Epicor 9 and Moving from Progress to MS SQL

That is funny. We have discussing and cussing with Epicor about this issue. Supposedly our call was the first that they had heard about this. They didn’t know what caused the problem and made us jump through hoops trying different server configurations for several weeks. They have since been giving us the Epicor tango, telling us that they looking into it but never have any updates to the issue. What is the most frustrating is that they have a problem with a new patch and won’t make it known. The A/R issues we had were an inconvenience where these “Get Methods” issues are costing us money with the inefficiencies that it has created.



So, Epicor agreed on how to fix the issue, but never actually fixed the issue?



Regards,





Andrew Best

Kice Industries, Inc.

P(316)744-7151

F(316)295-2412



From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Steven Gotschall
Sent: Monday, January 18, 2010 8:57 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Vantage] Re: Epicor 9 and Moving from Progress to MS SQL





A little known and undocumented change in 408 was the "Get Methods" operation in the Engineering workbench changed from defaulting to getting the method from the configurator to getting the method from the Part Master. This was suppose to speed up the "Get Method", but it really messed us up.

After many complaints from us I got them to agree to change this so that you can specify in the configurator the default for the "Get Method". Never heard a word back from them since then.

After 1 year, the "Verify Existing Configurations" is still broken.

________________________________
From: Andrew Best <abest@... <mailto:abest%40kice.com> >
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com <mailto:vantage%40yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Mon, January 18, 2010 9:22:35 AM
Subject: RE: [Vantage] Re: Epicor 9 and Moving from Progress to MS SQL


Trust me, there are plenty of problems with Epicor and Vantage even with a fully operational IT department. The problems we run into time and again are software related problems. When we installed 8.0 four years ago, we were sold on many functions that simply do not operate as advertised. 8.0 was an unstable environmental and would freeze up and require end-user reboots at least once a day. We migrated to 8.03 and the environment has been much more stable but then we had to operate for four months because the configurator did not function. Epicor finally released a patch to fix the configurator, but with that patch they managed to break something else. This has been on-going with Epicor. We just upgraded to 8.03.408B to try and fix a couple of A/R issues. As usual, the patch did fix the A/R issues, but now the “Get Methods” function of Vantage takes 5-10 MINUTES when it use to take 1-2 SECONDS. Same hardware, same methods, new patch.

Yes I agree that you must have the proper hardware and maintain the hardware in the appropriate environment, but our problems generally relate to the Epicor Software.

From: vantage@yahoogroups .com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups .com] On Behalf Of Chris Thompson
Sent: Monday, January 18, 2010 7:36 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups .com
Subject: Re: [Vantage] Re: Epicor 9 and Moving from Progress to MS SQL

I thnk I may disagree a little here.

98% of our calls logged with support are genuine problems with the Epicor product. Unless we trained up somebody to understand every single working of the product (in which case they would probably uproot and move on to a job where they will get lots mor money).

Unless you are wanting a lot more out of Epicor (by attacking the SQL from the back end - which we dont want), then it is pointless us having 2-3 people with a full understanding of everything that makes Epicor work.

Granted, people need good IT support and infrastructure in place, but at the end of the day our business is doing what we do, not running fixing a computer software. I dont think there is any harm in having people who know what they are doing with servers/PCs/ epicor, but a line has to be drawn at some point, before the company changes into an IT company instead of a manufacturing company.

____________ _________ _________ __
From: Vic Drecchio <vic.drecchio@ timco.aero <mailto:vic. drecchio% 40timco.aero> >
To: vantage@yahoogroups .com <mailto:vantage% 40yahoogroups. com>
Sent: Thu, 14 January, 2010 17:44:12
Subject: RE: [Vantage] Re: Epicor 9 and Moving from Progress to MS SQL

Jared, that's hilarious... and you are so true. You have no idea how
many Vantage customers out there are just like that: With no IT
department.

I find it amusing that a company would spend the significant dollars on
an enterprise IT software system such as Vantage and NOT invest money in
their IT staffing to support and evolve the system.

Frankly, I think that's one of the reasons why Support gets such a
lashing all the time from customers. These non-IT staffed companies
have this belief that Epicor Support is there in lieu of an IT dept or
resource. Epicor Support isn't there to serve in an Admin capacity for
a customer.

It's like buying a mega yacht and not hiring a crew to maintain her.
"Duh"

When I consulted with Epicor I arrived many times at a customer site to
find the server in the breakroom on the counter next to the coffee pot
on the same circuit and it was 80 degrees in the breakroom. Or the
server is out on the shop floor "safely" tucked into a corner somewhere
under a thick coating of shop dust/dirt.

But this ultimately may not be the customers' fault. I think sometimes
Epicor Sales sells Vantage as an entity that requires little or no
admin.

If a customer is very simple in their business model and is small in
user-count, then perhaps you could get away without a staffer. Less
than 10 or 15 users... *maybe*.

It's only the ignorance of the company's management that believes they
can limp along without IT. You buy something like this you should
budget for a resource to provide admin and future enhancements for your
business. Otherwise, if you can't afford to do this, then wait until
you can.

-----Original Message-----
From: vantage@yahoogroups .com [mailto:vantage@ yahoogroups .com] On Behalf
Of Jared Allmond
Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2010 9:11 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups .com
Subject: [Vantage] Re: Epicor 9 and Moving from Progress to MS SQL

+1 on everything Vic said. If you have a knowledgeable person, SQL is
great. I met some people at Perspectives 09 whose companies run the
Progress version who don't even have an IT department. A Vantage
'superuser' acts like a sys admin. If you are in this scenario I
wouldn't recommend going to SQL. The ability to make SQL Views is very
useful and speedy compared to BAQs. I personally try to avoid triggers,
but to each his own. You do need plenty of horsepower on a SQL box, and
the name of the game is disk I/O. Don't skimp on your storage system.
I will make a small amendment to Vic's statement that Progress also
runs. Well it does and doesn't. The Progress AppServer still runs (as
it would on either version) but if you configure things properly you
don't need to run the Progress DB (by default it does run). Vic is
correct that the DB is just a pass-thru to the SQL tables.
____________ _________ __
Jared Allmond
IT Systems Administrator
Wright Coating Technologies
jallmond@wrightcoat ing.com<mailto: jallmond@ wrightcoat ing.com>
voice: 269.344.8195
direct: 269.341.4353
fax: 269.344.3007

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

------------ --------- --------- ------

Useful links for the Yahoo!Groups Vantage Board are: ( Note: You must
have already linked your email address to a yahoo id to enable access. )
(1) To access the Files Section of our Yahoo!Group for Report Builder
and Crystal Reports and other 'goodies', please goto:
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/vantage/ files/.
(2) To search through old msg's goto:
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/vantage/ messages
(3) To view links to Vendors that provide Vantage services goto:
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/vantage/ linksYahoo! Groups Links

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Our problem didn't have to do with speed, but the fact that the methods were being pulled from the parts master on configured parts. Because of problems and limitations with the configurator, the parts master doesn't always match exactly with the method as constructed by the configurator.

I was told the change was because of complaints about the speed of the "get method" on configured parts, but we never had a problem and it looks like the change may have hurt your speed. Just a guess about what is causing your problem, but there was some major changes to the get method in 408.

And yes, they agreed to fix it during a big conference call I had with them, but they never did. Of course this was many months ago and who knows how many of the Epicor people I talked with still work there.




________________________________
From: Andrew Best <abest@...>
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Mon, January 18, 2010 10:06:49 AM
Subject: RE: [Vantage] Re: Epicor 9 and Moving from Progress to MS SQL

Â
That is funny. We have discussing and cussing with Epicor about this issue. Supposedly our call was the first that they had heard about this. They didn’t know what caused the problem and made us jump through hoops trying different server configurations for several weeks. They have since been giving us the Epicor tango, telling us that they looking into it but never have any updates to the issue. What is the most frustrating is that they have a problem with a new patch and won’t make it known. The A/R issues we had were an inconvenience where these “Get Methods” issues are costing us money with the inefficiencies that it has created.



So, Epicor agreed on how to fix the issue, but never actually fixed the issue?



Regards,





Andrew Best

Kice Industries, Inc.

P(316)744-7151

F(316)295-2412



From: vantage@yahoogroups .com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups .com] On Behalf Of Steven Gotschall
Sent: Monday, January 18, 2010 8:57 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups .com
Subject: Re: [Vantage] Re: Epicor 9 and Moving from Progress to MS SQL





A little known and undocumented change in 408 was the "Get Methods" operation in the Engineering workbench changed from defaulting to getting the method from the configurator to getting the method from the Part Master. This was suppose to speed up the "Get Method", but it really messed us up.

After many complaints from us I got them to agree to change this so that you can specify in the configurator the default for the "Get Method". Never heard a word back from them since then.

After 1 year, the "Verify Existing Configurations" is still broken.

____________ _________ _________ __
From: Andrew Best <abest@... <mailto:abest% 40kice.com> >
To: vantage@yahoogroups .com <mailto:vantage% 40yahoogroups. com>
Sent: Mon, January 18, 2010 9:22:35 AM
Subject: RE: [Vantage] Re: Epicor 9 and Moving from Progress to MS SQL


Trust me, there are plenty of problems with Epicor and Vantage even with a fully operational IT department. The problems we run into time and again are software related problems. When we installed 8.0 four years ago, we were sold on many functions that simply do not operate as advertised. 8.0 was an unstable environmental and would freeze up and require end-user reboots at least once a day. We migrated to 8.03 and the environment has been much more stable but then we had to operate for four months because the configurator did not function. Epicor finally released a patch to fix the configurator, but with that patch they managed to break something else. This has been on-going with Epicor. We just upgraded to 8.03.408B to try and fix a couple of A/R issues. As usual, the patch did fix the A/R issues, but now the “Get Methods” function of Vantage takes 5-10 MINUTES when it use to take 1-2 SECONDS. Same hardware, same methods, new patch.

Yes I agree that you must have the proper hardware and maintain the hardware in the appropriate environment, but our problems generally relate to the Epicor Software.

From: vantage@yahoogroups .com [mailto:vantage@ yahoogroups .com] On Behalf Of Chris Thompson
Sent: Monday, January 18, 2010 7:36 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups .com
Subject: Re: [Vantage] Re: Epicor 9 and Moving from Progress to MS SQL

I thnk I may disagree a little here.

98% of our calls logged with support are genuine problems with the Epicor product. Unless we trained up somebody to understand every single working of the product (in which case they would probably uproot and move on to a job where they will get lots mor money).

Unless you are wanting a lot more out of Epicor (by attacking the SQL from the back end - which we dont want), then it is pointless us having 2-3 people with a full understanding of everything that makes Epicor work.

Granted, people need good IT support and infrastructure in place, but at the end of the day our business is doing what we do, not running fixing a computer software. I dont think there is any harm in having people who know what they are doing with servers/PCs/ epicor, but a line has to be drawn at some point, before the company changes into an IT company instead of a manufacturing company.

____________ _________ _________ __
From: Vic Drecchio <vic.drecchio@ timco.aero <mailto:vic. drecchio% 40timco.aero> >
To: vantage@yahoogroups .com <mailto:vantage% 40yahoogroups. com>
Sent: Thu, 14 January, 2010 17:44:12
Subject: RE: [Vantage] Re: Epicor 9 and Moving from Progress to MS SQL

Jared, that's hilarious... and you are so true. You have no idea how
many Vantage customers out there are just like that: With no IT
department.

I find it amusing that a company would spend the significant dollars on
an enterprise IT software system such as Vantage and NOT invest money in
their IT staffing to support and evolve the system.

Frankly, I think that's one of the reasons why Support gets such a
lashing all the time from customers. These non-IT staffed companies
have this belief that Epicor Support is there in lieu of an IT dept or
resource. Epicor Support isn't there to serve in an Admin capacity for
a customer.

It's like buying a mega yacht and not hiring a crew to maintain her.
"Duh"

When I consulted with Epicor I arrived many times at a customer site to
find the server in the breakroom on the counter next to the coffee pot
on the same circuit and it was 80 degrees in the breakroom. Or the
server is out on the shop floor "safely" tucked into a corner somewhere
under a thick coating of shop dust/dirt.

But this ultimately may not be the customers' fault. I think sometimes
Epicor Sales sells Vantage as an entity that requires little or no
admin.

If a customer is very simple in their business model and is small in
user-count, then perhaps you could get away without a staffer. Less
than 10 or 15 users... *maybe*.

It's only the ignorance of the company's management that believes they
can limp along without IT. You buy something like this you should
budget for a resource to provide admin and future enhancements for your
business. Otherwise, if you can't afford to do this, then wait until
you can.

-----Original Message-----
From: vantage@yahoogroups .com [mailto:vantage@ yahoogroups .com] On Behalf
Of Jared Allmond
Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2010 9:11 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups .com
Subject: [Vantage] Re: Epicor 9 and Moving from Progress to MS SQL

+1 on everything Vic said. If you have a knowledgeable person, SQL is
great. I met some people at Perspectives 09 whose companies run the
Progress version who don't even have an IT department. A Vantage
'superuser' acts like a sys admin. If you are in this scenario I
wouldn't recommend going to SQL. The ability to make SQL Views is very
useful and speedy compared to BAQs. I personally try to avoid triggers,
but to each his own. You do need plenty of horsepower on a SQL box, and
the name of the game is disk I/O. Don't skimp on your storage system.
I will make a small amendment to Vic's statement that Progress also
runs. Well it does and doesn't. The Progress AppServer still runs (as
it would on either version) but if you configure things properly you
don't need to run the Progress DB (by default it does run). Vic is
correct that the DB is just a pass-thru to the SQL tables.
____________ _________ __
Jared Allmond
IT Systems Administrator
Wright Coating Technologies
jallmond@wrightcoat ing.com<mailto: jallmond@ wrightcoat ing.com>
voice: 269.344.8195
direct: 269.341.4353
fax: 269.344.3007

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

------------ --------- --------- ------

Useful links for the Yahoo!Groups Vantage Board are: ( Note: You must
have already linked your email address to a yahoo id to enable access. )
(1) To access the Files Section of our Yahoo!Group for Report Builder
and Crystal Reports and other 'goodies', please goto:
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/vantage/ files/.
(2) To search through old msg's goto:
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/vantage/ messages
(3) To view links to Vendors that provide Vantage services goto:
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/vantage/ linksYahoo! Groups Links

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]







[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Another great instance of the left hand not having a clue of what the right
hand is doing.



~Charlie

_____

From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
Andrew Best
Sent: Monday, January 18, 2010 10:07 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Vantage] Re: Epicor 9 and Moving from Progress to MS SQL





That is funny. We have discussing and cussing with Epicor about this issue.
Supposedly our call was the first that they had heard about this. They
didnÂ’t know what caused the problem and made us jump through hoops trying
different server configurations for several weeks. They have since been
giving us the Epicor tango, telling us that they looking into it but never
have any updates to the issue. What is the most frustrating is that they
have a problem with a new patch and wonÂ’t make it known. The A/R issues we
had were an inconvenience where these “Get Methods” issues are costing us
money with the inefficiencies that it has created.



So, Epicor agreed on how to fix the issue, but never actually fixed the
issue?



Regards,





Andrew Best

Kice Industries, Inc.

P(316)744-7151

F(316)295-2412



From: vantage@yahoogroups <mailto:vantage%40yahoogroups.com> .com
[mailto:vantage@yahoogroups <mailto:vantage%40yahoogroups.com> .com] On
Behalf Of Steven Gotschall
Sent: Monday, January 18, 2010 8:57 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups <mailto:vantage%40yahoogroups.com> .com
Subject: Re: [Vantage] Re: Epicor 9 and Moving from Progress to MS SQL





A little known and undocumented change in 408 was the "Get Methods"
operation in the Engineering workbench changed from defaulting to getting
the method from the configurator to getting the method from the Part Master.
This was suppose to speed up the "Get Method", but it really messed us up.

After many complaints from us I got them to agree to change this so that you
can specify in the configurator the default for the "Get Method". Never
heard a word back from them since then.

After 1 year, the "Verify Existing Configurations" is still broken.

________________________________
From: Andrew Best <abest@... <mailto:abest%40kice.com>
<mailto:abest%40kice.com> >
To: vantage@yahoogroups <mailto:vantage%40yahoogroups.com> .com
<mailto:vantage%40yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Mon, January 18, 2010 9:22:35 AM
Subject: RE: [Vantage] Re: Epicor 9 and Moving from Progress to MS SQL


Trust me, there are plenty of problems with Epicor and Vantage even with a
fully operational IT department. The problems we run into time and again are
software related problems. When we installed 8.0 four years ago, we were
sold on many functions that simply do not operate as advertised. 8.0 was an
unstable environmental and would freeze up and require end-user reboots at
least once a day. We migrated to 8.03 and the environment has been much more
stable but then we had to operate for four months because the configurator
did not function. Epicor finally released a patch to fix the configurator,
but with that patch they managed to break something else. This has been
on-going with Epicor. We just upgraded to 8.03.408B to try and fix a couple
of A/R issues. As usual, the patch did fix the A/R issues, but now the “Get
Methods” function of Vantage takes 5-10 MINUTES when it use to take 1-2
SECONDS. Same hardware, same methods, new patch.

Yes I agree that you must have the proper hardware and maintain the hardware
in the appropriate environment, but our problems generally relate to the
Epicor Software.

From: vantage@yahoogroups .com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups .com] On Behalf
Of Chris Thompson
Sent: Monday, January 18, 2010 7:36 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups .com
Subject: Re: [Vantage] Re: Epicor 9 and Moving from Progress to MS SQL

I thnk I may disagree a little here.

98% of our calls logged with support are genuine problems with the Epicor
product. Unless we trained up somebody to understand every single working of
the product (in which case they would probably uproot and move on to a job
where they will get lots mor money).

Unless you are wanting a lot more out of Epicor (by attacking the SQL from
the back end - which we dont want), then it is pointless us having 2-3
people with a full understanding of everything that makes Epicor work.

Granted, people need good IT support and infrastructure in place, but at the
end of the day our business is doing what we do, not running fixing a
computer software. I dont think there is any harm in having people who know
what they are doing with servers/PCs/ epicor, but a line has to be drawn at
some point, before the company changes into an IT company instead of a
manufacturing company.

____________ _________ _________ __
From: Vic Drecchio <vic.drecchio@ timco.aero <mailto:vic. drecchio%
40timco.aero> >
To: vantage@yahoogroups .com <mailto:vantage% 40yahoogroups. com>
Sent: Thu, 14 January, 2010 17:44:12
Subject: RE: [Vantage] Re: Epicor 9 and Moving from Progress to MS SQL

Jared, that's hilarious... and you are so true. You have no idea how
many Vantage customers out there are just like that: With no IT
department.

I find it amusing that a company would spend the significant dollars on
an enterprise IT software system such as Vantage and NOT invest money in
their IT staffing to support and evolve the system.

Frankly, I think that's one of the reasons why Support gets such a
lashing all the time from customers. These non-IT staffed companies
have this belief that Epicor Support is there in lieu of an IT dept or
resource. Epicor Support isn't there to serve in an Admin capacity for
a customer.

It's like buying a mega yacht and not hiring a crew to maintain her.
"Duh"

When I consulted with Epicor I arrived many times at a customer site to
find the server in the breakroom on the counter next to the coffee pot
on the same circuit and it was 80 degrees in the breakroom. Or the
server is out on the shop floor "safely" tucked into a corner somewhere
under a thick coating of shop dust/dirt.

But this ultimately may not be the customers' fault. I think sometimes
Epicor Sales sells Vantage as an entity that requires little or no
admin.

If a customer is very simple in their business model and is small in
user-count, then perhaps you could get away without a staffer. Less
than 10 or 15 users... *maybe*.

It's only the ignorance of the company's management that believes they
can limp along without IT. You buy something like this you should
budget for a resource to provide admin and future enhancements for your
business. Otherwise, if you can't afford to do this, then wait until
you can.

-----Original Message-----
From: vantage@yahoogroups .com [mailto:vantage@ yahoogroups .com] On Behalf
Of Jared Allmond
Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2010 9:11 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups .com
Subject: [Vantage] Re: Epicor 9 and Moving from Progress to MS SQL

+1 on everything Vic said. If you have a knowledgeable person, SQL is
great. I met some people at Perspectives 09 whose companies run the
Progress version who don't even have an IT department. A Vantage
'superuser' acts like a sys admin. If you are in this scenario I
wouldn't recommend going to SQL. The ability to make SQL Views is very
useful and speedy compared to BAQs. I personally try to avoid triggers,
but to each his own. You do need plenty of horsepower on a SQL box, and
the name of the game is disk I/O. Don't skimp on your storage system.
I will make a small amendment to Vic's statement that Progress also
runs. Well it does and doesn't. The Progress AppServer still runs (as
it would on either version) but if you configure things properly you
don't need to run the Progress DB (by default it does run). Vic is
correct that the DB is just a pass-thru to the SQL tables.
____________ _________ __
Jared Allmond
IT Systems Administrator
Wright Coating Technologies
jallmond@wrightcoat ing.com<mailto: jallmond@ wrightcoat ing.com>
voice: 269.344.8195
direct: 269.341.4353
fax: 269.344.3007

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

------------ --------- --------- ------

Useful links for the Yahoo!Groups Vantage Board are: ( Note: You must
have already linked your email address to a yahoo id to enable access. )
(1) To access the Files Section of our Yahoo!Group for Report Builder
and Crystal Reports and other 'goodies', please goto:
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/vantage/ files/.
(2) To search through old msg's goto:
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/vantage/ messages
(3) To view links to Vendors that provide Vantage services goto:
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/vantage/ linksYahoo! Groups Links

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
That makes more sense.

I agree, people with no or limited internal support are treading on thin ice. They mustnt realise how important their IT system is for the running of the business.

We have 3 of us who did the system admin course and are pretty clued up with minor fault finding in Epicor. For non-Epicor there are two of us who have good understanding of all things IT. Not saying we can write sql queries etc, but we can keep the systems going.

Then for things which are either out of our hands or we are to busy to handle we have a support contract with an IT support company who look after our hardware, backups etc.

We dont specifically have an IT department. Some of our trained peopls work in production etc, as IT isnt a full time job in our company, but if there is a problem, we can generally jump on it straight away and at least try to fix it.




________________________________
From: Vic Drecchio <vic.drecchio@...>
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Mon, 18 January, 2010 14:33:27
Subject: RE: [Vantage] Re: Epicor 9 and Moving from Progress to MS SQL

Â
Chris, if you have ONE person knowledgeable about the technical side of Vantage/Vista then you are better off than probably 80% of the client base out there. Having 2-3 people supporting Epicor is not necessary unless you are a larger customer with 50+ total Epicor users with a thirsty user base in regards to BI while running many complicated modules (IQS, PLM, etc).

I said there are many companies out there without *any* IT staffing internally. Not just support related to Epicor, but IT support, period. No IT dept. The guy working the lathe on the shop floor is the designated quasi-IT department because he replaced a hard drive in his home PC once.

98% of my calls logged with support are legitimate issues with the product, too. But I may call Support on average of once every 5-6 weeks.

There are customers out there that call Support multiple times weekly and attempt to log calls using Vantage/Vista as the scapegoat. Trust me, I've seen it first hand. There are customers out there that have all their users directly call Epicor Support without someone first attempting to resolve the problem internally.

These are some calls Epicor Support receives:

"My computer won't boot today, it freezes before I can even log in to Windows; the last thing I was using was Vantage."

"My computer says I have infected files, what should I do?"

"I need to get this report into Excel, how do I do that?"

"I applied [Microsoft] updates to my computer and now Vantage won't work."

"We had a power outage and the server running Vantage crashed and now users cannot log into Vantage."

Those are examples of things that should be resolved internally with a company's own IT dept. Proper general-IT staffing (at a minimum) is necessary. I never stated that you needed an internal Epicor Support department 3 people deep.

-----Original Message-----
From: vantage@yahoogroups .com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups .com] On Behalf Of Chris Thompson
Sent: Monday, January 18, 2010 8:36 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups .com
Subject: Re: [Vantage] Re: Epicor 9 and Moving from Progress to MS SQL

I thnk I may disagree a little here.

98% of our calls logged with support are genuine problems with the Epicor product. Unless we trained up somebody to understand every single working of the product (in which case they would probably uproot and move on to a job where they will get lots mor money).

Unless you are wanting a lot more out of Epicor (by attacking the SQL from the back end - which we dont want), then it is pointless us having 2-3 people with a full understanding of everything that makes Epicor work.

Granted, people need good IT support and infrastructure in place, but at the end of the day our business is doing what we do, not running fixing a computer software. I dont think there is any harm in having people who know what they are doing with servers/PCs/ epicor, but a line has to be drawn at some point, before the company changes into an IT company instead of a manufacturing company.

____________ _________ _________ __
From: Vic Drecchio <vic.drecchio@ timco.aero>
To: vantage@yahoogroups .com
Sent: Thu, 14 January, 2010 17:44:12
Subject: RE: [Vantage] Re: Epicor 9 and Moving from Progress to MS SQL

Â
Jared, that's hilarious... and you are so true. You have no idea how
many Vantage customers out there are just like that: With no IT
department.

I find it amusing that a company would spend the significant dollars on
an enterprise IT software system such as Vantage and NOT invest money in
their IT staffing to support and evolve the system.

Frankly, I think that's one of the reasons why Support gets such a
lashing all the time from customers. These non-IT staffed companies
have this belief that Epicor Support is there in lieu of an IT dept or
resource. Epicor Support isn't there to serve in an Admin capacity for
a customer.

It's like buying a mega yacht and not hiring a crew to maintain her.
"Duh"

When I consulted with Epicor I arrived many times at a customer site to
find the server in the breakroom on the counter next to the coffee pot
on the same circuit and it was 80 degrees in the breakroom. Or the
server is out on the shop floor "safely" tucked into a corner somewhere
under a thick coating of shop dust/dirt.

But this ultimately may not be the customers' fault. I think sometimes
Epicor Sales sells Vantage as an entity that requires little or no
admin.

If a customer is very simple in their business model and is small in
user-count, then perhaps you could get away without a staffer. Less
than 10 or 15 users... *maybe*.

It's only the ignorance of the company's management that believes they
can limp along without IT. You buy something like this you should
budget for a resource to provide admin and future enhancements for your
business. Otherwise, if you can't afford to do this, then wait until
you can.

-----Original Message-----
From: vantage@yahoogroups .com [mailto:vantage@ yahoogroups .com] On Behalf
Of Jared Allmond
Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2010 9:11 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups .com
Subject: [Vantage] Re: Epicor 9 and Moving from Progress to MS SQL

+1 on everything Vic said. If you have a knowledgeable person, SQL is
great. I met some people at Perspectives 09 whose companies run the
Progress version who don't even have an IT department. A Vantage
'superuser' acts like a sys admin. If you are in this scenario I
wouldn't recommend going to SQL. The ability to make SQL Views is very
useful and speedy compared to BAQs. I personally try to avoid triggers,
but to each his own. You do need plenty of horsepower on a SQL box, and
the name of the game is disk I/O. Don't skimp on your storage system.
I will make a small amendment to Vic's statement that Progress also
runs. Well it does and doesn't. The Progress AppServer still runs (as
it would on either version) but if you configure things properly you
don't need to run the Progress DB (by default it does run). Vic is
correct that the DB is just a pass-thru to the SQL tables.
____________ _________ __
Jared Allmond
IT Systems Administrator
Wright Coating Technologies
jallmond@wrightcoat ing.com<mailto: jallmond@ wrightcoat ing.com>
voice: 269.344.8195
direct: 269.341.4353
fax: 269.344.3007

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------------ --------- --------- ------

Useful links for the Yahoo!Groups Vantage Board are: ( Note: You must
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(1) To access the Files Section of our Yahoo!Group for Report Builder
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(3) To view links to Vendors that provide Vantage services goto:
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------------ --------- --------- ------

Useful links for the Yahoo!Groups Vantage Board are: ( Note: You must have already linked your email address to a yahoo id to enable access. )
(1) To access the Files Section of our Yahoo!Group for Report Builder and Crystal Reports and other 'goodies', please goto: http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/vantage/ files/.
(2) To search through old msg's goto: http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/vantage/ messages
(3) To view links to Vendors that provide Vantage services goto: http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/vantage/ linksYahoo! Groups Links







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