Microsoft Dynamics SL vs. SAP Access Control

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

Appropriate for SAP hrs hierarchy integration and can have multiple hierarchies of org structures adopted as alternative workflow support. Cons of access control are the logs of firefighter usage are still limited in depth and does not evolve to adop more cloud products which are coming at a plaster pace than the ac product as such.

• 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

• SAP Access Control ensures that our services are accessed by the right users since it send me alerts when an employee tries to access any application. That way, I am able to either authorize or cancel the request to safeguard of company data.
• With SAP Access Control, it is easy to automate and monitor how our team access services and applications. SAP Access Control has an automatic feature that notifies me when employees access applications and services and the issues they are encountering.
• In addition, SAP Access Control add security on employees login to ensure that their data on the applications are encrypted to never leak to cyber attackers.

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

• It still uses the webdynpro for the front end. All webdynpro applications should be migrated to Fiori for a better user experience.
• Some functionalities can't manage in mass way. I.E. building derive roles/multiple single roles,
• Interface with LDAP is not efficient.

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

We are very happy with it.

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

This is a great tool for a medium to large sized company. SAP Access Control requires a great deal of SAP knowledge to use, but it is certainly information that can be learned. Their customer support is wonderful and easy to work with. The overall usability is great. I greatly recommend this software.

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

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

This product fulfills all our requirements. We can use this for user management, role management, risk analysis, business role management, workflow management. Initial configuration takes a lot of effort. Otherwise it's a great product for the end user. SAP Access Control tool performance needs improvement, sometimes it slows down the processing time for requests.

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

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

Pricing was higher for the cloud version of the BTP service - IAG. SAP Access Control pretty much facilitates everything we are looking for as an enterprise with an efficient dollar cost ROI for the services we are looking for. Also, there were many features on the cloud version which came bundled with the license and we had to pay for them even though we did not actually use these products.

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

• Reducing risk of fraud. Implementing SAP Access Control allows analysis of every role assigned to a job on the organization. Through this analysis, weakness on roles are detected, corrected and monitored. As the users feel the change, they also feel that they are being monitored, preventing any intent to use his position and privileges to take personal advantage. So a major impact to organizations is to reduce the financial lost due to frauds.
• Reducing cost for monitoring. Another positive impact is lowering the cost of monitoring. This is twofold: First, a rather small team can manage access management. Second, through the use of SAP Access Control the complete universe of roles and users can be monitored without increasing the cost for the continuous monitoring.
• During transactions. The use of SAP Access Controls allows detection of transactions that, from an information security point of view, require some redesign. When SAP GCR is implemented, you make some discoveries such as: obsolete transactions, transactions with no authorization objects and the like. The transactions with these problems can be left out of the active roles, waiting for remediation of the issues found.

Incentivized