Microsoft Dynamics SL vs. OpenText Content Suite Platform

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.

Incentivized

Great for content management and records even for organizations whose staff are not much experienced in the technical backgrounds as it's easy to use and no previous knowledge on HTML is required. It is great for storing invoices and payment proofs and for organizations dealing with global clients for general use documents.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Document Management is being done well since it allows you to put in a corporate folder structure that applies to the business unit you currently work in.
• Records Management works well in this organisation as it allows you to classify the document according to the file plan, as well as manage it according to the retention schedule for tat file plan.
• The ability to collaborate on files works really well. You can share with users within your group, as well as allow other users access to the files for either read access to read/write access.
• Access control of the folder and even individual files allows you to ensure only necessary people can have the right type of access. This is especially welcome in the government environment where document management is of utmost importance.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• The user interface and configurability of that interface lack a lot of flexibility and modern tools.
• There needs to be stronger and more powerful integration to electronic forms and workflow capabilities which are core to modern ECM.
• Management of audit and content history needs to be modernized and made more dynamic and sustainable.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

The staff is comfortable with it and I doubt they'd change at this point.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Strong for Core Content and Records Management
Effective for Non-Technical Users (with the right configuration)

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

I never had any issues with access internally or via VPN. But, the response via VPN, was a bit slow.

Incentivized

• I used OpenText nearly every day and I never had any performance issues that I can recall. That said, it's not terribly fast either.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

OpenText has an outstanding support and knowledge base. All problems which couldn't be solved by us (high complexity cases) were promptly resolved and the resolution also shared with us.

Incentivized

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!

Incentivized

No, it's pretty easy to implement and use.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Having used OpenText Content Suite for a long time, I can say it stands the competition. It offers many versions which is unlike many products in its category. Also, while it is not affordable, I believe the cost is justified considering what a business can achieve with this software.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• With OpenText Content Suite, we can easily keep documents safe
• Document collaboration is easy with OpenText
• We can easily handle invoicing and automation thanks to features such as content capture and imaging.
• With OpenText Content Suite, there is better file sync and archiving

Incentivized