What are some of the frequently asked questions about upgrading to Exact Macola 10 from Macola Progression or Macola ES? We’ve compiled some of the most common FAQs about upgrading, as well as a showcase of our new eBook “What’s the difference between Exact Macola 10 & Progression or ES?”.
How can you cost justify an upgrade or help build a business case for upgrading to Exact Macola 10?
While at Evolve we heard companies that had already upgraded discuss this very topic, and one of the common themes in all their presentations was that if you were going to undertake this kind of upgrade to your system you really need to assess how you are currently doing business and where could you make process improvements. In other words, get a Business Process Assessment (BPA) done because that’s where you are going to find the opportunities for cost savings, revenue enhancement and improvements in compliance.
There are three different groups for pricing purposes. The most expensive being those who are only using Macola Progression or Macola ES and nothing else, that is group one. Group two are those who are using Macola ES or Progression with Synergy, so you already have the Synergy application working with one of those two applications. The least expensive group are the ones who have Synergy but have enhanced it to include the configurable workspaces that used to be called Navigator. Depending on where you fall in those groups helps us determine the price per user for an upgrade. We can gladly help you with a price quote on upgrading, just let us know.
Does Exact Macola 10 still use Crystal Reporting?
The answer is yes. Crystal Reports is still the engine behind most of the forms so preserving your customized forms, or any customized reporting, is easy. We do this by redirecting Crystal Reports to the Exact Macola 10 database instead of the ES or Progression database. However, Crystal Reporting is being replaced as the native reporting tool within Macola with Sequel Server Reporting Services, as it’s a demand from the industry to have more real-time and ad-hoc reporting.
Is the Quality Management connected to receiving process or flexibility?
The native Quality Management function within Macola 10 is directed at all the incoming, receiving, specifications for tests, perform tests, disposition and so forth. It is relatively limited, and I’m told it is going to be enhanced in the future by Exact. In the meantime, for those of you who might be interested, Attivo has written a significant extension to the Quality Management all based on Synergy. We focused our Quality Management enhancement for two different groups of our client base: food processing and metals management.
Does there exist a knowledge base of points of friction with companies who are transitioning from prior versions of Macola to Macola 10? For example, was there more friction from the folks from shipping because it was a little different or more different or there were a number of processes that were just unexpected changes
I can speak to one that has been a real problem with our early conversions. It was those clients who did not want to move to the Workspaces and they wanted to stay on the old Macola ES interface. The reason being that is a point of friction is that the Macola 10 technology eliminates the need for AS import. AS import was the synchronization tool between Macola ES database and the Synergy database. Well, if you only use Macola ES integration we had to keep running ASImport, but in Exact Macola 10 account entry or item entry function handles the synchronization seamlessly. ASImport has its limitations and its problems, such as the time delay, but employees can be used to doing one thing and don’t want to change. So if I had any recommendation, I would highly recommend that you prepare users for using the Workspace interface right from day one and we remove the ES interface just for those synchronization reasons.
Regarding third-party applications, such as eBiz Credit Card module or WiSys Agility? What’s the migration going to look like if we are going from Progression or ES to Macola 10? Is there a reinstall that needs to happen? How does the data migrate over? Is the process super complicated?
Well the answer is as usual, it depends. If we are moving to a brand new server then yes, we do have some re-installation to do. However, if we are going to be on the same server the chances are it is going to be minimal. The eBiz integration works the same exact way. WiSys users, especially Agility Mobile, if they have scanners, their job is going to be exactly the same. At the final hour when we cut over to Macola 10, we are going to redirect both WiSys and Ebiz to the new database – it’s that simple.
Is there any connectivity between Item Master and CAD applications or document management applications?
I’m not aware of one that comes out of the box, but this is an important question. The technology that has been deployed with Macola 10 leaves us with a very open architecture. Getting data in and out of the older versions was possible, but it took a lot off heavy breathing and it was expensive. Now we have the APIs that will allow us to access those kinds of functions, like feeding data to a CAD system or back from a CAD system to creating an item, so the system is much more enabled.
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User Experience Technology Functionality FAQs about upgrading Top 10 Reasons companies upgrade
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