Infor VISUAL

"Great Value for Small to Mid Range Companies"

Comentarios: Your success with Visual will be tied both to your employees' willingness to adjust their processes and procedures to being conducive to the system and to how reliable your channel partner is in helping you setup and learn the system.

Puntos a favor: Visual offers many different configuration options to help customize the software to your company. Visual is comparatively easy to learn when compared to other major ERP systems (e.g. SAP or Oracle). It's also much easier to administer. The database tables are logically named and relatively easy to figure out for troubleshooting, reporting, and tieing systems together. Visual offers a lot of features that can be setup and used quickly when working with a reliable channel partner. Since signing on with Synergy Resources, we've been introduced to a wide range of applications (e.g. SmartViews reporting, quoting through Configurator, etc.) that have created easy wins for helping our company to get the maximum amount of value out of Visual.

Contras: When first starting out with Visual, it's not always easy to recognize red flags in the system that should tell you stop and look into something, or to know what reports the system gives you that will help you see problems and fix user issues. For a manufacturing company that wants to be able to drill down on what's happening on the shop floor, Visual's labor capture system that comes out of the box has some major shortcomings. Users can only enter one defect code per transaction into the system, requiring them to enter multiple transactions to record their scrap. The new Shop Floor Mobile app offers better features, but doesn't address this issue. We had to write our own labor capture program to meet our business needs. After using and administering Visual at our company for 7+ years, I still have a lot to learn about the system. The amount of options available for configuring Visual is a strength of the system, but also requires a strong knowledge of what each option offers and how the system works. Our original channel partner for implementing the system had a very knowledgeable consultant who offered us hope for how the system could work, but the consultants that primarily dealt with our account were far from experts. Implementing Visual with a bad group of consultants created many issues for us within the system. Since switching our channel partner to Synergy Resources, we've had much better success in cleaning up the problems and utilizing Visual more effectively.

"Our One-Stop Solution: Infor VISUAL ERP + Synergy Resources"

Comentarios: More than three years ago, our team found ourselves at a crossroads: our mid-1990s ERP system no longer fit our business model, and our recent exponential growth meant we needed a more robust and scalable solution. A partner referred us to Synergy Resources, ensuring us that Infor VISUAL ERP and Synergy Resources made the best team in the business. The Synergy team was hands-on in our implementation, coming onsite to ask questions and learn about our company and then tailoring the new system to our business model. I am certain that this hands-on approach is what made our implementation successful. As part of our agreement, Synergy provides Quarterly Reviews, where a technical specialist reviews our ERP, server infrastructure, and databases and recommends any improvements to ensure the long-term health of our system. This future-looking analysis is a breath of fresh air in a fast-paced manufacturing environment where it's easy to get caught up in the short term. Over time, we have been able to utilize more of VISUAL's features, like the Estimating system and Engineering Change Notice system, to integrate nearly every aspect of our operations into the system. Overall, we have been thrilled with Infor VISUAL ERP and the Synergy team and are confident that both will continue to contribute to our long-term growth and success.

Puntos a favor: Many ERP systems are similar, but Infor VISUAL ERP makes it simple for the user to access the data they are seeking and then presents it in a visual format that is easy to understand. Seasoned ERP users might not need a visual representation of the data, but the straightforward process flow of Infor VISUAL ERP positions all of your users for success. Because Infor VISUAL ERP is SQL Server-based, it is simple to manage and easily compatible with BI programs like Synergy's SmartViews software and Microsoft's Power BI. Rather than the "quick fix" approach, Infor VISUAL ERP and the Synergy Resources team are focused on a long-term solution that will drive your organization forward.

Contras: As a few other reviewers said, Infor VISUAL ERP comes with a breadth of "bells and whistles" that can be beyond the scope of what a small organization might need. At implementation time, this can feel overwhelming. Synergy Resources helped us identify the features we needed and configure them. Once things settled down post-implementation, we began to test some of the other features. In the three years since, several of what we considered "extra features" have become integral to our daily operations.

"This product continues to confound me, some things as or better than advertised and many not at all."

Comentarios: Some days it's hard to say. There is a lot of data stored in the database though, however, the "out of the box" reports stink and nearly everything has to be customized.

Puntos a favor: It's a fairly comprehensive software package that covers many features in the base product. It's fairly easy to teach new users and users of other ERP systems.

Contras: First & foremost, part revisions. This product does not handle part revisions in manner that is consistent with accepted engineering practices. It's almost like it was an after thought and even though these short comings have been pointed out to them for years there appears to have been no attempt to fix it. VERY frustrating to deal with.

"A must have for any business.."

Comentarios: Accu-Fab, Inc. has used Infor’s Visual ERP system for serval years as its forefront in a software management tool that has pushed our industry forward. When we decided to upgrade our system to the next level, we used a third party company that gave us less than stellar results, leaving us potentially behind our deadline to launching the new version based on testing and implementation. During that time we found Synergy Resources, and almost instantly we were surrounded with a team of knowledgeable members that had a plan of action for our project from the word “go”. We were introduced to engineers that knew every aspect of the software and how to make quick modifications and pull in our own modifications from the previous version making getting off the ground seamless and quick. The efficiency at which were we operational with our newly upgraded ERP system was outstanding and it couldn’t have been achieved without our new partners at Synergy Resources! We look forward to working with them even further on future projects. Thanks Synergy!

Puntos a favor: Accu-Fab, Inc. has used Infor’s Visual ERP system for serval years as its forefront in a software management tool that has pushed our industry forward. When we decided to upgrade our system to the next level, we used a third party company that gave us less than stellar results, leaving us potentially behind our deadline to launching the new version based on testing and implementation. During that time we found Synergy Resources, and almost instantly we were surrounded with a team of knowledgeable members that had a plan of action for our project from the word “go”. We were introduced to engineers that knew every aspect of the software and how to make quick modifications and pull in our own modifications from the previous version making getting off the ground seamless and quick. The efficiency at which were we operational with our newly upgraded ERP system was outstanding and it couldn’t have been achieved without our new partners at Synergy Resources! We look forward to working with them even further on future projects. Thanks Synergy!

"Reliable, Customizable, Continually Improved ERP for Manufacturers"

Puntos a favor: Infor Visual Manufacturing has been a stable, reliable product for us for several years. It's continually updated and improved, with an ear towards the user community through Regional User Groups. Support is quick and responsive, and it's valuable to be able to communicate concerns and requests directly up to the Product Manager and Infor executives. The support site (inforxtreme.com) is useful for Knowledgebase searches and issue reporting. As with any software you'll have some hiccups along the way and a learning curve if you haven't used a modern ERP or database, but vendor partners like Synergy will help train you and pilot the system, and any other process / technical needs such as data migration, custom code, add-ons, etc.

Contras: Infor can be slow to produce enhancements, and minor bugs can be typical (though most are cleared up fairly quickly). Software costs for add-ons can be prohibitive for smaller companies compared to low-cost vendors, but the wealth of resources available between users, vendor partners (such as Synergy Resources and Visual South) and Infor's support website make the $$ easier to justify.