Microsoft Dynamics SL vs. Winshuttle

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

Winshuttle is well suited to help any company who has data that needs to move from SAP to 'somewhere'. The output file can be Excel, Text, or Access. Query has been greatly expanded in its ability to use SQL statements directly in the product at the 'pre-download' point. For example, you want to have one column do calculations on the data that is being pulled out of SAP via the Query and placed in a specific cell - this can be done - right in the Query script and the result will be produced in your receiving Excel file. I have another small scenario I call 'On the fly" uses. When our asset team had to change their depreciation on a very large number of assets mid-year, Winshuttle Transaction was very helpful. The update would have taken DAYS and lots of shredded nerves to update.

• 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

• "Training" I feel Winshuttle was extremely easy to learn' my team and I went to a week long training class on the uses of the software upon finishing the course we all became internal (company) support as well as expert functional users.
• "Ease of use" once a user learns the basics processes of the software it is functionally very easy to use and if there are problems with in the processing that cannot be supported internally Winshuttle community and support quickly helped clear up those issues, "if they occurred"
• "Processes data FAST" once the transaction is mapped and recorded the user can move through (process) large amounts of data very quickly, saving lots of time by eliminating manual steps.
• "Data Error Correction" through the transactional processing of large amounts of data, nothing is ever perfect, usually during data migration process if a single line fails the process stops, the correction is made to the data and the process starts all over again. Winshuttle data migration process doesn't stop it will provide a list of exceptions upon completion of the data load. It does this by only processing the "good" data and when bad data is encountered it is skipped and an error message is created and added to the data sheet. With this process the user now only has to worry about exceptions that didn't load and also knows why the line failed so making correction are easier and faster.

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 use of Winshuttle is particularly helpful with systems where data volumes are always very high. If data volumes are not an issue, the use of Winshuttle for cut-over activities might not result in a significant perceivable difference in time savings.
• For businesses and sectors that rely on business processes that are complex and tedious with a lot of manual interventions, Winshuttle comes in real handy. However, in situations of fairly straightforward business cases, it would be hard to see perceivable gains from the use of Winshuttle.
• At times, the use of complex business process with multiple fields from one transaction needs to be fed into the next for further processing, if the screen sequence changes based on each set of information, the processing could fail. However, these could be overcome by grouping similar screened transactions into one chunk and others into another.

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

Fantastic tool and honestly the best out there for the particular need. I cannot think of any reason we wouldn't renew as it truly offers the perfect solution to what is often a supremely difficult process. Also, I believe that from a cost perspective it is quite agreeable given the amount of benefit/ROI received

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

- I have used Winshuttle Transaction and Direct and the interface is simple, intuitive and easy to understand. - Not much technical knowledge of SAP is required before loading the data. - Data can be loaded for any sheet of an Excel spreadsheet - Output messages from Winshuttle are very clear and can be used to as an input to other data loads that use these output data

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

The winshuttle staff are some of the best in the business. I have been working with them for several years and always have had a positive interaction. There support staff are very knowledgeable. There product managers are very supportive as well and always open to hear feedback on how you like the product and any gaps that you would like to find a solution to better improve the products.

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, I do not have it.

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

Winshuttle works better with SAP than UiPath does in terms of performance and stability. The time to deploy a Process in Winshuttle is faster and less complex. It doesn't require coding skills as much as for UiPath. Winshuttle excels in batch input operations and also has a useful query reporting tool.

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

• We've been able to automate several time consuming, high volume tasks so that our analysts could focus on actual data quality and not data entry.
• We've been able to create reports and forego custom IT configuration by using Query and Transaction to come up with our own solutions.
• We've been able to pivot our strategy more quickly by easily adjusting and updating master data when processes change.