JobBOSS² Reviews

Pros

JobBOSS as a standalone is good, with some nice Crystal Reports added on. What makes it great is that there are quite a few add-ons available (for Quality, CRM, etc.) , plus it it stores all of its data in a SQL format that works well with Microsoft products.

Cons

I work mostly in the Finance/Accounting side of the business. There are some basic things that could be added in the next version upgrades.

Pros

Ease of use and good tech support. Very similar to quickbooks

Cons

When allocating stock to jobs, unless it was purchased specifically for that job, it is a bit cumbersome so we had a custom report written to allow the tag number of the inventory to be scanned.

Alternatives Considered

Global Shop Solutions and Shop Boss

Reasons for Choosing JobBOSS²

JobBOss tech support was terrible and they were very expensive to add data collection modules.

Reasons for Switching to JobBOSS²

Tech support's demo of the product

Pros

Absolutely Nothing. There was nothing that we liked about the software

Cons

The Description field for parts is limited to 30 characters. The database does not include a vendor/manufacturing part number field as a standard filed and you have to do workaround to get it to show on your purchase order. The software is completely non-intuitive, is extremely cumbersome and non-flexible and then they nickel and dime for every single change. The implementation phase was a total joke where after 9 months it still was not doing what we need it to do.. And then they to not make it clear that it is an annual subscription and that you need to provide a 30 day notice prior to renewal which they do not even inform you that it is a renewal. They simply tell you a few days ahead of time that you need to upload a license key.

Pros

The software can handle all the process in your facilities from sales to delivery to the customer.
form SO to the customer, pass throug jobs (WO) and invoices to delivery product. it handle fine partial delivery so it can be accurate all invoices.

Cons

once you have all modules set up. it can work. but you need to get assistance from an partner to get all the information and help to set up all the process. it can't be set by yourself.

Pros

Good first level entry product. Lots of options for expansion. Priced well. works well for most of what we do

Cons

Could be easier to use. Search in fields could search the whole field instead of just in order. Need ability to reschedule batches of jobs or ops. Looking in the future to need better paperless abilities for the floor. This would be drawings, capacity dashboards. Also as things become more connected we are going to need ability to integrate to nesting

Alternatives Considered

Global Shop Solutions and M1 ERP

Reasons for Switching to JobBOSS²

functionality & price. Bang for the buck. Overall we have been happy with it. But we have had to build a fair amount of custom apps.

Pros

I like the fact the you can route, have job costing, accounting, etc all in one area. For this type of application, this is the best software to choose from. Shoptech continues to make improvements and listens to the customers on where to improve.

Cons

The quality module needs improved as well as the scheduling. The repository in unusable.

Pros

E2 Shop is very user friendly! It is easy to navigate and easy to understand.

E2 Shop has the best customer service we have experienced and has a wonderful online discussion board and help documents to help along the way.

Cons

We have experienced a good amount of "glitches" and software "hang-ups" that require a system repair which we were advised to do every 2 weeks. (All have proven to be software related).

Pros

It did what we needed it to do. Monitor Inventory, Produce Quotes , Acknowledgements, Invoicing. Keep a History.

Cons

Need a basic scheduling of orders interface without buying another package.

Alternatives Considered

DELMIAworks

Reasons for Switching to JobBOSS²

It was able to do what we need it to do and Job Shop did not.

Pros

All areas in the manufacturing process can all be done on one software.

Cons

When you tab over creating a new order and adding part number you can accidently tab to fast and it will us a sub menu for a different quantity.

Pros

1) User Friendly
2) Robust
3) Complete ERP System
4) Great Customer Support

Cons

Nothing. This product does everything we needed it to do and efficiently.

Pros

Value is great, and the Cloud Based version is easy to step into. E2 appears to be ahead of the curve with getting their platform onto a cloud system for their customers, and it was one of the deciding factors why we went with E2 instead of other ERP system out there. Because of the cloud-based nature of the system, we have enjoyed the frequent updates to the product, it feels like we should never get behind. This is a comforting benefit as a system ages.

The flow of work through the system is clearly organized to make the use of the system easy to understand for new users. We have background in a couple other standard ERP systems, and moving into E2 has been easy after a few pointers about how the system runs. The home-screen that shows work flow is easy to follow.

Lastly - one of our favorite features has been how easy it is to customize reports. Sometimes it can be tricky, or perform unexpectedly, but all-in-all it workable. A more advanced tutorial on report customization would be helpful

Cons

There are not many broad system cons that we have found. We find the system to be simple and that it does what it is supposed to do well. Mostly, we have noticed over the past 10 months features we wish were included making E2 a more feature rich system.

For example, inventory management could be more feature rich, including categories for non-inventory items (e.g. tooling, etc.) as a default option out of the box, or multiple pricing structures based on vendor, beyond the simple standard cost. We also wish it were were easy to reserve parts being made on a STOCK job to a newly entered sales order. There may be a way to do this, but it has not been immediately clear

For incoming material, it would be nice to have the ability to receive parts/material via the data collection terminal right on the shop floor, rather than having to use a full license to perform what is a basic transaction. Furthermore, the ability to print an "Incoming Material" report for each purchase order (service or otherwise) would be helpful for a shop management. This way there is a paper record of what is coming in on a PO.

For work flow, it'd be nice if there were options linking to create an invoice directly from a packing list (e.g. a save and create invoice option in the save button).

Some of these missing features we find to be inhibiting our efficiency of implementation, so far we are working around them.

Pros

E2 creates a clutter free work space with a simple layout and design. Shop Tech has broken down the manufacturing process to get a true understanding of how our company really operates. The bolt on modules allow for greater control of specific functions in particular departments. We specifically use the Scheduling and Custom Order Import Automation functions. Scheduling give us a top level view, department view, work center view, and all the way down to a view of sub parts that make up a single part. This tells us exactly where an order is as well as if we are under or over loaded at the work center and department level. All I have to do is pull up the schedule, click a button for the level of detail I want to display and away it goes. The Custom Order Import Function has allowed us to automate the order entry process by simply downloading a file from our customer, pointing where I saved the file, and clicking "Import". This function creates the order and based off our custom company settings which we have setup to automatically pull from stock jobs, inventory, post a quantity to make or a combination of all of the above. We can then run a requirement report to see what we need to make to fulfill open orders or to make stock for inventory. It really doesn't get easier than that.

Cons

The extra modules do have a cost but they are well worth it. On the plus side of that, E2 will demo the modules with full functionality and if it doesn't incorporate everything that you need you don't have to purchase it.

Pros

What we like most about the E2 Shop System Software is the ability to expand and customize our databases. We purchased the SQL version which allowed us to put the E2 OEM program on steroids. We added custom fields and tables of things that were very specific to our manufacturing business. We also added a custom front end for our customers to access things like detailed part specifications, testing data, sales history, package tracking, and much more. We also added a custom backend for our employees to enter non E2 items into separate database tables and link the information to the customers and vendors already in E2. The best part is, we have a very high end custom solution at a fraction of the cost of some of the other solutions on the market. We have the ability to barcode scan, track employees time for payroll, calculate exact labor costs based on actual production times, track inventory, import our invoices into Quickbooks, perform accurate estimations / quotations and much more.

Cons

We started off with the Access database version which is limited in scope, but soon realized that the SQL version was much more powerful and allowed unlimited growth.

Pros

As someone who does look behind the scenes and works to dig data out of the system, I am impressed with the amount of information that JobBOSS does capture. Additionally, it is quite well organized in its structure. On the front end, the user interface is intuitive and lends itself to easy training.

Cons

Reporting. The stock reports are reasonable for a company that does not need to dig into its data very deeply. But the analysis at deeper levels would either require purchasing many custom reports or have someone on staff that can dig into the data and create custom reports.

The scheduling module works best in an environment with minimal chance of perturbation. Systems that have a high degree of variation become hard to model accurately.

Pros

The designers clearly have knowledge of a shop environment and are pretty comprehensive in touching all the aspects of a job shop. The sales team is very accessible. The product is very easy to get up and operational with which may be attractive to shops starting out or implementing this type of system for the first time. The software does have controls over what users can do what which is useful for keeping employees in check. The reports that it generates are concise and professional looking out of the box.

Cons

The interface is woefully outdated and lacks cohesiveness throughout, data entry practices in one area do not apply to others and certainly do not conform to defacto software standards. Its a bit embarrassing having state of the art CAD/CAM systems with wonderful imagery next to something that looks straight out of 1996. Looks are one thing but we have had a lot of time lost due to slow workflow and data entry errors. It will open many windows and dialog boxes which demand screen focus. Not only is it cumbersome to work in other windows applications with E2 running, you can not even run more than one task at a time inside of it. The software does not scale well to high resolutions or multiple screens. The software rarely fails gracefully, you'll get cryptic error messages in never ending loops.

The software relies on a number of 3rd party frameworks including outdated Java runtimes (insecure) All of your data is stored MSJet databases, for those not tech savvy, its late 1980's technology that is isn't supported by Microsoft any more and was never really designed to be scaled to the point you can potentially reach. They do offer an upgrade to MS SQL which comes at a significant cost (which doesn't include SQL server itself or migration services) and it has the added bonus of breaking any custom reports (which are also expensive commissioned work). Although some user controls are present, there isn't granular control over everything in the system. Its very possible users without clearance to certain information can gain access to things they shouldn't. (ie: ITAR)

Nearly every other vendor is offering some type of cloud integration, and although E2 does offer a component called webview (no surprise, its an additional fee), its really a customer portal and doesn't offer much in terms of what a company employee would need. The software will not play nicely across multiple networks, we had several locations connected via VPN which Shoptech does not support. Their solution was to use MS terminal services which is cumbersome and requires additional licensing. In today's global economy, accessibility should be paramount, not a vendor locked afterthought.

The software does have provisions for shop floor data collection and although it does work, its cumbersome and our busy and non-technical shop floor staff abhor it and we eventually abandoned it.

Support was initially good but as our business grew and our implementation of the software became more complex support has been slow to respond (if at all) and many of the ongoing problems we are facing haven't been satisfactorily resolved.

Pros

The software is very easy to learn and the interface is extremely easy to navigate. The modules provided exactly mirror the processes in our business so almost every part of the software is applicable to our day to day operations.

Having our business data archived, accessible and organized has sped up and simplified many of the tasks that used to take much longer. Estimates are now completed much faster and processes such as material receiving, shipping or the production of purchase orders for our vendors have become standardized and much easier to do. The time savings and insights into our business / production processes have made us more competitive and our customers (especially our larger industrial customers) see value in the advantages we've gained from the software.

Cons

The one part of the software that we find of little value is scheduling. This may not be the case for other users but as a job shop we've found that the scheduling module simply doesn't work with the realities of our production processes.

Pros

E2 user for 13 years, sequel version. Most manufacturing companies hardly utilize more than 50% of an MRP/ERP, and don't put the effort to truly comprehend the system to ever fully utilize. In those cases, this would be a good system to use. It does a lot of muscle work for you if you use it right. If you are truly ok with simply letting their scheduling module spit out a generic schedule that is limited in work-ability, this would be a good system. The most updated version has more bells a whistles which is nice but for us was fundamentally lacking in real change and not worthy of the investment to upgrade - plus the fact it is an entirely new system where you would lose all your history was additionally disappointing.

Cons

The system has way too many issues. The purchasing module is as stagnant and rigid as it gets. No room for flexibility. The estimating module is also disconnected on very basic levels from the purchasing side. The scheduling module has not been updated in any sort of substantial way since the beginning and is entirely too slow to be of use if you actually want to actively manage your variables. It crashes a lot (and yes, we had it set up by them so no reason there). The support is BASIC. Within 1 year, I was more knowledgeable than the staff trying to help me with questions I had. Constant system issues where quantities duplicate on their own, or system crashes when running a report (which some of them take a really long time).

Pros

We're a growing company and as such have turn-over and new personnel growth. E2 is intuitive and our new employees seem to be able to adapt into the system with minimal effort and training. As the IT person here I have witnessed that peer-to-peer training seems to be all that is required to have that new person up and running on E2 within a short time and with little involvement from me, that's a big help! From Shipping and Receiving through final Billing, if our new hire has basic computing skills, their transition into that respective E2 function hasn't been a major training concern.

Cons

We're a service and repair facility and it took considerable effort improvising and rethinking to adapt the system into our way of doing things. Initially the software seemed to be over-kill and confusing for our needs but with time we were able to merge our methods with the system and adapt.

Pros

The thing I like most about E2 is that it is so user friendly. The process of training new employees is very simple due to the ease of E2. E2 is very functional. It works wonderful for all our departments: AR, AP, Quoting & Estimating, Receiving & Shipping, order entry & purchasing, job tracking and all accounting and inventory reporting. The online forum, tutorials and customer service alone are reasons enough to purchase E2. Their customer services is top rated. I have always received help and been completely satisfied with the results each and every time I've contacted E2.

Cons

The thing I dislike about E2 is orphans. Orphans are little glitches that are caused when something goes wrong. E2 doesn't go backwards very well, meaning you have to be very cautious when undoing / unwinding things. Some of my fellow employees fail to unwind things the proper way so we get an orphan occasionally. Although I must say, orphans are an easy fix for E2 customer service reps.

Pros

Once you get the hang of it, it's pretty easy to navigate through. We do not utilize everything E2 has to offer. We create orders, packing slips, invoices and vendor PO's with E2. We are in an internet deadzone and have really bad service in the shop so we are unable to use the data collection portion and we use QuickBooks for our billing. for what we use it for it works great. The traveler make sense, creating packing slips and invoices is simple and the customer service is top notch.

Cons

The interface is not really intuitive, there was a big learning curve for my team. For example, when we were first trying to print job travelers we were hitting the "print" button in the top right. This was not the correct button. The correct button is "reprint" on the left side of the screen. Why would we be "reprinting" something that we haven't even printed yet? And why have two print options when one isn't even really an option? Another example with some of our frustrations is with the GL accounts. You have to assign an account to a tool in order for it to be properly assigned in QuickBooks. When invoicing, you are required
to enter what GL account you would like that invoice assigned to, but it does nothing. The GL accounts are attached to tools, not invoices. If you do your bookkeeping in QuickBooks it is pointless. It would be really helpful if you could assign your GL account in the invoicing stage, but you can't.

Pros

The product is a comprehensive job tracking system. When using the individual "modules" in the correct order in creating parts, quotes, jobs, purchases, shipments, etc. you will be able to trace, track, run reports and get great information. Shoptech as a vendor has always been extremely helpful when you contact them. You will not sit on hold for hours like with some other vendors. You will find both basic information and more extensive information on their website either through webinars, help papers, virtual training classes and also User Discussion Boards. Should you not find the information which you are seeking, their staff is very informative and will not leave you in a bind.

Cons

The vendor is very upfront about what their system will and will not accomplish. I miss my accounting bells and whistles with having real time reporting at my finger tips (however, they do provide a "Quick-view" area in which to get real time data for various areas in the system such as job status, parts/customer/vendor inquiries and information, PO status, etc. The worst issue that I can state is that in order to take a look at where items are hitting the G/L, the month in question has to be posted. In order to make any changes, the months have to be unposted. Users should not be in the "Accounting area" when this is being done. AND the worst part in using the audit trail to see which user possibly edited something, no matter where in the system, the audit trail will only tell you who viewed, possibly edited, but will not give you further information to solve your puzzles as to who did what, when and why.

Pros

I have used multiple ERP systems some of them rather expensive with a large learning curve, when I went looking for a ERP system for our machine shop, one of the leading criteria was that the ERP would have, or support the AS9100 standard. E2 was the only one that offered a QA module to help create our AS9100 documentation, then as a bonus E2 had a consultant come out and help set up our AS9100 Quality Management System, to top it off, another consultant came back out a few month later to do an audit of our documentation to make sure we were ready to take on the AS9100 registrar. E2 does have an AP & AR module however we wanted to be able to keep our financial information separate in QuickBooks, this ERP system allows you to flow order and purchase order information seamlessly from E2 to QuickBooks by syncing this information over. I really hope companies that are looking for an ERP system make E2 their choice. I did a lot of painstaking research on this and wish I would have found reviews of ERP systems like this to help me along. E2 does what it takes to run a business effectively and as an added surprise the software is cost effective as well.

Cons

The only Area I have had a challenge with would be the timeclock buzzer, the timeclock portion is provided by one of E2's partners and we recently had the buzzer stop working well, the e2 sofware is pinging the correct signal however the buzzer is not working correctly. So really this doesnt seem to be a E2 issue it is a computerwise issue (computerwise is the timeclock system)

Pros

Easy use for an ERP System. I enjoy all the help and support when I was leaning this software a few years ago. the transition from the old software to the new software was very easy. Your team is very helpful when teaching others how to use the software. The classes are a huge help. Thank you.

Cons

I could see improvement in offering the old live classes in the old E2 software. My old job, I used the old software then transitioned my team to the new we based software. Now, I am back using the old software until I move them to the web based software, and the classes are only in the new web based software, so it is difficult to teach a new team how to use this software when the video's only show the new web based version.

Pros

Experience: We are a small family owned business that needed to get ISO certified as a requirement by our customer. We did our research and E2 was the best company to offer shop control and offer ISO certification. We have been using E2 since 2012, we have been ISO certified since 2012. We were eager and became ISO certified within 6 months (take a lot of work and dedication to get it done quickly).

Overall E2 has been a great resource for us.

Pros: The software is easy to use, the information that you are able to get from reports is helpful (only as good as the information put in).

Easy for all employees to use with all computer skill levels.

ISO documentation was extremely helpful with becoming ISO certified.

Customer service is always helpful, you always get a real person to help you with your needs.

Cons

Software does not allow you to do multiple things at once, it is very simplistic which might be best.

Difficult to customize it to you specific needs, it can be done but there is a cost for that. If you are a start up company this software would be great to get you going with all aspects, if you are an established company you might need to adjust how you do things.

We still do all of our accounting and customer quoting from QuickBooks as that works best for our company.

We do not use E2 for scheduling as we are a fast pace job shop and things change on the fly and difficult to schedule within the software.