Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central vs. Orderwave

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

If you manage orders of physical goods, Orderwave works just fine! They integrate with many e-comm platforms and are generally well-suited to those who sell products on their site, who want to send automated order receipts and confirmation emails, and for accounting purposes to tally up total sales (including taxes, shipping costs, etc.). The fact that they also integrate with our email platform makes it extra useful so I can really hone in on segmentation and order history. That's pretty invaluable to me, as an email marketer. If you don't sell goods, I can't see it being appropriate

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

• Order management is clearly important when you run an e-commerce platform. As I can only speak from a marketing perspective (not business intelligence or finance), please know I may be limited in what I know/share. It's seriously a ridiculously useful piece of software. Anyhow. Orderwave allows me to pull in order information into Listrak, our ESP (email service provider). With this information, I can segment on SO many levels such as order total, number of orders, date of last (or all) purchase(s), what was purchased, over what period of time X items were purchased.... the options are limitless.
• Because I do a lot of testing with my emails - testing the whole customer experience from receiving an email to completing an order - I need the ability to review order information (name, address, items purchased, S&H info, tax info, etc. etc.). While our admin manages all the customization of that order receipt, I'm able to quickly make any changes necessary in the back end, like if I'm seeing a pricing discrepancy between what is advertised on our site and what the final order purchase was (usually due to the way we set up a bundle product and not an issue with the platform).
• It's really, really easy to see if we have available inventory of select SKUs that we are about to promote. It also gives me an idea if there is an issue with syncing between SAP and Orderwave, or Orderwave and Magento (our e-comm platform).

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

• I'm not the biggest fan of their email platform, but it does exactly what it needs to do... I just like drag & drop email builders. In addition, I've found that at times the code editor doesn't expand very large, so I often have to copy & paste into a separate code editor (such as Sublime Text) to edit a few lines of code. While the WYSIWYG editor opens in a new window allowing it to more easily expand, I don't get that with the code editor (at least not in Chrome on Mac).
• Support documentation is still a little difficult to manage, but I have noticed truly significant improvements and am more easily able to find the things I need. Our AM is able to help me when I can't find something, which is a big help. I'm sure in time it will improve more.
• The overall look and feel feels old. Like the email platform, it does exactly what it needs to do and it does it well without issue. But the innards feel like Windows XP in 2018. The walls are sturdy and supportive; it just needs a new coat of paint. :)

Incentivized

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

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

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.

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

I wasn't involved in the purchasing decision of Orderwave, but I am familiar with IBM Order Management (used in the past) and much prefer Orderwave. It's cleaner and the information I need is more direct an apparent. Despite it's 'old' look, it's far more effective and far easier to use. I need easy. My day is spent between 10+ applications and if something isn't easy to use, I just won't use it. Orderwave lets me do my job well

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

• It has really helped us with business intelligence and gathering more information on who our customers are, what they have (or haven't) purchased, and how we can more effectively market to them. The BI has also helped our telemarketing side (with the call center) better understand what products are most frequently ordered over the phone vs online.
• Managing stock levels is super easy and allows our marketing team to more effectively merchandise and promote products. Without this, we would just be guessing what we should promote.
• I think one of the biggest ROI pieces has been the customizability of the Order Confirmation email. We have a dynamic tool that our email provider offers that serves up products based on what the customer has ordered, viewed, and abandoned, so we can dynamically populate those products in the Order Confirmation email. Orderwave helped us create a custom variable that we could use with our ESP's dynamic code, and we've seen an increase (~3-4%) in sales from the Confirmation email.

Incentivized