PeopleSoft eProcurement - have you bought in?
October 31, 2017
PeopleSoft eProcurement - have you bought in?
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with PeopleSoft eProcurement
We use our ePro for our non-merch purchasing, basically anything we don't sell to our customers. We use the IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) model. This has served us fairly well. Support is good but at times it is not as responsive as we'd like. Not having to manage the hardware or OS is nice but also limits how to manage or troubleshoot issues.
As for the system itself, it is very configurable and meets most of our needs. That being said if you are in the process of implementing ePro make sure you know very well, or have a resource that is highly knowledgeable with best practices in designing your workflow. If this is not done correctly, you can end up making a lot of extra work with changes that inherently come with a system over time. We use this as a standalone system with very minimal integration and it works albeit not as efficiently as if it were more integrated with our financials.
Overall I like the system especially the ability to have a vendor portal for real time notification/communication on POs. ( a function we have not utilized as of yet ).
As for the system itself, it is very configurable and meets most of our needs. That being said if you are in the process of implementing ePro make sure you know very well, or have a resource that is highly knowledgeable with best practices in designing your workflow. If this is not done correctly, you can end up making a lot of extra work with changes that inherently come with a system over time. We use this as a standalone system with very minimal integration and it works albeit not as efficiently as if it were more integrated with our financials.
Overall I like the system especially the ability to have a vendor portal for real time notification/communication on POs. ( a function we have not utilized as of yet ).
- Workflow works great as long as you set it up correctly. Don't let a consulting resource lead the definition if you are not 100% sure they are deeply familiar with best practice configuration in PeopleSoft.
- End user presentation with workbenches makes the system easy to navigate.
- IaaS is a great option if you want to have the ability to customize the system yet not have to deal with the infrastructure headache.
- It would be nice to see more flexibility to be able to dispatch Purchase Orders to both print and email in one process run. Currently they have to be done separately.
- Ability to escalate service requests online rather than having to call would be nice, especially if moving from a low sev to a moderate sev.
- It has helped with purchasing audits as the workflow ads a solid measure of validation with defined approval paths in addition having the ability to add reviewers and approvers on the fly.
- It might be nice if the query tool was a bit more end user friendly as you do have to have a basic understanding of how tables can be joined as well as some basic SQL fundamentals.
- Application data maintenance would be easier if it were set up correctly in the beginning. Having consulting resources that were not very well versed in the workflow function in PeopleSoft has caused added effort with some data changes.
Ariba is another option to look at as I understand end user interface is straight forward, given it is configured correctly. It is a SaaS offering with SAP that offers a market place with it's portal. Unfortunately I do not have much detail on Ariba but from what I've heard from colleges it is pretty nice. One draw back is the cost passed to vendors who sign up to use it to provide product and services to your business. I'm not sure if that is a must for all users but if so, I don't believe that is a good way to tread your vendors, especially if you have smaller vendors with slim margins.