User Feedback on Macola ES 3

[NeedERP]

We are in the process of replacing our ERP system. Macola ES is on the "short list" of replacement systems. Although Macola ES is considered an excellent ERP system, I understand that there are performance issues when you have numerous users and multiple transactions.

We are a $40 million dollar manufacturer with 2 locations. We have about 40-50 users on our system at any given point. We process 450,000 sales order and invoice lines per year and around 300,000 inventory transactions. Our second location currently accesses our system using a VPN connection.

Is anyone in a similiar environment running Macola ES on a SQL platform who could give me an unbiased opinion on the system performance? We are in a situation where we do not want to change systems, but need to change systems. As a result our user group and management are nervous.

Thanks

 

[bbove]

This thread has some helpful information:

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?SQID=780200&SPID=639&page=2

 

[AKPolarBear]

Thankfully, we are not ES but still Progression. ES appears to have some nice features (if they work as advertised) but there are a couple of considerations. We are SQL based and have been less than pleased with the performance since moving to SQL. That promised increase in performance did not materialize. Search some of the other forums and you will learn more. Perhaps SQL will work better with ES but let the buyer beware.
Another issue for is that we have a lot of modifications in place in order to make Macoal work better. All of these would be lost if we were to upgrade to ES as Macoal has not released a source code version. In other words, you can't modify ES outside of what they think you need or want.

 

[kscheeler]

AKPolarBear,

If someone promised you a speed improvement in Macola with going from Btrieve to SQL, they were wrong. For transaction processing or day to day data entry, Btrieve is still faster. Where SQL shines more is when you are accessing the database through other functions like Crystal Reports, MS Access and Flexibility or other VB program. Add on to that the security features and the ability to backup and do point in time recovery, it's a better product.

NeedERP,

Have you looked at Macola Progression as well as ES. ES may have some features that you feel you need but Progression is a much more stable product and may be a better fit for what you want/need. I have clients who do somewhere around the number of OE and IM transactions that you do and also do some of that through EDI.

Clients who do that many OE transactions though don't like to do everything manually like select orders for shipping or billing so we've written functions to do that in batch mode using the flexibility program or straight VB.

Good Luck

Kevin Scheeler

 

[AKPolarBear]

Lets just say we were lead to believe a performance increase would be realized. It is true that Crystal does work faster and I can do more thanks to being able to more effectively use outer joins. As far as security goes, I have an unresolved issue in that area as well. I have a couple of former users that have returned. Since we use a format for usernames, they needed to be recreated. No issues on the system side, but I am having an SQL issue with their old user name and the new ones. I have tried the various methods to re-sync the database, but no luck yet. Improved security yes, but a pain in the neck at other times.

 

[kscheeler]

With the issue with recreating a user; with Progression SQL, when you create a user in Macola, it creates two records in SQL Server. USERNAME and USERNAME_SQL. The one with the _SQL is what Macola is using. When you delete the user in Macola, it only deletes the USERNAME_SQL and leaves the other one in SQL Server.

I would go into Enterprise Manager, drill down to the server name, then security, logins and delete the USERNAME one there and then recreate the user in Macola. It should then work fine.

Kevin Scheeler

 

[abaldwin]

One other place to look for user names.

Each database has a list of user under them. When a user is removed check in each database and delete the user as well.

Re-sync and all should be fine. Whan a user returns simply re-create their user id.

Andy

Andy Baldwin

 

[AKPolarBear]

The suggestion from Kevin solved my problem. Found a bunch of others to clean out as well.

I looked into those locations you siggested and they were all correct, no old users.

First time my VAR told me I needed to re-sync, I spent a late night trying to repair the damage. Users not logged in were locked out and those logged in couldn't reconnect later.

As you might have guessed, I was not informed that re-syncing was a single user operation...

Thanks for the help.