Oracle E-Business Suite Reviews

We are using the solution for financial management and other projects.

I have found the solution to have a good interface, security, and is user-friendly.

There are some business-specific processes still not implemented. We need the IPC solution subcontractor management that is not available. We have to create the IPC solution but these types of extensions should be provided by Oracle and be included in this solution and the cloud version.

I have used the solution for approximately ten years. 

The solution is reliable. 

We have many major regions of our company using the solution.

The initial setup complexity depends on how you map Oracle facilities with the business process.

When we did the first implementation we used a third-party team, for further installations our internal team did the implementation.

Oracle is the best solution, I would recommend this solution to others. It covers a lot of models and is very good.

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

Our client implemented the Oracle Human Capital Management part of the solution. With these features, they can:

• Rapidly implement jobs, positions, grades, and steps within setup of organizational structure.
• Measure and monitor performance for personal goals and corporate objectives.
• Define and manage workforce competence through the management of learning path, course completion, and learning certification.
• To do this before on paper basis, it was very time consuming. Now, they can use the gained time to properly manage their workforce.

Our client has not only implemented the Oracle Human Capital Management (HCM) solution. They did also the integration with other solutions, such as the Work Management solution, so when there is a certain work order to be issued, they can easily and rapidly identify the proper available resources to perform the work.

More flexibility in configuration related to the Payroll module, in order to easily implement the local legislation.

We implemented this product for one of our clients. This client has used the solution since 2010. In 2015, they upgraded the solution from version 12.1.3 to version 12.2.4.

No.

No.

I would rate the level of the technical support as a seven out of 10. There are big delays in the issues of resolution times

Our client previously used an internally developed application. They switched because this application covered only a small part of their needs related to human capital management, and it was difficult to maintain due to the lack of IT specialized resources.

The initial setup was straightforward. Our team has a lot experience in the Oracle E-Business Suite implementation and we also cooperated with professionals from Oracle Romania. Lastly, the client was actively involved in all the stages of the project.

All pricing and licensing information is public and available for everybody. I advise others to check this information in advance in order to correctly decide what to ask to the vendor.

Our client evaluated other options from smaller and similar companies, as Oracle, but Oracle’s solution was suitable for them at the time in terms of features and possibilities for integration with other already existing solutions.

Be careful at the number and complexity of the reports needed to compare with the pre-defined reports. If the gap between the two is big, then they have to consider a bigger duration for the project and its corresponding additional price.

The most valuable feature is mostly the integration process that connects to a lot of our backend systems, such as manufacturing and other processes that do payroll, HR, and those things. There's a kind of integrated solution system.

It is a single-point solution, where we use one application that connects to a lot of systems, as opposed to trying to buy multiple best-of-breed systems or integrating them together; instead of having a lot of features in one system. It is easy for us to maintain and support the system, as well.

I would like to see more connections with the third-party application, such as banks and credit card companies. They could develop a seamless integration. Right now, we use batch processing for sharing the data that comes out of a file system. We would like to have that online connection, a real-time connection, where you can go and pull the data whenever you want.

We've been using it for five or six years now.

Stability is great.

We have had some patching issues, but at the end of the day, once we patch it out, and we bring up the applied solution, it works.

I would not see scalability as an issue, but we are not a large company, as such. We have around 2,000-plus employees at the company, but we do run all kinds of applications on it. It's pretty decent. We have not had any issues.

We worked with Oracle On Demand and with support. Most of the time, they are great. Because we are a support customer, we have a big advantage there. They are responsible for managing our systems. We go with them, and log whatever the technical request there. Most of the time, we get resolutions fast.

We were initially a start-up company. We looked at Oracle, but initially, for a start up company, Oracle is not the most suitable option, but we know that our company is going to grow, so the solution had to scalable. We chose Oracle because it has the most scalability for us to go and do that.

Initial setup was complex because it extends to a lot of our applications’ integration points. Once you find out the solution, what to do then, the next time, it kind of streamlines the process.

When we were making the decision, we looked at a lot of other companies such as NetSuite and PeopleSoft. Given the Oracle presence and a lot of technology support available in the Bay Area, and being a company in the Bay Area, we chose Oracle as the best product for us to go with.

Look into the Oracle product and see if it will satisfy your requirements. Then, instead of buying 10 different products and integrating them, maybe you'll see that a product provides 80% of those benefits; go with that product, which I think Oracle does.

The most important criteria when I’m choosing a vendor such as Oracle is knowing that when new products come out, they will increase our company’s efficiency in terms of managing scalability, see that we can run these applications, and maybe they will help us increase sales and productivity. That's what we look for in most of them.

They are continuously improving the products, making sure they are staying with the competitors to make sure that they are following the industry standards and bringing customers up to speed so that we can use industry leaders.

We find the most value in the fact that all the modules within E-Business Suit are fully integrated into one solution. It's one place where the entire company can have access to information and functions. This is the main benefit of the product.

The business has all the process integrated, so if you have it in different places it would be crazy trying to do a consolidation or a financial statement or reporting for the business to have all the activity in there.

Although all the modules are integrated with each other into E-Business Suite, sometimes when you apply one patch for Accounts Receivable, for example, it can damage Accounts Payable. That's why it's important to read the ReadMe that says that touching one module will impact another. But that was highly unexpected for us. We're constantly performing patches, and it's become an area of unreliability for our business. We can't know for certain whether what we're doing with one module won't negatively affect another.

I've been working here for thirteen years and we use all the financials modules, plus Property Manager. The financials modules we use are Procurement, Purchasing, General Ledger, Projects, Fixed Assets, Payables, and Receivables.

The implementation was fine. We would have loved to have something like SAP where you just perform the configuration in one instance and you can just put it back into a new instance so that you don't have to configure it again or use another application for that. But otherwise, E-Business Suite is a good tool.

I refer back to the issues when patching one module will affect another module. It's stable, otherwise.

It's scaled well for our needs.

Oracle will always have little bugs here and there. Fortunately, we have a very strong relationship with them, so whenever we had a service request that wasn't moving, we escalated it quickly. So we're OK in that regard.

I do find that sometimes first-level support doesn't know a lot and they ask the "classic" questions. Starting at level two, though, the support gets much better.

I haven't done a setup in the U.S., but I've done them in three Latin American countries. The business analysts are the implementation team and then we do the setups for the test instances. And then we go to our support team to do the configuration for UATs in Prague.

Sometimes we take advantage of all the things that Oracle gives you to go beyond just the basic stuff. We get a little creative so that there's a little more complexity to the setup in the end.

I worked as a contractor for Oracle for some years, and E-Business Suit is a very good tool. You will not find an ERP that doesn't give you challenges. The very first thing, even EBS or any ERP, is that you need to be clear on your processes and you have to clean them up first. Else, you're just going to put more garbage in the system and the system is so powerful that it's going to spit everywhere. It's the processes plus the data. If you can do data cleaning before or during the implementation, it will give you much more peace later on.

This solution is used for handling a lot of modules and files, e.g. HR and supply chain. These are the main uses of Oracle E-Business Suite in the workforce.

This solution offers customization. We have the ability to change and add our custom solutions and integrate them with the standard ones.

These modules are integrated together. HR files are integrated with the supply chain files, e.g. employees are defined on the HR module. You can use this solution as a buyer or as a supplier, and it has a file server. Transferring files is integrated with HR, and the files would be applied to the employees. It can be used and it can uptake the accounts and copy them to the server, and all of the modules could be integrated together.

The most valuable feature of Oracle E-Business Suite is that it is customizable.

The biggest improvement for Oracle is for them to move to the cloud. With Oracle E-Business Suite, movement to the cloud should be supported. I am still not working on cloud applications, but I will eventually.

I've been implementing this solution for four or five years.

This solution is very stable.

Scalability is not related to our Oracle plan. We are not allowed to expand. We're only allowed to apply our custom solution. If we want to add a page or add a screen, we are allowed to do that within limits. We are not allowed to change the Oracle product itself. We can add something, but without touching any object that Oracle implements.

Sometimes, Oracle's support is very good and they give fast replies to all cases, but not all replies contain the solution. Sometimes they provide accurate solutions and effective solutions. Other times, they don't. Support could be improved.

The initial setup and deployment were done by another team in our company. We call them the DBA team (Database Administrators).

I am not working with Oracle Business Intelligence (BI). I am working as an Oracle developer, but not with Oracle development tools. I am working with tools such as Oracle Reports and Oracle Workflow Builder, but not with business intelligence tools.

I don't work for an Oracle Vendor, but I implement some products, e.g. the Oracle E-Business Suite.

We are developers and we aren't authorized to set up. For setup, there are other people concerned with setup, such as the administrators. There are three main jobs in this field. Administrators are responsible for setup, security, and configuration. Consultants are the ones who know the business, business rules, and verification among application screens or pages. Developers receive the instructions from the consultants and apply these solutions technically, and also add and make changes.

I am working as a freelancer, so I don't know all the sites the company implements this solution in, but it depends on the customization needed in each site. Some sites don't have a lot of requirements, e.g. they use the standard form of the application, meaning they don't need a lot of customization. There are sites or huge companies that have a lot of different business cases so they would need a lot of customization. It could take more than one year or two years to complete.

We are from Egypt and we fall under the Gulf area market. Most clients are from the Gulf area, but I don't know exactly how many clients. The main competition is between SAP and Oracle, but in the Gulf area, Oracle E-Business Suite is used more than SAP.

I don't know exactly how much this solution costs, but it will depend on the number of users.

My advice to people who want to implement Oracle E-Business Suite is to first be clear about the customizations they need. This is important. They should be clear and know what exactly they need to implement, and they should also know accurately the changes they want to implement for their business.

I am not able to give a rating because Oracle E-Business Suite is the first app on the market. Every application has disadvantages or points of weakness, but Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft Dynamics are three of the most accurate. They are the three best products in the world, but for this solution, I'm giving a seven out of ten.

We use the solution in a variety of ways via modules. There are parts for employees and other areas for services. On top of that, we have modules for supply chains. We have modules for human resource management, and financial as well as for retail and inventory.

The solution has helped the organization in a multitude of ways. For example, it has really helped with the way we manage retail orders. The automation of retail and dealer order management has helped us a lot. It is one big use case that's a good example of the transformation that's possible with this product. Previously, the order management was manual. Currently, it has been automated to such a degree that a dealer can simply go to a portal, and actually make a payment. The payment reflects right in the system. After making the payment in the system, the dealer is able to make an order. Within a matter of 10 to 20 minutes, he has his stock. There's an integration between the dealer self-service system to the ERP to inventory and even to the warehouse. Everything surrounding that is fully automated, thanks to Oracle Release 12.

The most valuable aspect of the solution is the employee self-service.

The order management is excellent.

I would say the integration needs improvement. Oracle needs to work on the integration layer to make the solution much more robust and modern.

The solution needs full cloud netting.

I've been using the solution since I joined the company. It's been about seven or so years now.

The solution is stable. So far we've not had a priority one or priority two incidence from Oracle E-Business. There aren't bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. So far so good. I'd describe it as reliable at this point.

The scalability of the solution is good. If a company needs to expand the solution, they should be able to do so.

Our company has between 5,000 to 10,000 users if you factor in the dealers and the employees together. Our average employee count is 6,000. That's employees alone. On top of that, we have dealers who are around 3,000. Adding both groups together, you are looking at somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 users.

The solution technically is supported well both from Oracle, who is the owner of the solution, and IBM, who is the integrator. I cannot complain. So far, we're quite satisfied with the technical support offered by both companies.

When I joined, the company was on a previous version of Oracle. One of the first tasks I handled when I joined I was to head up the upgrade project. It's a solution that's been used from the beginning, or, at least that's my understanding.

I wouldn't describe the initial setup as straightforward. It's very complex. Even Oracle themselves would say that this solution has the most complex implementation of their products. It might even be one of the most complex in the world.

Deployment took almost one year. This was due to the fact that the analysis design alone took almost six to seven months. Implementation and testing alone took another five or so months. 

We used an integrator and a consultant to assist us in the implementation. The consultants were from Oracle and the integrator was IBM. We needed them both due to the complex nature of the setup.

Our relationship with Oracle is simplly one of supplier-customer relations.

This solution is deployed in our organization on credit in two sides active-active.

What I would tell other companies considering the solution is this: first, they need to know that it is an expensive solution. It's very expensive and therefore could only be affordable for companies that have a given level of revenue. 

Beyond that, I would say Oracle needs to be a fit for future use in terms of being cloud-native. Organizations should ensure their solution can run on other public cloud providers other than Oracle themselves. They need to have their permission that it can be deployed in AWS or Azure or Google. Right now, the cloud version that they have most likely locks to Oracle cloud itself and they just need to be aware they need the option and flexibility.

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.

The most valuable features are straight-through processing because we need to make sure that we have a good end-to-end process. The biggest thing that we also look for is the ability to easily research invoices, where you can attach to the specific invoice line item the detailed payments, etc. We look at it as our biggest factor.

It's important that we can constantly be able to monitor what we've spent relative to the government's money. We always make sure that we have everything in proper order since it is not our physical money. It is somebody else's.

We are an integrated contractor, which basically means that we are contracted by the United States government to operate a program specific to their needs, and to ensure that the program is spending their money correctly, and to make sure that we come in on-budget or even under-budget for the government. We would definitely need to ensure that whatever we do is very much in line with all of the government polices and regulations. We need to ensure that a software that we utilize adheres to that.

The biggest thing that we utilize EBS for is mainly Finance and HRMS. Those are our two biggest modules that we utilize within EBS. So we want to make sure that whatever we are utilizing it for will be easy for the employee to gain access to say, their HR data, or for our acquisition management department to be able to see where the invoice stands in the process of being paid. Those are just a couple of examples.

It is still a little outdated as far as what we consider a twenty-first century software. You're still using Oracle forms, that sort of thing. Payables is a prime example: there's the web interface and then the forms interface and we hate having to switch between the two areas. To create a simple report, at least in my opinion, sometimes requires a developer versus just me, as the user, going in and doing what I need to do. It's extremely difficult to do some data mining on a whim. If there's something repetitive in nature, then we can set it up with a developer, it works, but in our opinion we know that things could work better than the way they are currently.

We've really had no issues with deployment.

The current version that we're on, which is 12.2.4, is decently stable. However, the problem is that the system doesn't allow for us to have a lot of users on it. The hardware that we have is able to run beautifully when there's not a lot of people on. I equate it to, 'The machine's a Ferrari, you can't tow a boat with a Ferrari.' Essentially, the system will go fast when it's allowed to go fast, without the bogging down of users, but that's one of our problems right now. It seems to be that multiple users on the system have caused a lot of back-log.

So far, it seems like we can do a lot of things with EBS relative to customizations. We don't seem to have any real restriction in that area. But some things like, me as the cash manager, setting up banks tends to be a lot more cumbersome than it should be. There seems to be a lot more involvement with doing those types of basic things than they should be in the real-world sense. It seems to be a little bit more like it was geared towards a developer to set up the bank rather than a professional.

Since I'm not the support side of things in the organization, I don't directly deal with technical support, but there are people, such as DBAs and developers, who have been in talks with Oracle about some of the issues. They didn't seem like they had any real problems other than some of the solutions are a little slow to come about. It could be because our organization is very unique, some of the solutions that might need to happen could be a little bit more involved with trying to develop a solution that we need. I don't think we've had a situation, however, where we weren't able to get the needed support.

I wasn't actually at the company at the time, but for upgrades for which I've been apart, they did seem to be a little bit more difficult. A lot of it could be on our end, mainly because of how we do a lot of customizations. We had to do these customizations, unfortunately, because E-Business Suite didn't allow for a specific industry like ours to have more to an 'out-of-the-box'-type of developed software. There was a lot of customization. Now, they have improved from version to version, but for our business, we're still very much away from being cloud-based. Our software sits on a non-internet network. It really is hard for us as an organization to sometimes do business in the environment of, 'Everyone wants to move to an internet system', i.e. the cloud. There are organizations such as ours that have trouble at this point being on an internet-based system.

With our customizations, it stopped a lot of the upgrade that we just had last year. When we did the upgrade, a lot of these customizations were a constant battle where one would not work, another would work, and then when you'd fix one, something else would happen. There were a lot of issues, which we are, as an organization, trying to pull away from customizations. Oracle has not really been geared a lot towards what our line of business was. We have to do a lot of customizations in order to allow for that software to work as we need.

Minimize your customizations if you can. If not, get a lot of training because a lot of the screens are not as intuitive. I'm kind of a rare breed, I guess, as I do have some 'IT sense', so I can maneuver through screens, but when it comes to other people in my group who are really not 'IT minded' at all, they're usually asking me for help when there are some set-ups in their own modules. Setting up is the biggest key, and if you mess that up it's going to propagate the rest of your EBS experience, so you need to have a proper set-up.

It's integrated. For any ERP solution, that’s really where the value comes in; just one solution to cover a whole bunch of areas and having the integration.

I have been using it probably 20 - 25 years.

It is very stable. From an internal standpoint, nothing is going to drag it down.

We did recently have an issue with the supplier network, Oracle Supplier Network, where some certificates were changed that caused a brief outage for us. But that's the exception, not the rule.

It is scalable. We're not a huge company but we haven’t had any issues with that. I have run it at much larger organizations with no issues there.

Technical support is mediocre. It used to be a lot better. The last 10 years or so, it's degraded, where it's hard to get an expert that can really help. It seems to be, a lot of times, their preference is just to get it back in your court and not necessarily help but put the onus on you and hope that you take a few days to respond and then it'll auto-close.

Initial setup is complex. I think any ERP is going to be a complex setup. That's just the nature of the beast.

Usually you'd have a partner that can add the bandwidth. I know we did an upgrade about three years ago. We had a partner come in and help us with that. It's a probably nine-month project, end to end, to do a major upgrade from 11 to 12.

When I start working with a vendor such as Oracle, expertise is a requirement that I look for. Ultimately, it comes down to the team that you're getting from that partner. I always say the best partner in the world still has a B team, and the worst partner in the world still has an A team. Your job is to find that A team in whatever partner you choose.