Infor VISUAL vs. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

The original version of Visual Manufacturing (Lilly Software) was intended for mechanical manufacturing. It was adapted at our facility (we were not the first) to accomodate electronic manufacturing. For electronic manufacturing process control it is not ideal when referencing in-line or custom processes used to build product. For material control it is excellent unless a modification to a standard product is required (and we did this on 60% of product going out the door). The co-product feature that removes material from an assembly requires the creator of the work order to calculate the percentage of cost the removed items are from the completed product. On the business operations side regional tax reports were difficult to extract and an external module to go into the data base and extract that had to be created. The system itself was stable for the most part. Occasional "data collisions" corrupted transactions at times. The accounting procedures in place found them by the end of the month .where they were corrected. For a small business with less formal processes Infor Visual can be used with little training for the operators. If the processes need a higher level of accountability and control the processes can be formalized with workflow scripts to ensure that higher level of control.

Incentivized

It addresses well some integration and connectivity issues with other software and adapted technologies: formulation and manufacturing batching software, scanners and bar codes, inventory, financials, emailing of invoices and statement, sales and purchasing... etc. I believe it to be better suited to a medium to large company. Not as simple and seamless as we expected for migrating from another Microsoft Dynamics software product (we moved from GP to NAV). Our staff is going through a tougher time than we thought to learn some procedures. Normal growing pains?!

Incentivized

• Part/BOM libraries
• Traceability from customer order to work order
• Job status representation

Incentivized

• All of the Dynamics ERP systems are fully integrated with the full family of their Office products (Word, Excel, etc.) but the true power behind Dynamics-NAV is that it comes with complete access to the source code. Although most ERP packages provide some type of a development environment, it is always a third-party software package and requires an additional expense. NAV comes with full source code access and devolvement tools out-of-the-box and requires no additional purchase. The user is able to modify pages, reports and even add additional fields to the standard tables. If your company has an internal development staff you have the ability to purchase the same full development license that the VAR has, allowing you to handle all system customizations and support in-house. The sum total of this high flexibility is that you are able to make NAV conform to your business rather than you conforming to the software.
• In addition to the available source code, NAV provides the user with an unlimited ability to modify and build within the rich environment of C/AL code. In over 20 years of modifying the NAV product I have never had a client ask for a modification or custom functionality that I was not able to provide. Add to this the fact that NAV now includes many development points that allow the user to place their custom code inside of the system without impacting the base code. This makes the upgrade process quick and easy and avoids the common occurrence of being version locked.
• The user interface of Dynamics NAV has been well thought out and provides a very easy to learn and use package. Master records (Customer, Vendor, Items, etc.) have been laid out in a standard format. Once you learn where fields are located on one record you have learned them all. The forms (called Pages in NAV) have a very similar structure and, by design, are uncluttered and easily customized by the user without impacting the base code. This allows each user to configure the Page to the way they work, easing the learning process and speeding up daily work and data entry.
• The NAV environment has grown to be very feature rich in the functionality offered and provides the user with almost everything they need with the purchase of the base product. Advanced features can be added if required as can a large number of third party add-ons made exclusively for the NAV environment. Additionally, user licenses are sold as concurrent and not as named. Concurrent licenses control the number of users allowed into the system at any one time meaning that anyone can be provided with the ability to log into the system. This allows the company to setup an unlimited number of users with the ability to access the system at any given time. This allows the occasional user to share a license with other users who only need to access the system to enter a small amount of data or run a few reports. This functionality is a plus for the company with a large sales staff or outside workers who only need limited access to the system. Named licenses would require that you purchase an access license for every person who needs to access the system.

Incentivized

• At times a "shadow part" is necessary in the manufacturing process. This shadow part does not require an inventory transaction but is made a as a separate process - sometimes out of sequence to the general process flow. Infor Visual ver 6.3.5 does not have that capability.
• When generating forms for business and manufacturing operations Infor Visual ver 6.3.5 has a limited number of options. To change or add forms requires an unsupported editor. When the stock and custom options are depleted an outside programming module is required as well as programmers to develop the forms.
• While free software upgrades to the main operations modules have been part of the maintenance agreement. One upgrade required database and hardware support not justifiable for the current business model. The system was frozen at the current version at that time.
• There is no easy way to differentiate between engineering documentation and production documentation.

Incentivized

• There are not a lot of "out of the box" automation processes, for Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Different versions of NAV, have had various job scheduling functionality. However, each process that is automated, must be confirmed that it will function correctly, in an automatic mode. In our installation, most of the automation processes have been custom-developed.
• Microsoft Dynamics NAV could have better documentation. Much of the documentation is original, from multiple versions ago. There is generally no step-by-step instructions, on performing various functions. Instead, most help is context-sensitive, obtained by pressing F1, on a particular field.
• Older versions of Microsoft Dynamics NAV had a built-in WYSIWYG report builder, which made designing reports fairly straight-forward. Later versions (2013 and forward) rely exclusively on Visual Studio and SQL Reporting Services, which require a greater technical level of expertise, to use.

Incentivized

Good Technical and Customer Support during and after implementation tasks. Good Project Plan and Management support for implementation and post implementation. Financial functionality could be more comprehensive particularly with Budgeting and Cash Management. Inventory Management capability was adequate but could be more comprehensive as well. "Out of the Box" functionality was adequate but requested add-ons and enhancements seemed to be a bit pricey.

We've already decided to continue using this software. It is too expensive for us to upgrade so we made a workaround by using the virtual computer with Windows XP installed on it. We did research replacing this software, but it was a better financial decision to keep what we had instead

Incentivized

Because of use cases and easy implementation and the vertical and horizontal scaling.

Incentivized

Best in terms of reporting or coming up with a great dashboard. Seamlessly collaborated with teams without depending on particular device as its web version is the buddy for people with work flexibility. Licensing price and integrations can be the areas of improvement and can simplify the interface which will be easy for a new user.

Incentivized

As we have seen the live environment and the use cases where we implement.

Incentivized

It provides one to efficiently be able to manage bookkeeping and inventory without much challenges. One can easily navigate through workflow processes while managing usages and budgets. Being able to produce reports in Word, Excel or PDF means one is able to have a working document to produce trends and graphs or produce pivot tables.

Could have used more hands-on approach. There are multiple webinars and information sessions but until you actually use the system, these are not very helpful.

Incentivized

We unfortunately did not evaluate any other ERP software. VISUAL was a legacy system and we determined that changing systems would be too difficult, and not cost effective. We reached out to our local VISUAL rep who knew how the software functioned, but not how to apply it more appropriately to our business model, so we continued on with what we had rather than looking elsewhere.

Incentivized

Dynamics fits the modern world, integrating new technology to ensure a complete business process is readily accessible in a rapidly moving world of "in-office" and "remote" work. It solves the need for several departments and streamlines procurement, warehouse, and finance processes.

Incentivized

• Good Billing provided
• Easy to implement and use
• scales vertical and horizontal

Incentivized

• Better visibility of ROI throughout each period. Orders entered, shipped, and backlogs are very visible to authorized users upon login.
• Purchasing and inventory turns have been better realized. Out of stock parts reduced.
• A future customer portal will enhance the customer experience by pulling NAC data into a web-based UI. However, the portal is a separate expense.
• Time savings realized by being able to generate views or reports versus asking IT or accounting to pull a custom report.

Incentivized