Oracle E-Business Suite Reviews

Basically, the most valuable feature is the suite; basically, your integration between APAR, PO, fixed assets. We're using Financials.

Again, integration: The reason I'm mentioning this is, basically, you can have an ERP ordering system, and it doesn't have to be Oracle. Also, it's not really an ordering system; it's not friendly, for that matter.

Maybe more real-time; that would probably be better.

I have been using it for about 15 years. The company has had it maybe four years.

It's fairly stable. We haven't really had any big issues.

We believe it is scalable. We certainly have to change our process, and maybe have to acquire more products, but we think Oracle will be able to provide all of our needs.

Technical support is OK. They're no better or no worse than other companies. You have to know what to do. Basically, for us, when we go to support, we're prepared. We make sure we have all our data – from our financial system or whatever – ready, so we will save time.

However, we do find, sometimes, depending on the time of the day, if you open the support ticket with Oracle, let's say, if you're doing it in the afternoon, or late afternoon, then it actually goes to Asia-Pacific. That problem, basically, is that you won't get any updates in the morning, if we try to. You would get something in the afternoon. If it's not urgent, maybe that's OK, but we'd like to have something, basically, in the same time zone, at least.

For one thing, there are not many things available out there. Oracle bought them all, basically. Oracle is basically a local company for us. It's pretty easy to use, so that was another one of the reasons. Also, at the time, my company was trying to go IPO. They couldn’t really claim all the financials from the spreadsheets. You have to have some kind of ERP system, so Oracle was one of the options.

Initial setup really depends on the module. It’s not very consistent, I think because different people have developed the different modules. You have to get used to it.

When we are selecting a vendor to work with, we look for a couple of things. One simple thing: basically, it has to be logical. Meaning that, whatever application's there, it makes sense to use. Also, it should be easy to implement and easy to support. Hopefully, it will work with our other systems. We also look at ease of use.

The most valuable feature is its ability to give us real-time information.

Of course, we'd like to see those reports re-introduced. Right now, we have more reports for the general ledger module. We would like more reports for the other modules: fixed assets, AP, revenue, and so on. That's where the problem is.

I have been using it since 1997, 19 years.

It has not been consistently stable. One time, when they did an upgrade to R12, it messed up some of our reports. That's why we went to GL Wand for some of our reporting solutions.

We’re still using this solution day-to-day. We're still sticking with it, of course. We just kind of make do with what we have right now.

Technical support has been fine. We haven't had any problems. Whenever we’ve had a hiccup or something, there's always been a representative to help us. They're knowledgeable and the response time is okay.

The initial upgrade, as I’ve mentioned, took away some of our valuable reports that were in the original Oracle EBS. That was really annoying.

The other thing was that, when we did the upgrade, it brought up some bad data from prior years. It took a few years to figure out what was going on. It still, even to this day, four years later, still pops up information from 10 or 11 years ago. Luckily, we're not a big, big company; we're just a local government.

Right now, we kind of solved our reporting issues in the general ledger part with GL Wand, or Excel4apps, but we're still trying to figure out the other modules through custom reporting. It’s taken time. I really wouldn’t have an answer for anybody.

I like to work with vendors who have a good reputation and good customer support.

Being able to get all the financial data into one system that talks to each other and get our financials published every month.

We've been on it for so long that it's hard to think.

The mobile apps, I think, are the up and coming thing for us. To make it easier for people to do things on the go. I know that they do have a bunch of them but, in a lot of cases, you can only view information on a lot of the mobile apps. Like you can't action on any of them. I think with procurement you can't create requisitions on the mobile app. You can just see the status of them.

Oracle Alerts is kind of a forgotten application and it's great for just sending users notifications about the status of things. It's much easier than learning WorkFlow so we still use it a lot. It used to be that when email was character based you'd send out the email and everything looked great. Now when you send out an email and you try to put stuff in columns it's just clear text so the columns don't line up. They've never added the feature to be able to send the email in HTML format. That would be nice to just, I mean, it's not a big thing and it hasn't changed a lot but it would make life a little simpler.

We've been a customer for over 20 years.

We've had no issues with the performance.

It's been able to scale for our needs.

Pretty good. We're pretty satisfied. If we raise something to a P1 they work on it 24/7. We don't have any issues with that. We don't raise a lot of problems because there aren't that many problems anymore. We keep our customizations down to a minimum.

I wasn't involved in the initial set up. I was involved in all the upgrades thereafter. They vary, some were great some were pretty straightforward others were problems all the way along. Their migration paths, they've gotten better over the years so they're not quite as bad.

I would say look at your processes and your internal procedures and see if you can modify those as opposed to trying to customize the application to fit what you currently do.

The integration of the various, different modules within E-Business Suite is the key feature for us. For example, we use Payables, Assets, and GL, to name a few.

Because we're using out-of-the-box features, it's given us efficiencies in our operations. For instance, the way we use iExpress for paying invoices is an out-of-the-box functionality. We haven't had to customize anything, yet we've been highly successful in using it.

Oracle tends to be slower when it comes to bringing flashy functionalities than other, smaller entities can deliver. For us, we were eager to see a smartphone app, and now it's available and we're ready to implement it.

I learned from PeopleSoft that they already have OFAC as an engine within the product. EBS doesn't have it yet, and I wish they would because then I can integrate OFAC with my supplier database without a third-party tool.

We've been a user of Oracle since 1996.

We've never had any serious issues. There have been a couple of scenarios where we were told ahead of time of a change or update over a weekend and that we might experience issues because of it.

We've had no issues with instability.

It's scaled sufficiently for our needs.

Technical support has been good. We haven't had any problems with them.

The initial setup was complex from our perspective because we were new to all Oracle products at the time.

We ended up going with an outside firm to do our deployment of EBS. We just simply provided data at the time because we didn't know much about Oracle. Over time, we've become experts in some areas.

It's an expensive product, though worth it for larger businesses.

It's not intended for smaller entities because it's costly. For large organizations like ours, its ability to handle our data volume with stability is, for us, a perfect match.

I use this solution for Core HR, Absence Management, and payroll.

Oracle EBS is a mature product. It fills many needs.

It is a gate to doing customization, as there is a need for custom solutions.

It can easily be developed into an application.

I can also easily plug into the business cycle.

There are some cycles in HR that are not straightforward. For example, the attendance approach, and the second admin transfers are not straightforward procedures.

We can see many features in the cloud and other applications that are not supported in EBS. For example, in iRecruitment, the recruitment or selection workflow process for candidates to be recruited is very advanced, it's a very skilled and enhanced process in Taleo. This is not something that is present in EBS but there are many requirements for this. Customers require this area of recruitment. For example, in Taleo, a person cannot move from the HR interview to the technical interview unless he has passed the HR interview. This does not exist in EBS. Many customers are asking for this functionality.

In Taleo, Candidate workflow allows you to do this. They give you the feature to configure that selection workflow for the candidates in terms of steps. You cannot move from this step until you complete the first step. This is definitely an area to consider.

There is strength in the product but we are always looking for weakness to improve.

The reporting area is very weak. It needs some improvements.

The embedded analytics is something new but it's a bit complicated. They tried to embed the analytics into the EBS with the same model as in FUSION but it's not easy or straightforward to enhance and maintain.

Organizational restructuring is a horrible process and very difficult in EBS.

I am currently an HCCM Team lead. I have 12 years of experience in implementing Oracle.

I also have been working with Oracle E-Business Suite for 12 years.

I am certified in Oracle HCCM Cloud applications.

I work with many versions. I have worked with versions 11, 12, and now 12.2.9.

Generally speaking, Oracle E-Business Suite is a stable product.

Any product can have bugs, but it depends on where the bug is and if you have a workaround or not.

One of the drawbacks with Oracle is that it seems to take them a long time to release a solution for the bugs or enhancements. For example, there is a bug found in 2011 that has not been resolved or closed until now.

There are, however, technology bugs or functional bugs that are enhancements that you find in certain services such as contract screens, contracts, or payments. Oracle will call this an enhancement request, we can deliver it but for now, there is no delivery for this solution.

This is a scalable solution.

I am just learning Taleo, I have a small amount of experience and a few customers.

The initial setup is straightforward. While you can complete the installation yourself, you will need to know the product and how the product is configured.

An understanding of the business process is required to easily configure the application.

You must have the knowledge to know the subsequent actions, how they are done, and how the links are set up together. For example, I can define lookup, and to do this I will research to know if it will use the standard form, or if it will use the value set or the standard use for one report or other types of validations.

Overall, I believe that it is always best to ask someone who is experienced. For example, if we consider the iPhone mobile, we may ask how can we take a picture, If you are coming from Android to iOS, you will ask someone with experience in this type of operating system, how you can do related things or supporting context.

I completed the installation myself. I did not use the help of an integrator or consultant.

I have a lot of experience, and I work with many customers. I know what they require and which features they are looking for.

I would like to see where Oracle E-Business Suite will take the roadmap. I don't know if they will invest more in the roadmap for EBS or investing in the cloud.

In summary, this is a good product but there is always an area for improvement.

I would rate Oracle E-Business Suite a seven out of ten.

Management of supply chain in the petroleum industry: from requesting quotes from suppliers to issuing LPO, managing credit; and selling in cash, credit, and discounts.

Generating reports is more efficient: generating financial reports, employee reports, volume reports, and time attendance reports.

Accessing vital information on the dashboard: I can customize summarized reports to be available on the dashboard.

Sending alerts through bulk SMS. With the growing use of mobile phones, we would appreciate sending notifications through SMS.

Financial, procure to pay, order to cash, inventory management, enterprise asset management, human resources management, and iStore.

We have saved millions of dollars in inventory. Before this system, we did not have integration and every shop was ordering inventory individually, without checking with the other shops.

With eAM (Enterprise Asset Management) we have seen improvements in preventive maintenance, asset tracking, planning, cost analysis for maintenance, and integration of procurement.

Inventory and enterprise asset maintenance.

The iStore could be better.

I give it an eight out of 10 because it required some customization.

Order to cash and procure to pay process: They are valuable features because of their integration and flexibility.

The tool reduces manual processes and controls in our systems.

Fixed Asset process has no need to wait until supplier invoices, but can be done after GRN. Movement of CIP Inventory cannot be monitored in Inventory module when we are using the CIP Account or movement of CIP Inventory in Asset module, which is not flexible like Inventory module.

For eight years.

No.

No.

A seven out of 10.

Accurate Accounting. We switch to get better control of our processes.

It was not complex.

We did the implementation of Oracle EBS internally without a vendor.

Find a best Oracle partner and get a better discount.

No.

Use an experienced Oracle consultant.