhaps they drop ship inventory to a project where their employees or subs need to work on a project for example.

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We have had only one unplanned outage for 2 hours in the last 30 months. We shut down for 30 min to 1 hour once a month, but that is for Microsoft OS updates to the servers. Being a 24/7 world wide operation, the reliability is really important. We do get an 8 hour window on the weekend that we can be down for a short period to install Microsoft Dynamics SL updates, but we do not have many of those. On our last version upgrade, we shut the users out at 9:30 am and were fully operational in less than 6 hours. The upgrade was New SQL server, New SL server and 2 new Citrix servers.

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Support is only used when needed, so unfortunately ,they get all the odd issues. It's a difficult business, but Microsoft and our firm do a great job of meeting customer needs. We get routine feedback that our support services are very good.

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While I have never asked for support myself, a Newforma representative has been in the office annually to give training seminars and info sessions on how to fully use the product. I find this essential to keep the product relevant and make sure everyone knows its full capabilities and an important part of customer support.

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Just to let it take its course. The implementation for me once I became a part of my former organization was pretty seamless. Just get to know the basics and call the support team to ask questions if you need help on an issue, should they arise. They are ready, willing, and able to help!

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Of the comparable mid-range ERP systems, Dynamics SL competes at the lower end based on price, but also above the high-end based on flexibility, data, and reporting. Being able to stay with the same core accounting from a $100 million dollar company to a $3 billion dollar company shows the range of capabilities.

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A good competitor against other similar solutions and support is excellent.

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Since the backbone of the database is MS SQLServer, the database can be easily scaled.

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• More time is spent on manipulating reports which can and should be automated.
• Lack of electronic invoicing process and other green technology features creates more cost on printing and storage costs.
• The lack of a user friendly interface requires more training and a bigger learning curve for staff.

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• Newforma makes it easy to transfer, share, archive, and search extensive data sets in a single GUI
• For it to be effective, all users in a team must receive a basic training and use it consistently
• Adoption in the industry is good (A/E); many teams use it consistently. Learning to use it once produces time-saving in subsequent projects

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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