Our finance department is currently using XL connect. I was asked at the end of the day yesterday if when we upgrade we will have any issues or if there is something better out there? So is anyone else using XL connect with Kinetic or any suggestions on things that would work better?
We are plotting our course for an upgrade to Cloud hosted 2023.2. XL Connect is not an option for cloud hosted. Spreadsheet server or Epicor Financial Planner are the two options Epicor recommended to compare.
We are staying on-prem for our upgrade but I will look into those options. Thank you.
Epicor future replacement I think is called Spreadsheet Server some Execs and Seniors from Epicor actually went to work there, hence build a Partnership.
I question if Spreadsheet Server is a real “Future” choice. We are on version 5 of XL Connect and when the company (not Epicor) came out with version 7 they forced customers to buy the product again! (despite maintenance being paid!)
We have argued with Epicor since 2019 without success because they just throw up their hands and say the vendor sets the policy. Strange Epicor would make these people a partner if they wouldn’t stand behind it.
The concept is great but if they won’t standing behind it then I would say avoid it.
We also had XL Connect 5 but moving to Kinetic they are not compatible so we have to find an alternative.
We are looking at just rebuilding the reports in Financial Report Designer native to Epicor currently.
I don’t see why it wouldn’t be compatible, all it is doing is directly reading the SQL database to retrieve the data
I was told XL Connect 7 was compatible but not 5.
That may be true, have you tried connecting it to a newer Kinetic db version? I would be curious if it would just work since it really is only direct SQL queries
I have not attempted it. Would be interesting to see though.
Interested to see how others have fared. It is a big deal to test XL connect becuase we have to break the workstation to test from our test server. The finance people don’t like to be disconnected very long so we need to have a quick turnaround on the testing so waiting for a service ticket is a challenge.
I found one person at Epicor support in Guadalajara that still supports version 5 but I have not contacted her since our 10.2.700 so I might be disappointed.