We are currently running E9.05 which we purchased only 2 months before E10 rolled out. Unfortunately, our sales representative did not inform us of the coming upgrade, nor did he caution us to wait for the new release. That being said, we have STRUGGLED for the last several years mostly with the financial module changes and have been informed multiple times that issues we are having have been addressed in the E10 software. Upgrading means significant cost not only in the software purchase but in the hardware upgrade that will be necessary and the training of our employees. And if the upgrade doesn’t significantly improve the performance, we are hesitant to invest the time and money. Needless to say, after the last upgrade, we are approaching the decision with many reservations. So I’m looking to get feedback from any users that have had the same experience and any reviews regarding the new software package.
Thank you in advance for your help.
aidacra
(Nathan your friendly neighborhood Support Engineer)
2
Upgrading means significant cost not only in the software purchase but in the hardware upgrade that will be necessary and the training of our employees
I just wanted to comment on the hardware part of that statement. Generally, if someone has appropriately sized hardware for their current Epicor 9.05 implementation they do not need to refresh their hardware when going to Epicor 10 as hardware requirements are actually less in E10.x than in E905 for the same amount of performance.
It appears you are a fairly recent Epicor implementation so if you didn’t significantly customize the system then your upgrade to 10 should be a lot more smooth and less costly.
If you utilize the cloud converter tool option it would also significantly lower that barrier to entry since Epicor would take care of most of the data conversion issues that arise.
Performance increase from 9 to 10 is significant, and in terms of user training most of 10.0 was a technology stack upgrade so the application has remained (with few exceptions) functionally the same as 9.05.702A. There are a few new features in 10.1+ releases but those should have little to no impact in your initial user adoption.
The longer you take to upgrade the more costly the upgrade will be, so it is definitely worth looking at it as soon as possible. Doing a dry pass conversion just to see “how much breaks” would give you a general idea of cost and resources needed.
I just want to add a few things to the good feedback you have already received. You will receive some nice benefits, such as the performance uptick, increased functionality, improved support and a minor learning curve for existing users of E9, just as stated, and may actually see a decrease in the hardware sizing requirements for running E10 plus a bunch of hosted / SaaS options. The upgrade process itself has been well documented and I have not seen any upgrades go south except for a few tough customizations. If you use the product configurator that can be one of the more lengthy items to upgrade, depending on the complexity of the configurator. The nice part is that you probably have a much smaller database than most companies that have been on E9 for a long time and possibly came from earlier versions. The smaller database, to me, is a big part of a smooth upgrade. Several customers take the time when moving from E9 - E10 to clean up data and perform business process reviews to see if the customizations they have are really needed. I would expect you could be very selective during that part of the process and save some significant time. Going forward, once you have settled on version 10, you will realize more benefits such as a bunch of new add-ons, such as DocStar, and an improved upgrade process to help keep you up to date. I would recommend the upgrade and I think you will be pleasantly surprised. I would also talk to your CAM about the Upgrade Analyzer, which will provide some good insight into how complex the process may be with a couple caveats. The time to run this and review the results is minimal and a good investment of time.
My 2c here. Do it and do it now for all of the reasons people have previously mentioned. The user and the business will thank you for a bit of pain now. I appreciate, it is annoying you were not informed about 10,
With regards to upgrading and the software cost. I would be checking with your CAM, (perhaps not the person who got you over the line on E9 ), And ask the question about E10 and the licensing. I suspect that if you are investigating upgrading they will supply a E10 license key as part of your E9 maintenance. You can then do an install on a virtual machine and check it out for yourself. If you are not that way inclined then I would suggest a small investment in a consultants time to spin up the demo database. You can then see for yourself how fast it is. I have to say I am pleasantly surprised running the demo on 16Gb RAM single core Virtual machine. Of course I would net recommend that for a production environment.
Remember if you are worried about user adoption you do have the ability to use the classic UI if needed.
), And ask the question about E10 and the licensing. I suspect that if you are investigating upgrading they will supply a E10 license key as part of your E9 maintenance. You can then do an install on a virtual machine and check it out for yourself. If you are not that way inclined then I would suggest a small investment in a consultants time to spin up the demo database. You can then see for yourself how fast it is. I have to say I am pleasantly surprised running the demo on 16Gb RAM single core Virtual machine. Of course I would net recommend that for a production environment.