Prophix - providing flexibility to the office of finance
Overall Satisfaction with Prophix
At Urschel Laboratories, Prophix is used for multiple applications including financial reporting to all department heads within the division, global consolidation of 18 foreign sales offices, Currency Exchange using 11 difference currencies, budgeting/forecasting, and analytics of the financial and non-financial results of the organization. Outside of the finance area, Prophix will be used for quoting, order, and shipment analysis by customer, product, sales representative, and region. Prophix is our analytical tool to solve all business reporting and analytical needs. Additionally it allows us to combine this information in a common set up metrics for management of all levels to monitor business performance.
Pros
- Prophix is extremely flexible. Anything you can do in Excel, can be done in Prophix only 100% more efficiently while allowing additional analytics that an excel version would not easily allow.
- The business processes within Prophix are easy to use and applicable across multiple types of business data. Users can analyze, flex, adjust, forecast, and use actual data to develop quick "what if" scenarios for a future time frame. Driver based forecasting becomes easy to create and monitor.
- The user interface is easy to learn. Template designers and ad-hoc analysis tools are an "Excel" like feel that provides comfort for many users. Formulas and formatting within report templates are easy to learn because of their consistency with Excel.
- Report templates can be easily bound into any type of output that is required; an Excel work book, Word document, PowerPoint presentation, PDF file, or SharePoint site. This allows for easy creation of management presentations on a recurring basis.
- Clean looking visual dashboards can be created using the template designer and charting capabilities. These visual displays are drillable, which allow you to link multiple templates into a user driven experience to start with a visual and drill into the details behind the visualization.
Cons
- Prophix is always improving their product and striving to provide those features that customers want. Prophix utilizes a feed back forum that allows customers to provide input into future features that will become available in the product.
- Items that may have been a struggle in the past have been resolved...for example, a recent release featured a re-design of the template designer. The new functionality made it easier to create template formatting and retain that formatting when adding rows or other data sets.
- Greatly increased employee efficiency.
- Greater insight into data providing management with the ability to make data driven decisions.
- Provides for "one source of the truth" which eliminates disagreements over which data is correct and focuses the discussion on the decision surrounding the data, rather than the accuracy of the data (because the data accuracy is a given)
- Low cost of ownership, including finances ability to own the solution, limiting the time required from IT.
Over my 13 years of using Prophix at 3 different organizations, I've been able to pull data in from many disparate systems including, AS400 based systems, Windows applications, SAP, JD Edwards, Infinium GL, flat files, and many other sources. All data has been able to be easily integrated within Prophix.
Cloud functionality typically allows for more powerful analysis and AI applications that many companies do not have in house. The flexibility requirement really depends on the organization and their approach to having on-premise or cloud solutions available for their end user base.
I have used Cognos Finance at a previous employer. While the functionality is similar and sound, it's much more expensive and requires an extensive amount of IT involvement.
Additionally I have use Microsoft FRX, which was ok as a reporting tool, however didn't allow for forecasting or budgeting activities. Additionally, it didn't allow for "what if" scenario analysis as it only reported on data that was available in the ledger.
Other BI tools, such as SAP BI, are really powerful, but extremely expensive and require a massive amount of IT involvement. Finance ownership is low in this case.
Prophix Feature Ratings
Using Prophix
Pros | Cons |
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Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using Familiar | None |
- Reporting and ad hoc analysis are very easy and user friendly.
- Model designer is a simple wizard that walks the user through the steps to create a new cube (model).
- Business process manager is straight forward and easy to organize the processes in a logical order that represents the process.
- The logic behind Smart Monitor is a bit counter intuitive. I find it easier to use template designer to monitor key metrics.
Yes, but I don't use it - Prophix provides a mobile interface so users can get access to their reports on the go using an iPad app. The app works well and involves a request for an updated report to be made to the server, through the app, followed by an updated report (with refreshed data) being delivered to the mobile app.
Prophix Support
Pros | Cons |
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Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed Immediate help available Support understands my problem Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response | None |
No - Support is covered under the annual maintenance agreement, which also covers any and all software upgrades and new features when available. On occasion, some support requests may turn into professional services, which are billable. However, these type of requests are quoted and provided in advance of work being performed so I have an opportunity to determine if I want to pay for the additional services. These type of items are for enhanced functionality (like a custom MDX statement) and not typical support (something's not working) type of requests.
Yes - All support tickets are responded in a timely fashion that is on an equal basis with respect to the type of issue that the customer is having. If in a "system down" critical type situation, priority will be given to providing immediate support. If the support request is non-critical in nature, it will be scheduled for a call with support personnel at a time convenient to the customer. All support requests are responded to in a short period of time and scheduled for response within few hours.
Prophix has saved my "life". One year during budget season, a remove process was accidentally run that removed all of the budget data from our model, the same day that the final budget was due to corporate. Even though this was our company's error, Prophix got on the job quickly and helped us to restore the most recent back up of our system. This restore enabled us to get the system back up and running and the data relevant as of the previous night's backup. We made our budget deadlines, but only with their help.
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