Hello everyone,
My company is thinking about site separation. I am currently using one site, so I do not have enough knowledge about using two sites. Can you please give me my questions below and other knowledge about site splitting?
Q1. Is there a separate login screen? Or is it possible to do Epicor work for each site within this Epicor after the same login?
Q2. Do Epicor Configuration and master data have to be entered and set for each site? If so, is there a duplication feature? We are worried about the increase in workload.
Q3. The accounting department will only use the Main site. If so, Sales, Production, and Purchase are performed on each site, but can AR/AP be done on the main site?
Q4. Are there any inconveniences when using one site and then changing to use two sites? (I already know the advantages, and for that reason I want to use two)
Q5. Aside from the questions above, do you have any advice on site separation?
q1 - same login, but each session is only in one site. You change sites to work in a different site. You can allow multiple sessions in a user profile if they need to work in two sites, and whenever they have 2 sites open it consumes 2 licenses.
q2 - depends on what you’re doing. Some things are site-specific, but there are plenty of tools available to eliminate extra labor. For example, we create parts in site A and use a dashboard to generate DMT files, and use DMT to create the revisions, plants, warehouses, bins, etc for all other sitss
q3 - yes, but you’ll need to get all your aggregation setups right. We use a separate site, not tied to a location, just for accounting, but then we are using multi site AND multi company
q4 - in our case, only in managing licensing and aggregsting data, but they’re minor
q5 - software should be used to model reality. When it does not, you get people finding it “not intuitive” and “not making sense”. Nobody actually bases their judgement on the intuitive and shiny UI but rather how their digital experience matches their real work and goals. So you figure out how Epicor intended to model whatever your reality is, and then every step you take towards that ideal will cause management and users to like the environment, and you, better. So if you work at two addresses but you’re using 1 site, the software will be causing little constraints all over the place, like transfer orders not working and shipping paperwork having to be changed, and all kinds of communication being required to compensate for the lack of reality.
As far as question #4, we have found it quite inconvenient for our uses. This is due to screen limitations for certain screens. For instance, we create sales orders with two lines to manufacture. The first line is to be made in site 1 and the second line is to be made in site 2. To view details in job tracker or job entry for either job, the user needs to switch sites from the site they have opened sales order entry in prior to opening the job entry / tracker. Also if someone knows the job number to lookup but does not know the site, it is a guessing game for them (we have 9 sites). Another thing to consider is if you ever create a site and do a transaction in it, there is no built in mechanism to deactivate or delete it.
Fair enough. We had to build a lot of custom stuff to allow all order entry to be in one site, jobs and releases to be in the correct site based on criteria, and transfer order replenishment with associated jobs to be automated. I didn’t really consider that when responding.
But I still think it was worth it, as today we save 20-30 people worth of clerical work by using Epicor, out of a total of less than. 200 employees.