Infor SyteLine Blog is 4 Weeks Old!

Hi to all!

I’d like to share to everyone some humble accomplishments of this site. I am also happy that with the recent topics posted, it was helpful to many organizations globally and somehow might be able to provide some headaches to SyteLine’s competition one way or the other.

My only commitment is to pursue accurateness in my posts, i hope you guys would still be around to read.

See ya all!

Key statistics since June 6, 2007 to July 6, 2007:

- at least 2,000 visitors – as of July 6, 2007!

- Visitors coming from at least 23 countries (Stats just started June 22, 2007). Unfortunately my free web counter only tracks the 100 last visits, i think conservatively, this is about at least 30 countries – including Singapore etc…

- 5 emails of appreciation which I replied and 1 blog comment which I answered

- At least 13 global locations which had at least 10-99 regular viewers each

- Top viewed useful posts (15 of 22) below based on ranking:
1. How Infor SyteLine Beats SAP and Oracle in Actual Engagements
2. Infor SyteLine vs Microsoft Dynamics NAV (formerly Microsoft Navision) – Part 1
3. ERP Solutions – Download Their Brochures Here!
4. Infor Syteline wins Treasure Island (Cebu) over Oracle and QAD
5. How Infor Syteline Will “Always” Beat QAD Enterprise Applications 2007 (a.k.a. MFG/PRO) – Detailed
6. Infor SyteLine vs Macola vs QAD
7. Infor SyteLine’s Easy Interaction with Spreadsheets (Microsoft Excel or OpenOffice.Org)
8. Infor Syteline wins 3C Distributors over Oracle and Exact
9. Infor SyteLine vs Microsoft Dynamics NAV (formerly Microsoft Navision) – Part 2
10. Infor SyteLine wins INOAC over SAP and QAD
11. Infor SyteLine on Mac and Linux?
12. ERP Evaluation: Named vs Concurrent
13. ERP Evaluation: Tools!
14. ERP Evaluation: Modular / Granule or Complete System?
15. Infor Syteline Recent Wins

Country Share Stats

ClustrMaps Results

Infor SyteLine vs Microsoft Dynamics NAV (formerly Microsoft Navision)

Hello!

Anyone knows how Microsoft Dynamics NAV (formerly Microsoft Navision) competes with Infor’s SyteLine?

I hope this post will be helpful to those organizations who currently evaluate Microsoft’s Navision and still was not able to include SyteLine in their shortlisted vendors. You need to really stop and read the downloadable items in this post and then proceed in your evaluation and include SyteLine.

Although Navision is a very good product from Microsoft, especially it recently being a full .NET compliant application; It still lacks some major functionalities needed for Distribution and Manufacturing companies – plus not having the APS (Advance Planning and Scheduling) solution at all. Having said that, every product has its own special niches, Navision maybe just can’t compete within SyteLine’s domain – vice versa – SyteLine might not be able to compete within Navision’s niche – which is being a general financial accounting package.

Based on an assessment made by one of erpevaluation.com’s users, i managed to get this result in the past that might prove to be useful in your evaluation. This shows that out of 10 – Infor’s SyteLine scores 9.59 while Microsoft’s Navision is only 4.82 – download the document here.

It really puzzles me, why Microsoft did not acquire SyteLine in the past – SyteLine was one of the first ERP applications being on .NET; I hope someone can send me an email about it.

Note: The full burden of evaluation will still be in the hands of the evaluator for verifications. This article is just a guide, not a basis for your selection.

Infor SyteLine vs Microsoft Dynamics NAV (formerly Microsoft Navision)

The Infor SyteLine Blog International Translations

Hello!

Although still not perfect, it will not hurt if we try to have some International Translations for our “Infor SyteLine Blog” right? Available translation incudes: Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Purtuguese, Russian and Spanish – thanks to Google’s translation services…

Enjoy!

Please select which language you prefer:

Infor SyteLine Blog Next Topics

The past 2 weeks was surprising, especially with those unexpected visitors who was interested with the topics I posted. Posting 1 topic a day is really not easy, i need to slow down a bit and let the visitors read and absorb the articles first.

But to give you something to expect, below are my planned topics this coming weeks. I hope you guys would come back and read:

1. APS (Advance Planning and Scheduling) – Exposed

2. What is next with Infor SyteLine 7? Infor SyteLine 8? Should SAP and Oracle be worried?

3. What to ask during ERP Evaluations

Thank you very much for visiting!

How Infor Syteline Will “Always” Beat QAD Enterprise Applications 2007 (a.k.a. MFG/PRO) – Detailed

Hello!

I know that the subject is quite strong to some readers and arrogance is somewhat the first word that might be tagged to it. However, i believe that after reading this detailed comparison of Infor’s SyteLine and QAD’s Enterprise Applications 2007 (a.k.a. MFG/PRO) technology comparison/limitations – you will somehow agree, up to some extent what my point would be. On the term “Always” in my subject line, this is only my personal opinion if in case SyteLine would be in an account with QAD, it will still boils down to the salesperson, presales and the evaluator on how each plays their role.

To those who already visited this site and read my post about “Syteline wins Treasure Island (Cebu) over Oracle and QAD” – this is a 95% replica to it. I just changed the subject and modified some information for it to be more applicable and advantageous to our current evaluators. It will also be best if you also visit this recent post “Infor SyteLine vs Exact Macola vs QAD MFG/PRO”

As evaluators (you as readers), you will still need to verify the content of this article, QAD might have sudden changes on their system or the information that they have in their website just needs further clarifications.

The full burden of evaluation will still be in the hands of the evaluator for verifications. This article is just a guide, not a basis for your selection.

POINT 1

QAD Extends Solution Suite to Microsoft Platform. Business Wire, May 9, 2006.

To serve even more of the world’s manufacturers, QAD Inc., a leading provider of enterprise applications for global manufacturers, is now shipping its flagship ERP software with a Microsoft .NET Framework-based user interface and will offer support for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 database technology in the near future. As a result of close collaboration with Microsoft, current and future releases of the QAD software suite will take advantage of the Microsoft platform.

The extension will help manufacturers worldwide make the most of their technology investments, whether they are planning to deploy the latest QAD ERP suite, Global Enterprise Edition, QAD GXE into an IT environment standardized on the Microsoft platform or extending their present QAD implementation to new sites using Microsoft database technology. In both cases, customers can expect seamless operation across sites using a mix of Microsoft and other database and platform technologies

http://preview.tinyurl.com/39c684

Conclusion: QAD recognizes that .NET is the future. For them to somehow look in that deficiency they have only managed to create a UI (user interface) not the full .NET created application. QAD’s front and backend is Progress.

POINT 2

QAD’s MFG/PRO Deficiencies vs Infor’s SyteLine:

1. Drag and Drop to MS Excel to Application (vice versa)

2. Progress based, maybe a technology limitation “NOT .NET”. This is why Syteline moved to .NET from Progress

3. APS is not fully integrated. Need to buy from ADEXA or their “The Planner”. SYTELINE’s APS is tightly integrated with core ERP. This will also entail additional costs on Progress modules and additional man-days for services

4. Forms personalization not available. This is done thru an EXPERT PROGRESS PROGRAMMER. Just to add a field already needs modification. Every move is a modification.

5. Report Builder is the standard report writing tool (may have limited functions). Not as flexible as Crystal Report writer.

6. Workflow automation may not be included

8. Progress is not a common knowledge vs Microsoft. Skills availability is a constraint. Progress programmers costs higher and harder to find. Turnover is a problem. To be independent with progress, this will be a problem. (May depend on which country you belong)

9. Find/filtering options is less compared to Syteline.

10. A customer must be trained to 3 language sets – JAVA, .NET and with PROGRESS

11. User Interface priority is not clear. Character? JAVA? .NET? PROGRESS?
POINT 3 (Reference can be found in the internet)

To be “AT PAR” with Syteline (without additional modules) using QAD. A customer must buy these additional modules/extentions for QAD. Not mention other pre-requisite requirements of the Progress Platform: (Syteline already has this modules “as standard offering” on the base software. No need to install separately.)

1. QAD .NET UI provides a rich client framework for QAD Applications—giving users state-of-the-art user interface features, such as ad hoc management of windows, tree view menus and drag-and-drop capabilities.

2. QXtend simplifies the transfer of data between QAD products and also simplifies the import and export of data between QAD products and other enterprise external systems.

3. QAD Desktop provides quick and easy access to the full functionality of MFG/PRO and within a Web browser, in an intranet environment.

4. Q/LinQ is a developer’s toolkit for enabling the exchange of data between MFG/PRO applications and/or other external applications.

5. Data Synchronization is a flexible solution with processes that can be deployed to automatically replicate critical data across sites, domains, and databases within an enterprise.

6. QAD Production Scheduler is a Web-based application that increases scheduling efficiency by leveraging MFG/PRO demand, supply and MRP data from several report, inquiry, and maintenance screens into a single screen.

7. The Planner provides finite capacity planning and scheduling tools for managing production through capacity-constrained resources.

POINT 4 (Reference can be found in the internet)

Support by Progress for the Microsoft .Net Client

An important feature within the OpenEdge Release 10 product that allows for native support of Microsoft .NET is the ProDataSet. The ProDataSet provides mapping between a set of database tables or other data sources and can be passed from one procedure to another as a single object. It can be shared with .NET and other open technologies and maps directly on to a Microsoft ADO (ActiveX Data Objects). ADO is a Component object model object for accessing data sources. It provides a layer between programming languages and databases, which allows a developer to write programs which access data, without knowing how the database is implemented. Progress’ support for the .NET client is the major reason why the next generation User Interface for MFG/PRO is based on .NET and it leverages much of the existing Progress technology that allows a seamless integration between the .NET environment and the Progress environment.

Conclusion: QAD is not native .NET. only interfaced!

POINT 5 (Reference can be found in the internet)

Refactoring efforts with Progress

QAD is currently migrating its application architecture towards a full Service-Oriented Architecture model. This effort entails refactoring and restructuring existing code to remove dependencies on the user interface. Numerous efforts are underway to discover the most cost effective and highest quality means of this refactoring effort. Progress Software has been involved with this effort in cooperation with QAD engineers. They see this as an opportunity to learn from us and help their other customers in their migration efforts as well. Again, another example of the proactive collaboration between the two companies.

Conclusion: QAD is currently redesigning, meaning, the end result could be a different product at the end of the exercise. This could lead to an another upgrade, re-installation or reimplementation. And will still be Progress.

POINT 5

Why Infor Syteline over QAD’s Enterprise Applications 2007 (a.k.a. MFG/PRO)?

1. Latest .NET Microsoft Technology => Choosing Syteline will already equip the customer a base technology for at at least for the next 10 years.

2. Strong global operations comparing with Infor’s Operations.

3. Concurrent User

4. After measuring its business process being fitted to any specific customer; Example – 95% Fit – the remaining deficiency can be done thru personalization to complete its 100% fitness. All can be done internally by the SyteLine customer.

5. Microsoft skillset is easy to find

6. It was also clear that Syteline’s Customizability on almost all posible areas in the system is already one of the return on investment factors.

7. Features such as Advanced Planning and Scheduling is an indispensable factor that will truly benefit a customer in the long term.

8. Transfer of Technology

9. Having backed up with the #3 global software provider and #1 manufacturing ERP provider, any customer will surely feel comfortable that its system will surely be supported in coming years ahead. QAD is too small compared to Infor.

Note: Anyone can register and can leave a comment if there are any erroneous opinions that I was able to post. I will diligently modify the said post if required. Also, please read the site disclaimer.

Infor SyteLine Blog Reaches 500 Unique Visitors in 2 Weeks!

Hello!

I’d like to thank everyone who visited this humble site recently. I really did not expect that in just 2 weeks this site will already reach 500 unique visitors! For others, 500 unique visitors is very small, for me, its a huge milestone – especially that this is my first site. And also, quite honestly, i did not publish this site to search engines or Internet directories for everyone to see – it was really meant for personal use, for friends and for people I know that are currently evaluating ERP systems especially in the Distribution and Manufacturing industry.

I did not expect that Infor’s SyteLine competitive positioning against SAP and Oracle (or any other vendors) would be of some global interest – As per checking in my visitor location statistics.

Please also bear with me on my recent posts, i am the only one doing this as a – writer – editor – webmaster – administrator – presales – partly consultant – market analyst – all that you can think of on putting this site up and running. I also sincerely apologise on my occasional editing on some posts, this is to ensure that the information that is being published is as accurate as possible.

Personally, credibility is very very important, readers are very smart and they can smell a rotten egg thousand of miles away!

Rest assured that whatever I post in this site will be reviewed for accuracy. And if there are any erroneous entries, i will diligently modify.

Infor Syteline wins 3C Distributors over Oracle and Exact

3C Distributors International Inc. (3C) one of the biggest manufacturer and distributor of the NIKON brand (Appliances and Household Items) which is being sold in Philippine’s largest malls just signed with Infor’s SyteLine ERP with APS (Advance Planning and Scheduling) – selected over Oracle and Exact.

3C was using Exact Software for their operations but were unable to provide functionalities in production and at the same time the needed management reports that was required – conclusively, Exact was not upgraded and was replaced by SyteLine. While Oracle also did their presentations but also was unable to present those required functionalities by 3C’s evaluation team – especially APS (Advance Planning and Scheduling).

3C’s main requirements is for a system to be flexible enough to adapt to their current business operations and at the same time – having the lowest TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) as possible. As recently posted – “How Infor SyteLine Beats SAP and Oracle in Actual Engagements”, SyteLine has this 1-2-3 punch that can knock-out the competition – Exact and Oracle just can’t take those heavy blows in this account!

Just to spread the credit – this win will not be possible without the added help of Mr. Stanley Lee of Infor (Singapore). Thank you Stan!

More wins to come! See ya all!

How Infor SyteLine Beats SAP and Oracle in Actual Engagements

After all those marketing smokes, campaigns, fancy brochures and other stuffs – it will now come to actual solutions that are really essential to the end customers. Please find time to read this post.

I think this is a much awaited topic/subject for SyteLine’s competition and evaluators globally; and for me, this is a hard subject to write as well.

Some of the information in this post can be seen in SyteLine7.com forums so this is not really a secret. This is where the power of the Internet comes to place and evaluators take very huge advantage.

To add, I also feel that those online evaluation tools that you can find in the Internet are rigged (in my opinion – maybe not all). ERP Vendors who pay huge advertising money to that site are better positioned in their download materials – who knows? Bottom line, nothing beats face to face interaction with ERP Suppliers rather than fully relying on online tools specially if huge money/investment is at stake.

Ok, here we go.

Top 3 SyteLine KO’s:

1. SyteLine’s forms personalization is a very powerful tool that any user (if given access) can do. ALL you see in SyteLine is modifiable. Yes! This is true! Most of the time, users have a tons of wish lists that needs to be served, imagine if all those wish lists can be served by themselves (if given authorization) and not by the vendor or their IT department? With just seconds of navigation, users can add fields, modify the actual look and feel, combine 2 or more forms into 1, create field triggers without the need for heavy programming. Imagine the lowest possible TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) of never ever to call the ERP supplier if you need to change ANYTHING in the system? Imagine all the remaining deficiency of the system can already be done inhouse – to make it 100% fit!

Note: .NET based ERP Solutions can easily do this. Unless those solutions were already updated and offer such functionalities. Please verify to the vendors concerned.

2. SyteLine’s easy interaction with spreadsheets such as Microsoft Excel or open source office applications – please refer to this post.

Note: .NET based ERP Solutions can easily do this. Unless those solutions were already updated and offer such functionalities. Please verify to the vendors concerned.

3. SyteLine’s Constraint Based Planning and Scheduling engine a.k.a. – APS – Advance Planning and Scheduling. Now, this is a knock-out! This is where SyteLine’s domain expertise comes to play. In almost all cases, ERP Solutions only have MRP. Do you know what’s the difference between MRP (Material Resource Planning) and APS (Advance Planning and Scheduling)? here is some of the reasons on why you need to know APS and why you dont hear APS from Non-SyteLine Providers.

a.) MRP uses finite planning while APS uses constraint-based planning even at order entry.
b.) MRP can only check inventory (available-to-promise) but if no stock is available, you have to wait for the MRP run before you can know if you could truly deliver an order.
c.) MRP normally runs at night because you need to freeze inventory (no transaction happening) which means you will not have immediate information of changes to the plans, normally the information will be available the following day already.
d.) APS will check both inventory and capacity, presenting the feasibility of fulfilling a requested order at order entry-point.
e.) Distribution and manufacturing companies nowadays need APS for them to be competitive since at present JIT or Kanban is a must practice at present.

For a Non-SyteLine Solution to be able to compete, they will need to add systems such as those coming from Adexa, or if evaluating SAP – they need to add APO (Advance Planning and Ordering), i2 Technologies – Rhythm, Manugistics – Manugistics supply chain suite, Numetrix – Schedulex, Oracle’s – Oracle APS.

SyteLine’s APS is already integrated in its core system – this is not an add-on meaning – no integration problems – all real-time and in its natural coding.

This is where SAP, Oracle, QAD, Exact, Scala, Microsoft Dynamics (Navision) or any other ERP provider find very hard time to answer, maybe because competency of APS is very hard to find; SyteLine’s APS comes natural in its regular implementations. I just don’t know why Non-SyteLine providers find this complicated.

To know more about APS, please read “The Goal” maybe the second edition is retitled “Theory of Constraints” by “Eliyahu M. Goldratt“. – This was suggested by an APS expert/friend, he is in Malaysia.

SyteLine’s Easy Interaction with Spreadsheets (Microsoft Excel or OpenOffice.Org)

This is one of SyteLine’s WOW! features that is truly an indispensible function to users or corporations who is trying to acquire an ERP software!

Can you find an ERP solution, even from those popular ERP packages that can:

1.) Copy batch transactions from the ERP solution – like copying from Microsoft Excel.

2.) Paste the transactions to a spreadsheet (Microsoft Excel or OpenOffice.Org)

3.) Edit the transactions within the spreadsheet software. – Offline

4.) Paste it back to the ERP Solution

5.) ERP solution will automatically validate those pasted transactions from the spreadsheet if there are errors!

6.) Post all those transactions ALL at once!

7.) Without the help from an I.T. personnel!

I have been around in the ERP industry for quite some time and I have NOT yet heard this from any ERP Provider in the Philippines such as SAP, Oracle, Exact, Platinum, QAD, Greatplains, ERIC (Local Based) (to name a few – i will think of other vendors that i was able to bump to) – Unless they already have an “Add-on” module that needs to be attached to the system. SyteLine’s .NET environment can do this with SUPER-EASE and with few seconds of navigation.

Note: .NET based ERP Solutions can easily do this. Unless those solutions were already updated and offer such functionalities. Please verify to the vendors concerned.

You will normally hear a contradicting response from your ERP Vendor (Non-SyteLine) such as: ===> Will that be essential to your business requirements? Its not important in your evaluation and should not be prioritized! Our system will have this functionality “maybe” on our future versions.

Ok, now this is SyteLine’s response!

Having this functionality is one of those essential solutions that an organization should get because:

1. Imagine that organizations can save licenses/users by not logging on initially, while encoding data from an spreadsheet (EXCEL/OPENOFFICE) and later do batch pasting or processing! (take note – this is not a import function that are normally being done by IT, this is purely pasting data from excel [CTRL C and CTRL V]) to the ERP System. Wow!

2. Imagine that users will not need to encode one-by-one the transactions to the system. If a user already have a data masterfile such as vendors, customers, unposted job transactions, chart of accounts without the need for IT! Its easy as copy and paste!

3. Imagine to see happy faces of users! of not having to find hard time of training users to use the system… If they want to use EXCEL, “let them use EXCEL, by ALL MEANS!”.

4. Imagine on having the shortest learning curve as possible on trainings!

5. By the way, having this feature added in any solution will require the overall system to be re-written. Will any vendor want to re-write their software? I think not. This will more-likely to be an add-on in the future. Just dont forget what problems arise in add-ons. Its always not its natural coding – if that is the case, there will always be problems.

Truly, SyteLine is a must have system for Distribution and Manufacturing companies alike. How can you live without this feature? I just dont know how any ERP vendors can rebuke such functionality! Bring em on!

Happy evaluation you guys!

SyteLine on Mac and Linux?

Questions like this normally pops up during software evaluations.

Well yes! SyteLine can run on Mac and Linux! and with super fast speed! Running on these platforms will not need any additional add-on for SyteLine, wow! I was really amazed when Treasure Island Industrial Corporation – Cebu (TIIC) – a SyteLine Customer in the Philippines – was able to show this to me. Better yet! It is also lightning fast on Windows 98 with slow hardware specs! Plus SyteLine can run thru ANY Web Browsers, again without any add-on modules.

Its very rare to find this from any solutions, i guess this is the power of .NET?

SyteLine really has this WOW effect sometimes, and it keeps getting better…