IFS Cloud Platform Reviews

We used Assyst to apply ITIL processes for more than four years:

• Incident management 
• Service request management
• Change management
• Problem management
• Asset management
• Service level management

Then we started using it to manage our shared services center for HR, finance, facilities.

We applied the ISO 20000 standard using Assyst. It helps us to record all IT incidents and requests. Then we started using it to manage shared services including HR, facilities, finance.

• Great service catalog build
• Simple administration (service catalog building — process builder)
• Deep time tracking for each action taken 
• Pricing features
• CMDB features. 

• End-user interface
• The concept of the main request and its related tasks or decisions
• Reporting module
• CMDB integration
• Pricing for incidents 
• Knowledge management features.

this solution is very stable

it is scalable and its performance is good

the customer service is not good as expected but we can say its fair 

yes, we used CA service Desk then we used Microsoft Service Manager, we switched because we looked to cover more ITIL processes 

the initial setup just need support from the vendor and some experience with this kind of solutions after that you can do most of the administrative functions with your self

the implementation is done by the vendor team and they are expertise and very good knowledge with the solution

we got the benefits which we expected from this solution 

Assyst license has two types

one for end-users

and one for Support Staff

each one of them has the option of concurrent or dedicated license

you should know that 1 concurrent license covers up to 10 to 20 users

yes,

CA service desk

HP service Manager

Managengine Service desk

if you do not care about user interface and want a tool to apply ITIL Processes so you can use assyst

The main reason for the ERP project was to bring together our fourteen sites, which had until then worked in separate silos.

Prior to implementation, there was a good deal of change management and relationship building carried out in order to bring everyone along. The result was a big improvement in financial reporting, business processes, and overall communication.

The user interface in Apps 8 was the big seller.

The CRM was shaky and although this improves greatly in Apps 10.

The system is extremely stable. Crashes have been extremely rare.

The scalability of the system has worked very well for us

IFS Service is great. They are very responsive and have helped us out of a couple of holes.

The previous system was siloed which meant that there was no effective oversight over the whole business. It also meant that each site began to work in slightly different ways with varying processes. We switched in order to bring the entire organization together and unify as many processes as possible. We also wanted to achieve better financial reporting, which until this point had been based on aggregating SQL databases.

The initial set up was made simpler by our philosophy of getting the basic functionality rolled out to the business. Once this was done, we began to drill down into some more complex functions. Because of the way we worked, much of this exploration could be done by colleagues who by now were very experienced with the system.

We started with a vendor team and then continued with our in-house team once the UK was live.

We were privately held (now owned by another business) at the time of the project, so our ROI was more about bringing the business together and achieving better financial reporting. This has been achieved.

There are different ways to work with vendors depending on budget. We elected to use our UK location as the pilot site. We also decided to start small (ie with the base functionality) and grow into the system as the implementation rolled out. We paid for consultancy to workshop our main functions via video link in conjunction with all of our sites - a big task considering time zones.

The IFS functional consultants, armed with the information they needed, configured the system to meet our needs and we went live in the time allotted by the project plan. Once the UK was up and running, we rolled out to our other sites in sequence. We did not have enough resource to go big bang.

Doing things this way meant that our IT team learned the system pretty much inside out. They are able to deal with all but the most complex coding problems. It also saved us a huge amount of consultancy cost. The licensing is competitive and we have expanded the number of users over time as more people have wanted access to the system. Excluding the expanded user base, we managed to keep to about 10% above the original budget. There was some creep as the advantages of the system were realized by a wider audience and the culture of the business changed.

We sent out an RFI to the top 8 systems at our level of the market. We selected the three respondents that met our needs most effectively. They were MS Dynamics, Oracle and IFS. I put together a committee of 14 colleagues consisting of members from different sites and at least one from each main business function.

I then organised reference visits with each vendor in the UK, US, Italy, Singapore and Brazil, attended by local committee members.

After the visits, we had a meeting with all committee members at our office in Italy, where each of the 3 vendors took a day to demonstrate their system from end to end, answering questions along the way. 

On the 4th day of the meeting, the committee voted 12 to 2 in favour of IFS.

Apart from the pressures of meeting 14 go-live dates, this has been a very positive experience and has led to a streamlined and effective business. 

Our primary use case for Assyst was in a governmental institution here in Brazil around that time. It was a project, during which we spent some time traveling in Brazil and implementing solutions. It was government implementation.

The most valuable feature to us was the capability to quickly identify the tickets we have open with people and follow up then. It was very good. We could quickly understand what was going on and what the customer wanted to do. It's a nice feature.

I'm speaking in regards to the state of the IP in 2016, and I don't know how it has improved since that time. However, I would say that some kind of bot assistance, some kind of artificial intelligence to help people solve the problems, would be interesting.

We've used Assyst for two years.

We didn't have any problems at all with the stability of this solution.

Our maintenance is about 20 hours per month, or less. Maintenance was not significant. The product was a huge product, so we had a lot of people. When the product was in month two or three there were almost ten people. We are in 24 states here in Brazil, and a lot of offices were running at the same time. But if we're talking about just one company, even a big company, we had one or two people doing implementation.

And it wasn't a surprise in the private sector that at a big company or enterprise it would about three months of three people working.

Of course we had moments that we had to talk with the company in Edinburgh to solve some problems, and they had the answer. The answer was generally quick. We didn't usually have any problem with them. Sometimes the solution was more difficult, but not critical.

It was complex. The deployment was not a problem at all. The tool, on the whole, is very quick to set up. The problem was on the part of the customer, because they delayed a lot of things, and it was difficult to make the user respond to our questions and the needs of the project. If I compare with other solutions, the problem is that our system is too old. If you compare it with the service amount, we have a big difference in service. Now it's much better, of course. To improve the performance we had to review the accessory. It would be sometimes a radical modification.

Licensing is on an annual basis, with no additional costs.

When I came over to this company, it was decided that the product would be Assyst, so I didn't do any evaluation. However, if we had any bids with the other products Assyst unfortunately would have lost the bids.

Based on what I know, I would rate Assyst as an eight out of ten.

• Business analytics
• Financial report generation
• Ease of use
• Individual user profiles that can be configured as templates to minimize data entry
• Global search

I work as a systems integrator. Our client has benefited as follows:

• Reduced transaction time
• Better visibility
• Easier tracking
• More control on business and automation
• Better agility: The ability to move swiftly as times and market conditions change

This product is good for certain business verticals, every product has its strengths and weakness. They are fully aware of it. Thus, they only sell in industry verticals where their solution offering is very strong. However, the product is good enough for many more industry verticals and for use as a general ERP.

Areas were I would like to see improvements:

1. Workflow designing across application modules to reflect business workflow across departments.
2. Ability to place approval check-points in the custom workflow, so clients can decide what they want it.

We have used the solution since 2001.

We have not encountered any issues with stability.

We have not encountered any issues with scalability.

The technical support is generally good when you are subscribed to the Annual Maintenance and Support package. However, the global community is not good for support if you are looking for outside help.

As system integrators, we have switched companies from other products to IFS. We have also switched some companies from IFS to Oracle. Some of the reasons were:

• It is hard to find qualified IFS resources who can work as full-time client employees.
• Customization can only be done by IFS and not by the clients themselves.
• There are no development tools for clients even if they want to purchase.

The setup was very straightforward.

Conduct tough negotiations regarding price and services. It is better to buy implementation services from IFS than from partners. Not many partners have well qualified resources and are not formally trained on the latest product version.

We evaluated Oracle, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, Epicor, and Sage.

It is better to buy implementation services from IFS than from partners.

IFS Applications is based on industry standards that are using a multi-tier deployment model. This makes it much easier to integrate IFS Applications with other enterprise software packages.

The user interface of IFS applications is easy to learn and move around. The interface is based on the latest technology and offers many features for filtering, searching and navigating.

IFS Applications is based on open architecture. It uses component-based service-oriented architecture (SOA) built on open standards. The application’s component-based architecture has allowed us to develop in-house and tailor the system to suit our needs.

It reduces the need for customization and can easily be modified by our developers.

With IFS Applications, we have a solution that can be tailored to match the demands of our projects.

We have been using this product for 12 years.

We have never had any scalability issues.

For extreme scalability and reliability, IFS supports deployment models ranging
from small servers to large, high-performance database servers with multiple applications servers running in parallel.

I rate the level of customer service a good 8/10.

I rate the level of technical support a good 6/10.

We did not use a different solution before purchasing this one.

The initial setup or implementation was a little more complex than I expected. We purchased a pre-configured version.

This software is sold under a user-based pricing model. This includes access to all the modules of the system, which you can turn on or off for each user based on security.

If you only need a limited amount of functionally now and in the future, buying a module-based system will usually save you money. However, module-based pricing will limit the scalability of your ERP system. For many companies, user-based pricing is often a better value and a better investment – you get more for your money and room to grow.

Before choosing, we evaluated the other options.

IFS Applications contains a number of features including financials, CRM, quality management, human resources, document management, business intelligence and more...

Using pre-packaged process solutions, IFS maps your business processes to functionality that already exists within IFS Applications. By only using the best functionality from IFS Applications, you get a comprehensive off-the-shelf solution with fewer modifications.

Pricing matrix and warehouse functionality.

• Pricing Matrix: Allowed us to implement a very complex "go to market" pricing model. This allowed us to tailor pricing to individual customer requirements. We could implement an automated pricing model that maximized gross profit in a very competitive environment.
• Warehouse Functionality: In ERP terms is rich, allowing us to run three separate businesses in a shared warehouse environment.

It has enforced process discipline within the business. This led to increased efficiencies and reduced errors. At the same time, it gave business visibility to operational and senior management.

Usability could be improved.

My time with the product has spanned two years. There was eighteen months during the implementation process, and six months after go-live.

The product is generally stable. It is no better or worse that other ERP packages that I have used.

We have only had scalability issues in terms of hardware. The product scales well. However, the original hardware requirements were not specified high enough to meet the number of users. We increased disk I/O on the server to resolve this issue.

Local Australian based support is good. This consists mainly of product consultants, subject matter experts, and project managers.

As the product is developed overseas, customization that requires programming takes longer than originally expected.

We had a bespoke green screen-based ERP with limited functionality.

We changed solutions to get better functionality and a modern, supported platform to take us forward for the foreseeable future.

The initial implementation was more complex than expected. We purchased a pre-configured version. We were told that it would fit our business model.

During implementation, it was found to be inadequate. Additional configuration changes had to be made throughout the implementation phase.

Both the pricing and licensing need to be negotiated up front. If possible, include future expansion plans in terms of additional users and modules. The best discounts are applied at the initial purchasing stage.

We evaluated two other SAP products.

I would advise that you include a "Fit/Gap analysis" workshop as part of the evaluation process. This may add to the cost, but will reduce the number of issues that need to be resolved during the project implementation.