SyteLine

Pros

This ERP system does everything we need from Customer Service to Supply Chain Management. The user interface is very intuitive, new users get up to speed quickly. The financials have great integration with Excel so our CFO has his financials setup to run easily and changes to them are simple. We are also using the CRM module that comes with the system. It is pretty good, but we are looking at purchasing their full featured CRM. Overall a very good business system.

Cons

Modifications to reports are a bit tough without having a SSRS expert in house. LogicData takes care of any needs in that area for us.

Pros

This software is the core of our business. We use it for all aspects from customer creation, order entry, to manufacturing and A/P. I like the fact that it is multifaceted in that way. We use it to the fullest benefit possible in my opinion. When add-on applications are purchased we can use them in a way that seem seamless to users using the product.

Cons

The thing I like least about SyteLine in our environment is the speed. We are on a version that is not the fastest. It is also a huge undertaking to upgrade to a newer version when necessary. Because we use it so widely where I work, it requires many resources and time!

Alternatives Considered

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to SyteLine

Pros

Very powerful suite of tools that serve broad range of business processes.

Cons

Steep leaning curve. Some legacy GUI steps make use clunky. Very expensive customization.

Pros

Easy navigation and access to data by Users so they can work independently without System Admin help.
We are multi-tenant cloud - monthly software uplifts keep us current without major version upgrades.

Cons

Integration with our business processes was easy as the system was designed in a manner that mostly aligned with our processes. And where it wasn't we either changed processes or we used built in functionality to modify CSI to work closer to our needs. Documentation (help) is sometimes not complete and, therefore, not helpful.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing SyteLine

Reasons for Switching to SyteLine

Pros

I like the ease of personalization and the flexibility of the software out of the box.

Cons

Sometimes Infor releases software before it's really ready for production use.

Alternatives Considered

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to SyteLine

Pros

You can export to excel, this will be required as most the reports or information is not there.

Cons

Limited features very limited. Cannot track efficiency, productivity, shipping. The canned reports are at best atrocious. What is standard on many features just do not exist on this platform.
Something as simple as what's my daily shipping by customer is a special report waiting 1 year for it.
Efficiency is not reportable.

You will need to be good with Excel and learn how to export everything and make your own reports.

On a plus they will make custom forms but it comes at great expense.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing SyteLine

Reasons for Switching to SyteLine

Pros

The thing I like most about this software is that there is no black box. With enough digging, you can always figure out how things are working. This also means that you can modify almost anything in this software. It is also extremely powerful to create your own user "applications" within it. It is great to work with.

Cons

From a development standpoint, the learning curve is steep. Many things you have to figure out on your own so it definitely depends on trial and error. But the good thing about that is that once you have figured it out you won't forget it.

Pros

Syteline is a user friendly ERP solution with a good interface. The forms are self explanatory and easy to use.

Cons

Syteline is an ERP solution that isn't easy to customize, so you need a consultant available to assist in customizations.

Pros

My job is to maintain the parts database for my company, and s/l is an integral part of keeping everything strait. It is simple to navigate through the different screens and robust when following through revisions to apply the proper amount t of material to. Job.

Cons

It has a learning curve that's very steep, you can get lost in the many windows you need open.

Pros

Marketing is good, maybe it might be good for mass production company, but for job order based company, the function, flexibility and etc it doesn't work

Cons

Software has not running in live situation almost 1-2 years training, adjustment, problem solving, and etc. With this software price, its been the worst investment that our company made.

Pros

The Data Collections feature is by far the best experience. This module let us build our own job / job material transaction module outside of CSI. we populate the tables with the required data, and CSI does the rest.

Contrary to other options I find the accounting side built really well (minus reporting) this sucks everywhere), They do have a custom built Office integration module, which makes detailed accounting analysis and customer report building so simple and easy, this makes up for poor reporting design. Our Controller is really happy with the accounting side minus stock reporting.

Cons

Reporting out right sucks.

System Administration requires a lot of hours of trial and error. Not all tables update or stay current automatically. an example would be Qty's allocated to Production. This number in the inventory screen can reflect outdated information and requires an utility to be ran to bring the information up to date. There is no guide as to what fields need to have a utility run, and each field that requires this has it's own utility to correct it. There are 5 we have set to auto run daily just for inventory and time phased.

Error messages are vague at best, the help index is outdated or doesn't give you all the details, or definitions for terms or fields.

Patches are really updates. If there is a known issue you encounter, you need to be really carefully about the patch required to fix it. They don't use patching as a means to correct the issue you have, but as a means to patch and enhance other modules as well.

There are a lot of bugs in the web platform for 9.01 we do not have access to upload documents when creating notes, this is a known bug but requires a full tool set update on the mongoose framework, which would require us to update to a never version of CSI as well.

Customer and Vendor Item Cross References are poorly designed. It makes doing mass updates at contract renewals impossible. I have to pragmatically update the cross references and new expiration dates.

Pros

It's nice that the average user can pull data without too much training, and even turn them into dashboards that usually work. The UI also looks modern and is generally aesthetically pleasing. One of their consultants that helped us set it up was incredibly smart - but I think that helped mask what a poor deal we were getting with this software.

Cons

It's the slowest ERP system I've used by far - they recommended we upgrade our server, but we later discovered that that was not the cause, the slowness was purely in the design. Simple tasks like deleting a job order can result in dozens of popup windows that provide useless information. Order information, available on a one screen view in SAP, may be spread out over up to 5 different forms that are slow and cumbersome to navigate between (just clicking on a different module results in a delay). Their provided warehouse management system is an abomination that is so cumbersome and non-intuitive that we've gone back to doing everything by paper (not Syteline generated paper of course - any update would cost thousands and be null when they roll out the next update). Infor Syteline was not designed to cooperate with a configurator, but they sold it to us linked to one anyway. As a result, many of the modules we paid for are useless or counterproductive. The amount of transactions we are now required to do is a logarithmic increase from what it was with our previous system - to the point that we've added headcount to merely satisfy the system without doing anything real time to reap the benefit. They sold us an error detection feature - but this feature identifies an error and places a small popup on a screen (which our operators will not often notice because they scan so often) but allow the user to continue anyway. In general, there are no other features that I'm aware of that perform error detection in manufacturing like a normal, acceptable ERP system should. There are situations where Infor will automatically generate an incorrect lot - causing variances, thus requiring us to be extra diligent with every transaction. They sold that we would be easily able to retrieve drawings, but later found that there were substantial IT hurdles to jump over to make it available, and when it was, it required so many clicks that none of our operators would voluntarily review the drawings. There are 3 places to store documents, all of which are slow, and it's difficult to drive consistency because each has a necessary place in certain modules. There is a very steep learning curve because many of the modules are not arranged in an intuitive way and often have names that are not helpful to the general workforce that uses it (eg "Unposted Job Transactions"). In some cases, it will allow you to start making updates to something, and when you try to save it, tell you that you can't save it because the record is deadlocked or something. Then, when you try to delete your work or undo what you did to start over, it won't allow you to do that either, requiring you to force close the system. Most forms have a form view on the right and a data view of all of the records on the left - the data view side tends to hide the most valuable information far to the right, which requires sometimes minutes of scrolling. You can reset your column locations to make these more accessible, but it's periodically reset. To add a cherry on top, every week or so, one of my modules will garble and make a majority of the data hidden and the buttons inaccessible. This requires IT to intervene, for many employees, on a regular basis, to combat this ridiculous glitch.

Pros

We have never regretted the decision we took in 2012 to opt for a cloud based service. Not having servers or other hardware on site removes complexity and reduces overall cost of ownership. Infor manages all our data security, backups and the associated maintenance and monthly update patches.

We love the fact that all of the forms are intuitive and export easily to Excel. Users needed very little training on this software.

Cons

Earlier versions of the software (pre 9.10) did not have an adequate reporting toolset to personalise Form reports such as invoices, supplier statements, Accounts Receivable reports etc. This has now largely been fixed with the introduction of Mongoose 10 although further development of this toolset is needed to improve the ease of personalising reports. Furthermore it would be good to have the option to export reports into Excel rather than just having them as a pdf.

Pros

Before meeting with İnfor ( SyteLine ), all processes were followed manually. Document management, stock operations, production management, inventory, production processes are independent and dispersed. He gathered all these processes in a single point in a short time and turned them into the basic building blocks of an up-to-date structure.* A more accurate stock management*Ease of document management and distribution* Order processing and tracking* Shortening and easy management of production processes with APS* Integrated the sub-parts and supplier, sales and purchasing departments.* Inventory management up-to-date and dynamic* Allowing any kind of data transfer and connection.And most importantly, the ease of copying Excel and all other text information in seconds. It is the ease of data transfer that makes it unique from its competitors.

Cons

The resource consumption is quite high and it should improve itself more on the accounting side.

Pros

Syteline was the best choice because of its excellent fit with low-volume / hi-mix manufacturing, adaptability to lean processes, ease of customizing forms & fields, hi performance material planning and support for a hierarchy of more than 1,000 product variations in 5 primary categories and more than 15 individual product codes (sub-categories).
We assemble and test a wide variety of power conversion products (AC to DC is typical) ranging in size from a shoebox to a refrigerator. Production lines average as few as 1 unit a week, to as many as 300 units per week. We build to order, with no finished goods for sale. We can build and ship smaller products as fast as the same day, and larger products in 2-3 business days. Work in process moves so quickly that it doesn't make sense to track it. We backflush the parts when product assembly and test is complete. Our inventory turns range from 6-10 turns per year on lower volume products and 20-25 turns for the highest volume products. Our primary suppliers receive a weekly forecast (custom report derived from material planning data) for the parts they produce. 90% of our material dollars are managed by email based kanbans with 3-5 business day re-supply lead times being typical.
This package should be a top candidate for any low-volume / hi-mix, or complex product manufacturing operation.

Cons

We initially installed the PaceJet shipping module. It was too complicated, hard to support, and not a good fit for us. We ultimately replaced it with another shipping software package.

Would like to see a standard backflushing module that is compatible with average costing that accommodates serialized components.

Pros

Syteline is an effective web based tool to manage inventory, drive demand and track material through production all they way to shipments.

Cons

Syteline does not have the ability to manage well the more nuanced parts of business such as nonconformance's (NCRs), engineering changes (ECNs), process reviews, deviations, supplier relations (PO or Quality issues)

Pros

Lots of features, designed for the metal processing industry, able to handle lots of complexity, easy to create custom reports and to make customisations to suit the company requirements.

Cons

Not as flexible as it could be. We have had a number of issues where we have had to dramatically change our processes to suite SyteLine instead of being able to get SyteLine to handle our processes as they are without having to spend a lot of money on add-ons. Some processes require a lot of manual processes (ie accounts payable), especially when dealing with multiple currencies.

Pros

It is a feature rich, data rich, transparent operating system. Our system is setup as a multi-site globally planned system. This allows sales to see from the top down through the entire supply chain.

Cons

For a company that has a system that relays heavily on customization's, it will be a hard transition to define new business processes to adapt to the CSI processes. CSI customization's are possible but not desired. With CSI in cloud, you may not get any customization's.

Pros

There are many different forms you can access on this software to help you accomplish what you need to get done related to inventory management. It is great that you can export data onto excel files to review your data. It is also great how you can setup multiple sites for each location of your business.

Cons

The amount of time if takes to review each forms ultimately makes it less productive and more difficult to get things done on time and correctly. I also don't like how long it takes for forms inside the software to download which also reduces productivity.

Pros

I like the SQL Server database back-end, it's easy to work with. The "Filter In Place" search capability is super-powerful and can easily act as a basic ad-hoc reporting tool.

Cons

The Syteline9 Dataviews, while they are a neat idea, are not easy to create or modify -- the "IDO"s or Intelligent Data Objects (basically form-based interfaces to underlying tables and queries) are difficult to work with. Infor needs to create a true "drag-and-drop/click-and-drag to relate" interface. As it stands, it looks to be years before I become expert at creating or manipulating Dataviews in their current form. Honestly, it's easier to create an MS Access front-end that links directly to Syteline's back-end database tables, it's much easier to link tables and create custom queries.

Pros

Moldes Medellin Ltda, a division of Ross International, uses a parametric approach to standardize, digitalize and automatically centralize Product Design data from the CAD and Quality Control Records in the SyteLine SQL Database building a very powerful and very well structured database to later automate and simplify: Design Parameters Validation, Scheduling, BOM, Pricing, CNC and CMM Programming, pre-felling Shop Floor Forms, processing Quality Control Data and automatically produce and distribute (via email) SPC reports to customers. It is a digital transformation that brought unprecedented levels of efficiency, but also changed our mindset, fostered further automation and created a virtuous cycle of improvements, that now might bring new business opportunities and sources of revenue.

Cons

I can't really think of anything negative related to SyteLine.

Pros

The ease of use and personalization is my favorite thing about the software. Syteline/CSI is easy to learn and easy to tweak to fit your business needs.

Cons

There are areas of the system that are not designed for companies with high volume, low cost products. Many areas are designed for companies that have 5-10 line items on an order rather than an average of 50, with spikes of more than 300. This can lead to speed issues.

Pros

Modern clean interface and was presented to us that it could resolve all of our issues that our current ERP had. (No one told us that a series of costly enhancements were required)

Cons

The amount of enhancements required to make the software work. The enhancements all add up and furthermore good luck when it comes time to upgrade. The support that you get from Infor directly is pathetic. Example: A fix was implemented in our system to address a major lag issue however the fix broke the paychecks printing module which lead to 3 plus weeks of Info technicians diagnosing the issue without ever fixing it.

Pros

All aspects of the ERP environment have been considered. Perhaps the greatest asset of the tool is the APS functionality. Projecting accurate capable to ship dates to customers in a manufacturing environment is crucial. This tool exceeds all expectations! With accurate BOM, Routing and Inventory Control, the APS system precisely plans and executes for fast-paced environments to assure customer satisfaction. Developing and modifying existing reports is also a great asset to the software. Information that is needed is accessible and informative to make critical business decisions. Modifying the forms, reports and creating new objects is also straight forward.

Cons

The number of forms can become a bit overwhelming if simply fishing around. Having an on-site expert to help navigate and understand the tool is always best.

Pros

Using a database can be extremely complicated but CSI has streamlined the operations so it is easy to use and easy to teach.

Cons

Moving things on the job side is extremely difficult to do. You have to delete the job to move it. Moving things to different operations without unlinking would be extremely helpful.

Pros

The ability of this software to handle large organizational needs, integrate across departments, and produce quality reports is among the best I've seen. I had no crashes or glitches, and it ran fast and smooth in real time.

Cons

The learning curve is dramatic, and requires a lot of commitment from staff and management to get new employees up and running. Integration with other software, even basics like Excel, was questionable and difficult.

Pros

The extensibility provided by the Mongoose toolset allows us to add simple and even complex functionality with zero impact on patching and upgrading. The included functionality is broad, and fits our metal fabrication business very well. The ability to filter data on forms gives the users quick access to just the dataset they need, avoiding IT requests. We really like the Dataview tool for displaying and exporting data without going through the extra steps for running traditional reports. The APS planning engine is terrific.

Cons

We have an on premise installation, and performance at remote sites across the WAN is slower than the site closest to the data center. The built in Financial Reporting tool is very basic. A/P and A/R could use some additional functionality.

Pros

Great for production, sales and inventory management

Cons

Not so good for finance, accounting or managing resources (people or machines).

Pros

We love the flexibility to change things around, add fields, program additional needs and we also love amount of functionality that exists out of the box.

Cons

It isn't super intuitive so the training took us longer than other systems and requires a lot of SOP's.

Pros

Workbenches make it easier to perform some functions but won't fit all company processes. Updates add needed functions

Cons

slow and requires a lot of transactions to do even simple things

Pros

Very Customizable to meet our needs and GREAT Customer Support. Ease of use in transitioning from old software.

Cons

As is with most out of the box software, requires some customizations and some of the financial features are not as robust

Pros

The software is general logical, it fits together and does the job. Options, generally there is more than one way of doing thing. Lots of us make and buy large box's and sell small ones. the software lets you find a path to do this the way you want too.

Cons

It highlights the wholes in your data, generally most problems come down to problems with users and data.

Patches and fix's, lots of small ones that and that need testing of lots of areas, would it work having a quarterly group update?

Pros

online interactive help features, documentation
implementation occurred prior to manufacturing startup. still merging actual manufacturing process flows to system process flows

Cons

login features; mingle, versus smart client.
separate user IDs to maintain with CSI and Factory track

Pros

There is a lot to love about this software. Data loading is very easy with the Excel import. You can also export to Excel to manipulate data. Dataviews and Workbench Suite is a nice tool. We also could tell that Infor listens to customer feedback and develops the software based on that feedback which is a huge plus.

Cons

It is a little clunky when navigating forms. For instance, you have Customers, Customer Orders, & Customer Order Lines and you might need to access all 3 for a customer interaction.

Pros

Once the data is entered company-wide it is super easy to manipulate and run reports. The line by line views disappointing it easy to see multiple entries at the same time.

Cons

Entering the data in the first place can be a little cumbersome as the information doesn't populate to multiple points (Don't know if its possible to program it?).

Pros

One of the items that I like most about the software is that it is user friendly.
I also love the education part of the Infor package

Cons

I am almost forced to customize because my team has specific needs. While I understand no software can meet all the needs of thousands of users, it is cumbersome when you have customizations when you upgrade.

Pros

The overall product delivers in all aspects of the business and can be used without significant customization

Cons

(regarding our implementation only) - since we are on an older release (but moving to CSI10 shortly), the 8.x releases are somewhat confusing in the UX and somewhat slower in terms of performance. We expect both of these shortcomings to be resolved in the near term after moving to CSI10W

Pros

Flexible to customize- many were needed for my field and there’s rarely something that can’t be accomplished

Cons

A lot of training has to go into implementation. Not very intuitive. Extremely overwhelming, even well past implementation.

Pros

I loved the fact that it was deployed in the cloud. Where often times on-prem solutions don't grant you the freedom to access data outside of the organization's network, CSI made it possible for our teams all over the country to access the software without the use of a VPN connection. Mongoose is also a huge differentiating factor. Having the ability to quickly personalize modules and forms gives us an edge over other competitors who use solutions that don't offer that freedom so easily.

Cons

Our corporate office uses SAP for their financials. Linking to SAP proved difficult but possible.

Pros

We like the planning and scheduling functionality in SyteLine. We have hundreds of thousands of BOM's 5 or 6 levels deep and visibility on the lower levels was a problem before SyteLine. We like the automated reports function and the fact it's on SQL so we can integrate it with other programs.

Cons

Shipping and packing program leaves much to be desired. We also have to use 3rd party software for Shop Floor Operations and document control. BI is very weak and could have better functionality.

Pros

Customizable for specific business functions
Allows for PDF outputs within the software
Security levels help to keep employees working within their designated sectors

Cons

Interface could use an update
System can be slow at times depending on how many users (sales reports may take all day)

Pros

The Configure Price Quote tools are excellent! They provide all the functionality required for our customers to configure specific, unique products to their specifications.

Cons

The development environment has taken some time to become familiar with. It is different from the legacy systems previously used. Once understood, it has become more a powerful tool for us.

Pros

Syteline Pros: customizability, depth of features and functionality, R&D investment and customer support.

Cons

Syteline Cons: System intuitiveness, it takes users longer than I would like for them to become comfortable and proficient. I believe this is due to the depth and features of the system.
I 'm also getting a little tired hearing about all the "Cloud" hype!

Pros

CSI has the majority of features needed by my company and is able to be customized to meet our specific needs and preferences.

Cons

The supporting documentation does not provide enough details to perform installation tasks without the need for help from a partner or support.

Pros

The thing that I like the most about SyteLine is how much visibility I have to our Inventory and Work in Progress accounts. I like that the more you use it, the more you learn and with some guidance you can quickly navigate your day.

Cons

The thing that I like the least about Syteline is the Customer Support from Infor. Thankfully our company now works with Logic Data and we are no longer at the mercy of Infor's sub-par service.

Pros

Easy to use very user friendly. gave my technicians an opportunity to keep track of work orders

Cons

I cant say that there was any thing I like least about INFOR

Pros

Lots of capability. Looks good. Can easily customize for users.

Cons

Speed perceived by some users as slow. users cannot create own reports

Pros

Flexibility in customization, depth of functionality

Cons

Standard report layout do not make for clear report

Pros

New software versions come out well tested. Functionality stays abreast of current best practices in manufacturing. Consistent look and feel through all applications makes for ease of use. Very intuitive.

Cons

Licensing fees! I think the concurrent user fee structure is more applicable in a manufacturing environment where there are many sporadic users.

Pros

It is glorified Excel which makes it very easy to navigate.
With jobs, PO's, and CO's being linked together, it keeps the system clean.

Cons

From a SOX Compliance stand point, it has been difficult.
With jobs, PO's, and CO's being linked together, it can be difficult when users don't follow the process.