Infor VISUAL

I am 30+ year user, trainer, implementer, consultant of this product. I have seen many other ERP software products and in my experience there is NONE that can compare with this one. It has it ALL! It can not only take you from thought to getting paid, but it can handle any and all clients demands (traceability, certifications, quality requirements, etc). It can handle all internal needs as well (MRP, Production Control, Manufacturing Floor, Scheduling your factory, Maintenance, etc.) To all the reporting capabilities!!! Not to mention their exceptional support staff!

WOW, this is a hard one for me. There is not much I do not like about VISUAL, I guess my only piece of advice would be if you are looking to implement this for the first time and are making a change from an existing ERP system, take is slow. I get that they want to see you everything at once, but start with the base model. Get it up and running and everyone trained before taking on another module. It is a marathon not a race. Master one before starting another. Remember this is an asset you should get an ROI every year. Make another model one its ROI's. Keep the system current and healthy and it will do the same for you.

Visual offers many different configuration options to help customize the software to your company.

Visual is comparatively easy to learn when compared to other major ERP systems (e.g. SAP or Oracle). It's also much easier to administer. The database tables are logically named and relatively easy to figure out for troubleshooting, reporting, and tieing systems together.

Visual offers a lot of features that can be setup and used quickly when working with a reliable channel partner. Since signing on with Synergy Resources, we've been introduced to a wide range of applications (e.g. SmartViews reporting, quoting through Configurator, etc.) that have created easy wins for helping our company to get the maximum amount of value out of Visual.

When first starting out with Visual, it's not always easy to recognize red flags in the system that should tell you stop and look into something, or to know what reports the system gives you that will help you see problems and fix user issues.

For a manufacturing company that wants to be able to drill down on what's happening on the shop floor, Visual's labor capture system that comes out of the box has some major shortcomings. Users can only enter one defect code per transaction into the system, requiring them to enter multiple transactions to record their scrap. The new Shop Floor Mobile app offers better features, but doesn't address this issue. We had to write our own labor capture program to meet our business needs.

After using and administering Visual at our company for 7+ years, I still have a lot to learn about the system. The amount of options available for configuring Visual is a strength of the system, but also requires a strong knowledge of what each option offers and how the system works. Our original channel partner for implementing the system had a very knowledgeable consultant who offered us hope for how the system could work, but the consultants that primarily dealt with our account were far from experts. Implementing Visual with a bad group of consultants created many issues for us within the system. Since switching our channel partner to Synergy Resources, we've had much better success in cleaning up the problems and utilizing Visual more effectively.

Infor VISUAL is essentially a barebones GUI built upon a robust database made up of many different tables for manufacturing operations. It has all of the tools and functionality needed to run an operation. Actually, it has much more than most companies probably need for their purposes.

While this software "gets the job done", it doesn't make it easy. The interface is not intuitive, so a lot of training is required for new users. In addition, it lacks useful analytics and is difficult to gain insights into your process.

Many ERP systems are similar, but Infor VISUAL ERP makes it simple for the user to access the data they are seeking and then presents it in a visual format that is easy to understand. Seasoned ERP users might not need a visual representation of the data, but the straightforward process flow of Infor VISUAL ERP positions all of your users for success. Because Infor VISUAL ERP is SQL Server-based, it is simple to manage and easily compatible with BI programs like Synergy's SmartViews software and Microsoft's Power BI. Rather than the "quick fix" approach, Infor VISUAL ERP and the Synergy Resources team are focused on a long-term solution that will drive your organization forward.

As a few other reviewers said, Infor VISUAL ERP comes with a breadth of "bells and whistles" that can be beyond the scope of what a small organization might need. At implementation time, this can feel overwhelming. Synergy Resources helped us identify the features we needed and configure them. Once things settled down post-implementation, we began to test some of the other features. In the three years since, several of what we considered "extra features" have become integral to our daily operations.