My 7-year-experienced-based Opinion on SciQuest
Updated September 20, 2016
My 7-year-experienced-based Opinion on SciQuest
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Modules Used
- Spend Director
Overall Satisfaction with SciQuest
SciQuest Spend Manager was used by the whole university campus for contracts, purchases, punchout suppliers, central invoicing, payment, and interfaced with our ERP financial system. We had it running smooth as silk. But the powers that be at central headquarters, made the decision to bring in another product and rolled it out to all of the campuses system-wide. We were very satisfied with SciQuest, but we did not get a vote down at the university level, even though at the flagship campus it was running great.
- Source to settle: Although we did not purchase all the new applications in the suite SciQuest made, what we did use, worked and worked nicely. With SciQuest you can get a turn-key system.
- I love the way SciQuest rolls out changes, measuring customer feedback, and rolling out major changes 3 times a year. Like clockwork you know what to expect ahead of time, deciding whether or not you need a particular enhancement (if optional), having plenty of time to make adjustments in business processes if needed, and/or user-base announcements.
- I was always astonished to see both clients and potential clients come to the conferences. SciQuest would allow the "mixing" of clients and potential clients, apparently unafraid of any negative commentaries the potential clients might get. That has always been impressive to me as a techie myself.
- In the beginning the technical help desk was great, fixing problems quickly. But as we got down the road a bit I feel there was not enough management of outstanding tasks as there should have been. Please do not misunderstand: I would still give their support help an 8 out of 10. But I just feel they lost their edge a bit in the support area as they began to grow. This also could have been due to emerging products that grew out of the initial offerings where focus was more put on the former.
- I did not like the idea that they were going after the gambling industry in some way, personally speaking. I did not think it was a professional decision. I understand related markets: education, scientific, pharma, health, etc. But gambling?...not so sure it did much for their image, and I think it will eventually hurt them rather than help them.
- SciQuest definitely helped turn-around efforts on non-delegated orders, i.e. those purchases which had to be approved by the purchasing department at our institution.
- SciQuest definitely alleviated a lot of conciliation processes across campus due to the integration with our ERP system, tracking all accounting for each purchase.
- We were able to centralize our billing using the initial AP module offering. We also were taking in 20% of our invoice volume in as electronic invoices which lowered staff.
- Contracts were easily accessible by our buyers like never before, having reminders for renewals and customer searchable, accessible, and order-able.
- I found the search features in Spend Manager incredible. You can slice and dice the data like no other app. The only think I found lacking is the ability to search on fields for NULL values. So, for instance, if you wanted to find all POs having xyz, but where there was no account#, you couldn't always do that kind of search. The ability was there on some fields, but needs it on all or most fields. But again, I'd give search querying a 9.5 out of 10.
- Great set of folks at SciQuest. They were all so great to work with. I don't know of one person I worked with that was not the most professional and courteous. Well, maybe one person was a bit stuck on herself, but that's just one out of the many that I worked with at SciQuest - exceptional!
We conducted a one year RFP. No one, not even Aribi, was able to do what SciQuest could do in the higher educational space. Granted that was seven years ago, but in my opinion no one could touch them.
Using SciQuest
2000 - AP, Purchasing, and Clerical staff, as well as many researchers and faculty members.
So we had several areas where different people got involved, and also most were not full-time support. This is my best guess.
Areas:
AP - Mainly one manager that handled all issues for AP, but not considered full-time support for SciQuest; but maybe half-time.
Purchasing - 2.5 FTE persons, one eProcurement manager, one IT techie, and one .5 FTE clerical who did a lot of the testing and training.
ERP and interfaces - 10-15 folks who did IT work for all financials including app integrations.
- One-stop shopping for the campus community, with interfaced accounting with invoicing.
- Contract management.
- The controlled workflow of documents, each order receiving the proper approvals for compliance.
- I think we took workflows past the basics. Although the algorithms got rather complex we were able to get document routing solutions to fit our specific needs.
- We also had SciQuest develop an interface to our campus' AiM system, a system our Utilities (and initially Facilities) departments manage work orders for the campus' infrastructure.
- We have purchased the SpendRadar and will be using it to view our historical data, that was once in Spend Director. This product also allows other sources for input for accumulation, slicing and dicing the data to see where the spend is for our organization.
SciQuest Support
Using SciQuest
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using Familiar | Requires technical support |
- Searches - awesome!
- Had the ability to modify document workflows. For basic functionality it was a cake-walk, allowing even custom fields not native to the system to be referenced to route documents to different work queues.
- Admin-ing documents in the system: When a document had an error or issue it was easy to know where it was in the system, and manually push it through if need be.
- When it came to setting up workflows in the system, when the logic got a bit complicated the SciQuest tech had to make the changes. I feel more could be done to to dole out Admin functionality for workflows to the client Workflow Admin. I would still rate their workflow capabilities an 8 out of 10.
- SciQuest has a tool for getting feedback for their products from the customer. Although it's a great tool it fails short when changes are completed and your "votes" not automatically given back so you can put your vote on the next wanted enhancement. I would still rate this tool at an 8 out of 10.
Yes - It has a full-blown app now as I understand it; I did not get the chance to use it. But the approval app piece we did use, and our campus loved it. They could be anywhere and approve or disapprove orders.