Upgrade from Vantage 8.04 Epicor 9.xx

9.04.506b

--- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, Chris Thompson <chriselectrix@...> wrote:
>
> Which version of 9.04 are you aiming towards?
>
> ÂÂ
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: rlsand50 <bob.sanders@...>
> To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Thu, 9 September, 2010 15:02:02
> Subject: [Vantage] Upgrade from Vantage 8.04 Epicor 9.xx
>
> ÂÂ
> All, we are on a upgrade project with "Go Live" set for October 1st from Vantage
> 8.04 to Epicor 9.04. We still have serious issues with the software and have
> support tickets in. This has been a very long journey and wanted to get feedback
> from the group as to your opinions of upgrading to E9.xx. Please share any
> successes or issues that you have had on the upgrade - I would appreciate any
> advice we can get.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
All, we are on a upgrade project with "Go Live" set for October 1st from Vantage 8.04 to Epicor 9.04. We still have serious issues with the software and have support tickets in. This has been a very long journey and wanted to get feedback from the group as to your opinions of upgrading to E9.xx. Please share any successes or issues that you have had on the upgrade - I would appreciate any advice we can get.
Which version of 9.04 are you aiming towards?

Â



________________________________
From: rlsand50 <bob.sanders@...>
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thu, 9 September, 2010 15:02:02
Subject: [Vantage] Upgrade from Vantage 8.04 Epicor 9.xx

Â
All, we are on a upgrade project with "Go Live" set for October 1st from Vantage
8.04 to Epicor 9.04. We still have serious issues with the software and have
support tickets in. This has been a very long journey and wanted to get feedback
from the group as to your opinions of upgrading to E9.xx. Please share any
successes or issues that you have had on the upgrade - I would appreciate any
advice we can get.







[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Is there a way to get a list of all off the E9.05 SCR pending. Seems silly that each customer has find them all the hard way.

--- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, Chris Thompson <chriselectrix@...> wrote:
>
> Which version of 9.04 are you aiming towards?
>
> ÂÂ
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: rlsand50 <bob.sanders@...>
> To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Thu, 9 September, 2010 15:02:02
> Subject: [Vantage] Upgrade from Vantage 8.04 Epicor 9.xx
>
> ÂÂ
> All, we are on a upgrade project with "Go Live" set for October 1st from Vantage
> 8.04 to Epicor 9.04. We still have serious issues with the software and have
> support tickets in. This has been a very long journey and wanted to get feedback
> from the group as to your opinions of upgrading to E9.xx. Please share any
> successes or issues that you have had on the upgrade - I would appreciate any
> advice we can get.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
I'm laughing through the tears. We are mid-course installing 9.05.xxx after
an upgrade journey that would qualify as a Opus of Tragic Comedy had it been
an operetta.



We started on the premise that we would convert 8.03.407B to 9.04 to 9.05 to
9.05.600 to establish a prototype which we would evaluate how stable 9.05
was before moving the production system.



We asked Epicor id Server 2008 R2 was supported and were told "yes". Not
exactly, 9.05 runs on the R2 version but Epicor Support only runs on R1.
When we had deadly errors converting the data from 9.04 to 9.05 it took an
additional 2 weeks to learn that the database from our R2 site was
unreadable by Support since they only run on R1.



At that point we had invested 12 weeks of constant struggle with many, many
calls to Support in an effort to overcome one problem after another.



Finally we reached a point that the application worked in the 9.05.600B2
environment but only with newly entered data. None of the historical data
could be processed. The problem had to do with currency identification that
screwed up all of the converted data. That's when we shipped a copy of the
database to Epicor and found out that R2 was in fact non-supportable.



Then thankfully I had a motorcycle accident and broke my hip and pelvis..it
was an excellent excuse to just put E9 into a dark room, close and lock the
door.



In October we will again try to convert the 9.04 database into 9.05.crap,
whatever version there is.and try to again get back to the point that we can
have Support read the database to see why the converted data is inoperable.



I expect we'll have a working model just about the time I'm ready for my hip
replacement.



If you have a choice between E9 or a broken hip, I recommend the broken hip.



Robert Carlson

Flanagan Industries



From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
rlsand50
Sent: Thursday, September 09, 2010 10:02 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Vantage] Upgrade from Vantage 8.04 Epicor 9.xx





All, we are on a upgrade project with "Go Live" set for October 1st from
Vantage 8.04 to Epicor 9.04. We still have serious issues with the software
and have support tickets in. This has been a very long journey and wanted to
get feedback from the group as to your opinions of upgrading to E9.xx.
Please share any successes or issues that you have had on the upgrade - I
would appreciate any advice we can get.





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Good luck with that one. I have been asking for 18 plus years.......







From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Bryan
Sent: Thursday, September 09, 2010 1:15 PM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Vantage] Re: Upgrade from Vantage 8.04 Epicor 9.xx





Is there a way to get a list of all off the E9.05 SCR pending. Seems silly that each customer has find them all the hard way.

--- In vantage@yahoogroups.com <mailto:vantage%40yahoogroups.com> , Chris Thompson <chriselectrix@...> wrote:
>
> Which version of 9.04 are you aiming towards?
>
> Â
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: rlsand50 <bob.sanders@...>
> To: vantage@yahoogroups.com <mailto:vantage%40yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Thu, 9 September, 2010 15:02:02
> Subject: [Vantage] Upgrade from Vantage 8.04 Epicor 9.xx
>
> Â
> All, we are on a upgrade project with "Go Live" set for October 1st from Vantage
> 8.04 to Epicor 9.04. We still have serious issues with the software and have
> support tickets in. This has been a very long journey and wanted to get feedback
> from the group as to your opinions of upgrading to E9.xx. Please share any
> successes or issues that you have had on the upgrade - I would appreciate any
> advice we can get.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>





---------------------------------
This e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential and
privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient,
please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete this
e-mail and destroy any copies. Any dissemination or use of this
information by a person other than the intended recipient is
unauthorized and may be illegal.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Bryan,
I too have suggested this enough times (even at Sr. Mgmt levels within EPICOR) to know that they have no intention of ever supporting this very basic customer request. I am generally considered to be an optomist but I have resorted to accepting the fact that our company will never receive the level of baseline support from EPICOR that we expect.

We recently put up 8.03.409C in a test environment only to find an alarming number of glaring bugs on a number of screens. Things such as drop down selection boxes that appear in the middle of a screen that aren't just out of place; they shouldn'g even be on the screen at all.

We are so very disapointed that EPICOR doesn't proactively notify customers of these bugs in advance and push the fix out automatically. I can't understand why it is acceptable to knowningly let each and every customer that passes through each release during their upgrade path to step in every pothole on their own when it can be prevented. I can't see any up-side to their current strategy.

There are so many customers that have great ideas on how to improve the process and the product. I only wish there were some receptive listeners. It would make for a stronger product with an improved value proposition and everyone would win.





--- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, "Bryan" <bmseekins@...> wrote:
>
> Is there a way to get a list of all off the E9.05 SCR pending. Seems silly that each customer has find them all the hard way.
>
> --- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, Chris Thompson <chriselectrix@> wrote:
> >
> > Which version of 9.04 are you aiming towards?
> >
> > ÂÂ
> >
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> > From: rlsand50 <bob.sanders@>
> > To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
> > Sent: Thu, 9 September, 2010 15:02:02
> > Subject: [Vantage] Upgrade from Vantage 8.04 Epicor 9.xx
> >
> > ÂÂ
> > All, we are on a upgrade project with "Go Live" set for October 1st from Vantage
> > 8.04 to Epicor 9.04. We still have serious issues with the software and have
> > support tickets in. This has been a very long journey and wanted to get feedback
> > from the group as to your opinions of upgrading to E9.xx. Please share any
> > successes or issues that you have had on the upgrade - I would appreciate any
> > advice we can get.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
>
Wow, dswmaom - does this hit a nerve!

Earlier this year, Epicor decided to disable the "Search CR" (Search Change Request) from EpicWeb; for those of you unfamiliar with it, a customer could search the EpicWeb site for reports of instances of similar issues that you might have been experiencing - basically to confirm that the application had a problem and not you! If there was a same/similar report, you'd know what action Epicor was taking (SCR, one-off patch or no action), which you could then reference in a Support Call - and if there wasn't a report, you'd feel confident about reporting a new issue.

I guess that they didn't want even that small bit of transparency. They really should give their customers a little more credit....



--- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, "dswmaom" <dwalker@...> wrote:
>
> Bryan,
> I too have suggested this enough times (even at Sr. Mgmt levels within EPICOR) to know that they have no intention of ever supporting this very basic customer request. I am generally considered to be an optomist but I have resorted to accepting the fact that our company will never receive the level of baseline support from EPICOR that we expect.
>
> We recently put up 8.03.409C in a test environment only to find an alarming number of glaring bugs on a number of screens. Things such as drop down selection boxes that appear in the middle of a screen that aren't just out of place; they shouldn'g even be on the screen at all.
>
> We are so very disapointed that EPICOR doesn't proactively notify customers of these bugs in advance and push the fix out automatically. I can't understand why it is acceptable to knowningly let each and every customer that passes through each release during their upgrade path to step in every pothole on their own when it can be prevented. I can't see any up-side to their current strategy.
>
> There are so many customers that have great ideas on how to improve the process and the product. I only wish there were some receptive listeners. It would make for a stronger product with an improved value proposition and everyone would win.
>
>
>
>
>
> --- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, "Bryan" <bmseekins@> wrote:
> >
> > Is there a way to get a list of all off the E9.05 SCR pending. Seems silly that each customer has find them all the hard way.
> >
> > --- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, Chris Thompson <chriselectrix@> wrote:
> > >
> > > Which version of 9.04 are you aiming towards?
> > >
> > > ÂÂ
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ________________________________
> > > From: rlsand50 <bob.sanders@>
> > > To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
> > > Sent: Thu, 9 September, 2010 15:02:02
> > > Subject: [Vantage] Upgrade from Vantage 8.04 Epicor 9.xx
> > >
> > > ÂÂ
> > > All, we are on a upgrade project with "Go Live" set for October 1st from Vantage
> > > 8.04 to Epicor 9.04. We still have serious issues with the software and have
> > > support tickets in. This has been a very long journey and wanted to get feedback
> > > from the group as to your opinions of upgrading to E9.xx. Please share any
> > > successes or issues that you have had on the upgrade - I would appreciate any
> > > advice we can get.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> > >
> >
>
I can't tell you how many hours I spent on the phone with Epicor about a problem
only to find out (sometimes days later) that it was a known problem, oh and by
the way a one off patch is available. Very frustrating and time consuming.
Â
Another very frustrating thing is Epicor support's lack of knowledge concerning
their own product. I can't tell you how many times I've asked a simple question
like "where does this data come from", or "how is this field populated" just to
have my request logged and forgotten about. There has been many times where I
have gotten my answer almost immediately from this users group and days later
when Epicor got back to me with a totally incomprehensible answer I had to
explain to them what the solution was.
Â
I guess what really frustrates me is that Vantage is a really good product. It
offers a level of customability over any other software product I ever used.Â
But with such poor support, and buggy releases it is extremely hard to defend
it, and until Epicor's policy and practices change I could never recommend it to
another company.
Â


________________________________
From: dswmaom <dwalker@...>
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thu, September 9, 2010 5:16:15 PM
Subject: [Vantage] Re: Upgrade from Vantage 8.04 Epicor 9.xx

Â
Bryan,
I too have suggested this enough times (even at Sr. Mgmt levels within EPICOR)
to know that they have no intention of ever supporting this very basic customer
request. I am generally considered to be an optomist but I have resorted to
accepting the fact that our company will never receive the level of baseline
support from EPICOR that we expect.


We recently put up 8.03.409C in a test environment only to find an alarming
number of glaring bugs on a number of screens. Things such as drop down
selection boxes that appear in the middle of a screen that aren't just out of
place; they shouldn'g even be on the screen at all.

We are so very disapointed that EPICOR doesn't proactively notify customers of
these bugs in advance and push the fix out automatically. I can't understand why
it is acceptable to knowningly let each and every customer that passes through
each release during their upgrade path to step in every pothole on their own
when it can be prevented. I can't see any up-side to their current strategy.


There are so many customers that have great ideas on how to improve the process
and the product. I only wish there were some receptive listeners. It would make
for a stronger product with an improved value proposition and everyone would
win.


--- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, "Bryan" <bmseekins@...> wrote:
>
> Is there a way to get a list of all off the E9.05 SCR pending. Seems silly that
>each customer has find them all the hard way.
>
> --- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, Chris Thompson <chriselectrix@> wrote:
> >
> > Which version of 9.04 are you aiming towards?
> >
> > ÂÂ
> >
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> > From: rlsand50 <bob.sanders@>
> > To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
> > Sent: Thu, 9 September, 2010 15:02:02
> > Subject: [Vantage] Upgrade from Vantage 8.04 Epicor 9.xx
> >
> > ÂÂ
> > All, we are on a upgrade project with "Go Live" set for October 1st from
>Vantage
>
> > 8.04 to Epicor 9.04. We still have serious issues with the software and have

> > support tickets in. This has been a very long journey and wanted to get
>feedback
>
> > from the group as to your opinions of upgrading to E9.xx. Please share any
> > successes or issues that you have had on the upgrade - I would appreciate any
>
> > advice we can get.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
>







[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Fascinating,
And I thought we were the only ones struggling with E9 upgrade and the lousy support Epicor provides to its customers.
For reference - We are in the process of going live onto E9.05.600c from 8.03.409 and running all on 2008 (no R2) SQL 64-bit split server/apps.
Before I start, I hear from Epicor that they are developing a conversion path from 803 to 905 skipping 904 (about 2 years late). Also, I would not recommend to anyone these days on going to 904 as it seems to be more of a stepping version to what should be the longer term version (905)
We too went through several conversion issues including the currency issues and other unexplained problems in the GL structure – and still have open GL issues.
We also are experiencing issues with their RDD and the ability to customize ANY of the E9 report definitions – just does not produce the data! - how can a company work with such a product, and yes, many of the calls we made took days and weeks just to find out that they are known issues (but not to the support guy).
Epicor has a broken process and only way it can be fixed is pressure by its customers – there is no contact between support and development and support is constantly complaining about that (to th customers). Documentation is lousy and gets rewritten on the back of Epicor's customers – each time they resolved one of my issues I found a new version of the `Install Guide' correcting they issue I had – and that went for 5-6 version.
I would urge anyone who has time and resources to get the user community organized around the support issue and demand the support we should get based on the very high support cost we pay.

Thanks
Motty


--- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, Steven Gotschall <sgotschall@...> wrote:
>
> I can't tell you how many hours I spent on the phone with Epicor about a problem
> only to find out (sometimes days later) that it was a known problem, oh and by
> the way a one off patch is available. Very frustrating and time consuming.
> ÂÂ
> Another very frustrating thing is Epicor support's lack of knowledge concerning
> their own product. I can't tell you how many times I've asked a simple question
> like "where does this data come from", or "how is this field populated" just to
> have my request logged and forgotten about. There has been many times where I
> have gotten my answer almost immediately from this users group and days later
> when Epicor got back to me with a totally incomprehensible answer I had to
> explain to them what the solution was.
> ÂÂ
> I guess what really frustrates me is that Vantage is a really good product. It
> offers a level of customability over any other software product I ever used.ÂÂ
> But with such poor support, and buggy releases it is extremely hard to defend
> it, and until Epicor's policy and practices change I could never recommend it to
> another company.
> ÂÂ
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: dswmaom <dwalker@...>
> To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Thu, September 9, 2010 5:16:15 PM
> Subject: [Vantage] Re: Upgrade from Vantage 8.04 Epicor 9.xx
>
> ÂÂ
> Bryan,
> I too have suggested this enough times (even at Sr. Mgmt levels within EPICOR)
> to know that they have no intention of ever supporting this very basic customer
> request. I am generally considered to be an optomist but I have resorted to
> accepting the fact that our company will never receive the level of baseline
> support from EPICOR that we expect.
>
>
> We recently put up 8.03.409C in a test environment only to find an alarming
> number of glaring bugs on a number of screens. Things such as drop down
> selection boxes that appear in the middle of a screen that aren't just out of
> place; they shouldn'g even be on the screen at all.
>
> We are so very disapointed that EPICOR doesn't proactively notify customers of
> these bugs in advance and push the fix out automatically. I can't understand why
> it is acceptable to knowningly let each and every customer that passes through
> each release during their upgrade path to step in every pothole on their own
> when it can be prevented. I can't see any up-side to their current strategy.
>
>
> There are so many customers that have great ideas on how to improve the process
> and the product. I only wish there were some receptive listeners. It would make
> for a stronger product with an improved value proposition and everyone would
> win.
>
>
> --- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, "Bryan" <bmseekins@> wrote:
> >
> > Is there a way to get a list of all off the E9.05 SCR pending. Seems silly that
> >each customer has find them all the hard way.
> >
> > --- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, Chris Thompson <chriselectrix@> wrote:
> > >
> > > Which version of 9.04 are you aiming towards?
> > >
> > > ÂÂÂ
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ________________________________
> > > From: rlsand50 <bob.sanders@>
> > > To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
> > > Sent: Thu, 9 September, 2010 15:02:02
> > > Subject: [Vantage] Upgrade from Vantage 8.04 Epicor 9.xx
> > >
> > > ÂÂÂ
> > > All, we are on a upgrade project with "Go Live" set for October 1st from
> >Vantage
> >
> > > 8.04 to Epicor 9.04. We still have serious issues with the software and have
>
> > > support tickets in. This has been a very long journey and wanted to get
> >feedback
> >
> > > from the group as to your opinions of upgrading to E9.xx. Please share any
> > > successes or issues that you have had on the upgrade - I would appreciate any
> >
> > > advice we can get.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> > >
> >
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
I havent heard of one. I dont understand why, if they tested the upgrade
thoroughly before releasing them to the public, there are always so many bugs in
the patches.

It seems like it is the customer who is the beta tester every time.




________________________________
From: Keith Mailloux <keith.mailloux@...>
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thu, 9 September, 2010 20:30:47
Subject: RE: [Vantage] Re: Upgrade from Vantage 8.04 Epicor 9.xx

Â
Good luck with that one. I have been asking for 18 plus years.......

From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
Bryan
Sent: Thursday, September 09, 2010 1:15 PM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Vantage] Re: Upgrade from Vantage 8.04 Epicor 9.xx

Is there a way to get a list of all off the E9.05 SCR pending. Seems silly that
each customer has find them all the hard way.

--- In vantage@yahoogroups.com <mailto:vantage%40yahoogroups.com> , Chris
Thompson <chriselectrix@...> wrote:
>
> Which version of 9.04 are you aiming towards?
>
> Â
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: rlsand50 <bob.sanders@...>
> To: vantage@yahoogroups.com <mailto:vantage%40yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Thu, 9 September, 2010 15:02:02
> Subject: [Vantage] Upgrade from Vantage 8.04 Epicor 9.xx
>
> Â
> All, we are on a upgrade project with "Go Live" set for October 1st from
>Vantage
>
> 8.04 to Epicor 9.04. We still have serious issues with the software and have
> support tickets in. This has been a very long journey and wanted to get
>feedback
>
> from the group as to your opinions of upgrading to E9.xx. Please share any
> successes or issues that you have had on the upgrade - I would appreciate any
> advice we can get.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

---------------------------------
This e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential and
privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient,
please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete this
e-mail and destroy any copies. Any dissemination or use of this
information by a person other than the intended recipient is
unauthorized and may be illegal.

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







[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> If you have a choice between E9 or a broken hip, I recommend the broken hip.

I had to laugh despite myself. As an old-time motorcycle rider myself I feel for you having broken your hip, and I have heard this is painful. I wish you the best for your continued recovery.

Working with Epicor Vantage as a consultant since 2002 it's my observation that the company has never really controlled their QA processes in that time. This first became painfully apparent when the woeful Version 8.0 was released. The fact that such a product could have gone GA was and continues to be a major indictment of the way this public company does business. Now with the major feature release E9 adding so much financial and other functionality, we are back to those days again. Just today I was assisting a client trying to install the E9.05 64-bit edition and the installer could not even find the SQL instance...

Here's what it means in practical terms: If 9.05 goes GA in Q2 2010, then do not begin to install it until Q2 2011. What's more if you intend to upgrade from 8, do not so much as attempt it before Q2 2011.

Prospective Customers have to really take a step back and assess the product's fit for their business based on the installed-base version of today, not version 9.

We can speculate that the reason Epicor have these quality problems is that the development team is not sufficiently centralised, not sufficiently well paid, and not valued very highly by Epicor.

It is my experience that the consultants who bring in the service dollars are prized, as are the salespeople who make the deals.

How else to explain that these are the people we continue to see at the expensive partner conferences in Orlando, New Orleans and the Gold Coast? Developers? They just talk out of turn, scare away the leads and make you look ignorant! Who let them out of the back room?

The sales consultants are the ones continually pressing for the premature release of new features. I respect that they bring a lot of valuable competitive feedback and creativity back to the developers, but they are a part of the QA problem today.

My advice to Epicor (who may be listening): Centralise the development teams and stop selling the product on features which are not fully baked.
What kind of support costs do you pay in the USA? For how many users?




________________________________
From: mseal <mseal@...>
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Fri, 10 September, 2010 2:38:30
Subject: [Vantage] Re: Upgrade from Vantage 8.04 Epicor 9.xx

Â
Fascinating,
And I thought we were the only ones struggling with E9 upgrade and the lousy
support Epicor provides to its customers.
For reference - We are in the process of going live onto E9.05.600c from
8.03.409 and running all on 2008 (no R2) SQL 64-bit split server/apps.
Before I start, I hear from Epicor that they are developing a conversion path
from 803 to 905 skipping 904 (about 2 years late). Also, I would not recommend
to anyone these days on going to 904 as it seems to be more of a stepping
version to what should be the longer term version (905)
We too went through several conversion issues including the currency issues and
other unexplained problems in the GL structure – and still have open GL issues.
We also are experiencing issues with their RDD and the ability to customize ANY
of the E9 report definitions – just does not produce the data! - how can a
company work with such a product, and yes, many of the calls we made took days
and weeks just to find out that they are known issues (but not to the support
guy).
Epicor has a broken process and only way it can be fixed is pressure by its
customers – there is no contact between support and development and support is
constantly complaining about that (to th customers). Documentation is lousy and
gets rewritten on the back of Epicor's customers – each time they resolved one
of my issues I found a new version of the `Install Guide' correcting they issue
I had – and that went for 5-6 version.
I would urge anyone who has time and resources to get the user community
organized around the support issue and demand the support we should get based on
the very high support cost we pay.

Thanks
Motty

--- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, Steven Gotschall <sgotschall@...> wrote:
>
> I can't tell you how many hours I spent on the phone with Epicor about a
>problem
>
> only to find out (sometimes days later) that it was a known problem, oh and by

> the way a one off patch is available. Very frustrating and time consuming.
> ÂÂ
> Another very frustrating thing is Epicor support's lack of knowledge concerning
>
> their own product. I can't tell you how many times I've asked a simple
>question
>
> like "where does this data come from", or "how is this field populated" just to
>
> have my request logged and forgotten about. There has been many times where I
>
> have gotten my answer almost immediately from this users group and days later
> when Epicor got back to me with a totally incomprehensible answer I had to
> explain to them what the solution was.
> ÂÂ
> I guess what really frustrates me is that Vantage is a really good product.ÂÂ
>It
>
> offers a level of customability over any other software product I ever used.ÂÂ

> But with such poor support, and buggy releases it is extremely hard to defend
> it, and until Epicor's policy and practices change I could never recommend it
>to
>
> another company.
> ÂÂ
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: dswmaom <dwalker@...>
> To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Thu, September 9, 2010 5:16:15 PM
> Subject: [Vantage] Re: Upgrade from Vantage 8.04 Epicor 9.xx
>
> ÂÂ
> Bryan,
> I too have suggested this enough times (even at Sr. Mgmt levels within EPICOR)

> to know that they have no intention of ever supporting this very basic customer
>
> request. I am generally considered to be an optomist but I have resorted to
> accepting the fact that our company will never receive the level of baseline
> support from EPICOR that we expect.
>
>
> We recently put up 8.03.409C in a test environment only to find an alarming
> number of glaring bugs on a number of screens. Things such as drop down
> selection boxes that appear in the middle of a screen that aren't just out of
> place; they shouldn'g even be on the screen at all.
>
> We are so very disapointed that EPICOR doesn't proactively notify customers of

> these bugs in advance and push the fix out automatically. I can't understand
>why
>
> it is acceptable to knowningly let each and every customer that passes through

> each release during their upgrade path to step in every pothole on their own
> when it can be prevented. I can't see any up-side to their current strategy.
>
>
> There are so many customers that have great ideas on how to improve the process
>
> and the product. I only wish there were some receptive listeners. It would make
>
> for a stronger product with an improved value proposition and everyone would
> win.
>
>
> --- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, "Bryan" <bmseekins@> wrote:
> >
> > Is there a way to get a list of all off the E9.05 SCR pending. Seems silly
>that
>
> >each customer has find them all the hard way.
> >
> > --- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, Chris Thompson <chriselectrix@> wrote:
> > >
> > > Which version of 9.04 are you aiming towards?
> > >
> > > ÂÂÂ
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ________________________________
> > > From: rlsand50 <bob.sanders@>
> > > To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
> > > Sent: Thu, 9 September, 2010 15:02:02
> > > Subject: [Vantage] Upgrade from Vantage 8.04 Epicor 9.xx
> > >
> > > ÂÂÂ
> > > All, we are on a upgrade project with "Go Live" set for October 1st from
> >Vantage
> >
> > > 8.04 to Epicor 9.04. We still have serious issues with the software and
>have
>
>
> > > support tickets in. This has been a very long journey and wanted to get
> >feedback
> >
> > > from the group as to your opinions of upgrading to E9.xx. Please share any

> > > successes or issues that you have had on the upgrade - I would appreciate
>any
>
> >
> > > advice we can get.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > [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]
I am also a user that was very unhappy about the removal of Search CRs. I was logged onto EpicWeb all day everyday when it was part of support. It was often more valuable to me that the support staff! Since that option has been removed, I might log onto EpicWeb once or twice a month for a few minutes. When I was battling with Epicor about the Search CR option I was told they were working on a "new and improved version of Search CR". I was just informed that project has been pushed back to Q4 but was assured it was NOT dead and they were still planning on moving forward with it. I'm trying to be optimistic, but like most of you feel like I've been misled and let down often enough that I'll only really believe it when it happens!

Sue

--- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, "laraines422" <laraines422@...> wrote:
>
> Wow, dswmaom - does this hit a nerve!
>
> Earlier this year, Epicor decided to disable the "Search CR" (Search Change Request) from EpicWeb; for those of you unfamiliar with it, a customer could search the EpicWeb site for reports of instances of similar issues that you might have been experiencing - basically to confirm that the application had a problem and not you! If there was a same/similar report, you'd know what action Epicor was taking (SCR, one-off patch or no action), which you could then reference in a Support Call - and if there wasn't a report, you'd feel confident about reporting a new issue.
>
> I guess that they didn't want even that small bit of transparency. They really should give their customers a little more credit....
>
>
>
> --- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, "dswmaom" <dwalker@> wrote:
> >
> > Bryan,
> > I too have suggested this enough times (even at Sr. Mgmt levels within EPICOR) to know that they have no intention of ever supporting this very basic customer request. I am generally considered to be an optomist but I have resorted to accepting the fact that our company will never receive the level of baseline support from EPICOR that we expect.
> >
> > We recently put up 8.03.409C in a test environment only to find an alarming number of glaring bugs on a number of screens. Things such as drop down selection boxes that appear in the middle of a screen that aren't just out of place; they shouldn'g even be on the screen at all.
> >
> > We are so very disapointed that EPICOR doesn't proactively notify customers of these bugs in advance and push the fix out automatically. I can't understand why it is acceptable to knowningly let each and every customer that passes through each release during their upgrade path to step in every pothole on their own when it can be prevented. I can't see any up-side to their current strategy.
> >
> > There are so many customers that have great ideas on how to improve the process and the product. I only wish there were some receptive listeners. It would make for a stronger product with an improved value proposition and everyone would win.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, "Bryan" <bmseekins@> wrote:
> > >
> > > Is there a way to get a list of all off the E9.05 SCR pending. Seems silly that each customer has find them all the hard way.
> > >
> > > --- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, Chris Thompson <chriselectrix@> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Which version of 9.04 are you aiming towards?
> > > >
> > > > ÂÂ
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > ________________________________
> > > > From: rlsand50 <bob.sanders@>
> > > > To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
> > > > Sent: Thu, 9 September, 2010 15:02:02
> > > > Subject: [Vantage] Upgrade from Vantage 8.04 Epicor 9.xx
> > > >
> > > > ÂÂ
> > > > All, we are on a upgrade project with "Go Live" set for October 1st from Vantage
> > > > 8.04 to Epicor 9.04. We still have serious issues with the software and have
> > > > support tickets in. This has been a very long journey and wanted to get feedback
> > > > from the group as to your opinions of upgrading to E9.xx. Please share any
> > > > successes or issues that you have had on the upgrade - I would appreciate any
> > > > advice we can get.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> > > >
> > >
> >
>
> We too went through several conversion issues including the currency issues and other unexplained problems in the GL structure –

One of the things we liked about Vantage was the limited number of
modules compared to other packages that we reviewed. This has changed
over the last few years and the code complexity to handle every
variation of every possible package combination has led to bugs like
the currency issues we had.

As for the search function, I hope it returns. If a user can log on
and research an error, it can only help better utilize the customer
support staff. I'd hate to think it's a "circle-the-wagons" strategy.
It's foolish to think that they can hide bugs from competitors and/or
prospective users as people can easily post issues to publicly open
forums like the IT Toolbox
(http://erp.ittoolbox.com/groups/technical-functional/epicor-l/) or
the ERP selection group. For the most part, I'd say that users have
been quite loyal to Epicor and it wouldn't be wise to take that for
granted.

I think Alex brings up a good point about development. Epicor is a
software company and the developers are removed from the domain for
which they serve (manufacturing/POS/CRM/etc.). The trend is to push
out new versions and features in order to get new orders. A lot of
money comes from support and referrals. Maybe a little more attention
needs to be paid to the existing base.

For those going to Perspectives, I'd be interested in hearing what
Epicor says about the quality issues, the increased
fragmentation/modularity of the offerings, and the perceived value
proposition for support dollars.

Mark W.