Macola ES Problems 2

[pronet74]

We went from Progression to Macola ES. Ugh. We are on batch 360. We are having major problems printing order acknowledgements. They were suppose to have 'fixed' the issues in the latest patch last week, yet we still have th ese problems.

First problem is the slowness. Takes about a minute for the order ack. to come up on the screen.

Second we get random crashing on multiple machines when trying to run an order ack.

Third once the report appears on the screen it defaults to the paper size A4. If we change it to paper we get an error. We then have to back all the way out of ES.

I am very disapponted in Macola over the ES product. When we converted we couldn't even scan for an entire week until they pushed code out into 360. We had to go from Progression to 340, to 360 to patches on top of 360. I am really tired of being the guinea pig here!

Anyone else who has ES and having major problems?

 

[pronet74]

I tell ya, when our team manager came and talked to us he made it sound like ES was great right from the start. How easy & simple things would be now. They have a great sales pitch. I believe they also benefit from these screw ups since we have to pay $11,000 for yearly support and another $7,000 for yearly maintance. I know if I ever did a consulting job & basically said to the customer 'Well I created the application for you but to get it running right you'll have to pay another $18,000'. I would not only lose my customers but be facing lawsuits.

I'm sorry to hear about your problems with ES. Rest assured you are not the only one going through this. It really makes me think if we should have spent the money and moved over to Great Plains, by Microsoft. Progression seems to be alot more stable even though it's on an old back-end. We let sleeping dogs lie and we should have continued to do so. It's just way too late in the game for Exact Software to be using it's customers as beta-testers.

Sorry, my rant. I will PM you dgillz. Thanks!

 

[keain]

Quote abaldwin "Oh come on Don, Macola is a great product. Nothing that 10,000 hours of reprogramming could not solve."

Wow. They've gotten that down since I left there last year. Way to go team! ;-)

 

[NEmacGuy]

Pronet74,
I feel your pain. I think some amount of issues could be expected as some parts of the program are new, but not to to the levels that have occured. It didn't help when exact took over Macola that they slashed and burned. Someone on the board always mentioned testing, testing...testing. Well that is what we have been doing for 3 years of ES. Perhaps they will do some now too.

Having said all of that, I would say that if I was using progression and had the choice of moving to Great Plains or Macola ES <money aside>, I might pick niehter and stay with progression. Great Plains is an aged product just like progression. Things could change when Microsoft puts some sort of dirrection into the future of the product. To move to Macola ES, I would do it if eSynergy was in my picture (integrated hard to beat) There are a few more nitch cases that are better in ES then in progression that would tilt the table (OE / POP link in ES, Bill to Parent Accounts)

 

[dgillz]

NEmacGuy,

What is different about the OE to POP link in ES? The one in Progression works great.

Frankly, if I was calling the shots, I would dust off and release Progression v8 (basically ES but with updated Progression Accounting modules). This was a work in progress when Exact came into the picture and decided to replace the Progression accounting modules with Globe financials.

We already have a Progression/eSynergy integration, and since the table names are identical, this should not be too tough to replicate for v8. Given the identical table and field names, I cannot imagine too many huge issues with upgrading from Progression 7x, including conversion of history which is a big issue now. We would also regain the screen designer and Flex functionality that we lost with the Globe accounting modules, and would not have to struggle with Dutch table and field names.

That is an awful lot of upside, and I frankly don't see a downside.

I would bet anything if they did this it would increase new sales and retain users at a greater rate than ES will. No way to prove that, its just my 2 cents.

Software Sales, Training, Implementation and Support for Macola, eSynergy, and Crystal Reports

http://www.gainfocus.biz

"making predictions is tough, especially about the future" - Yogi Berra

 

[crystalreporting]

I couldn't agree more Don. The 'cobbling together' of two different products has made ES what it is today. An evolution (not revolution) of Progression is what should have taken place all along.

Peter Shirley

http://www.srhconsulting.com

 

[NEmacGuy]

In ES you can edit your bill of material from the order entry screen.

 

[NEmacGuy]

We had a copy of v8 had some nice features if I remember correctly. Its been a while, but beleive you were going to have picture of item in item master window.

 

[dgillz]

NE,

Can you edit the BOM from the Customer Order Entry screen? No, but if you can do this in Progression its news to me.

Can you do this from the POP order entry screen? Yes, just like in progression with the 'edit captured bill' button.

Software Sales, Training, Implementation and Support for Macola, eSynergy, and Crystal Reports

http://www.gainfocus.biz

"making predictions is tough, especially about the future" - Yogi Berra

 

[NEmacGuy]

In ES you can edit the POP captured BOM for forced demand Pull items in the order entry screen, sort of link having a configurator, outside of feature option items.

 

[NEmacGuy]

One other ES only item is mfg to a rev level, and they have exposed the rev in OE and works on Pull mfg orders.