CLOUD DEPLOYED EPICOR ERP: EXPRESS BUNDLE SERVICES, EDUCATION AND SUPPORT OVERVIEW

EPICOR ERP: AN INSPIRED SOLUTION FOR INNOVATIVE COMPANIES

Our Express bundle provides the sophistication and capabilities of our award winning Epicor ERP, deployed in the cloud and optimized to serve the needs of small-to-mid sized manufacturers, distributors and service-centric businesses. Cloud deployment means no server headaches—no time spent installing or maintaining the system, no backups to worry about, and no capital tied up in your ERP deployment. The Express bundle is based around a simple monthly subscription model that allows you to focus on running your business—not your IT.

We’ve made going-live on Express straightforward too. This document is designed to help you understand a few things unique to the way that we help our Express clients get up and running quickly.

IMPLEMENTATION SERVICES

Alongside our Express bundle we provide “Fixed Price, Defined Scope” implementation services. Based on our success in rapidly deploying hundreds of companies just like yours, we’ve established implementation services that are designed to get you up and running quickly and provide all the confidence you need to maintain your system yourself.

Our Express implementation program is designed around a 30-hour project scope where we guide you through all the necessary steps to go live on Epicor ERP Express Bundle one-to-one. We know you want to understand how the system works, and ensure you’re capable of ongoing administration, so our objective is to work alongside you and coach you through every step—as you progress through the implementation checklist and make the key decisions about your implementation. When it’s time to go live, you’ll be well versed in the fundamentals of Epicor ERP.

You’ll be assigned both an Epicor Project Manager—who is responsible for managing the larger elements of your implementation and a dedicated Epicor Consulting professional whose job is to work side by side with the project leader from within your organization. Throughout this engagement we’ll work together and progress through system configuration options, customizations, loading of data, testing, and training users. Plus we’ll be fully engaged on go-live day, ready to provide any support your project manager or users need as they work through their first few weeks on the system. And because we deliver these services remotely, we can schedule around your availability and the pace you choose.

Details vary for each client—for example you might want a longer ‘conference room pilot’ if there is something very unique to your business processes, or you might find that we can reallocate a few hours otherwise associated with a ‘module’ that you’re not going to use. We typically see the 30-hour implementation project allocated something like this:

PREPARE – 5 HOURS

Including topics such as:

CONFIGURE – 10 HOURS

Including topics such as:

VALIDATE – 10 HOURS

Including topics such as:

DEPLOY – 5 HOURS

Including topics such as:

DATA MIGRATION

A critical step in any implementation is to determine which, and how much historical information should be brought into your new system. Some historical data is critical to a successful system migration—but more isn’t always better when it comes to legacy data, so we work with clients to help them determine the right balance and ensure that we’re not recreating the limitations of your old systems into your new ERP.

Data migration is a collaborative project between your staff and Epicor. We’ll provide specially designed templates to populate with data from your old systems, and we’ll help you determine the best place for that data in the new system. Sometimes that’s into what we call ‘Master Tables’ (such as vendor and customer records), and sometimes that’s into fields we create specifically to house this older data, allowing you to look up older records in a historical-view mode. Clients migrating from other Epicor solutions may discover that some of their historical transaction data can also be migrated into the new Epicor system.

As with our implementation packages, data migration programs are fixed priced, fixed scope, and designed to get the data you need most into your new Express system, without cluttering it up with data that we’ve learned from experience most clients don’t need. You’ll be actively involved in this part of your implementation process—but as with every other step—the Epicor team will be there beside you coaching you though our best practices for data migration.

Our Express Data Migration package is focused on bringing into Epicor ERP the following legacy master data:The following legacy data records can be optionally migrated for an additional fee.

Other data may also be brought into your Epicor ERP system— and we’ll talk about your specific needs, and any additional costs associated that may be associated with this optional service very early in the project.

TRAINING AND EDUCATION

Education is a lifelong process—and that applies to your Epicor ERP system as well. Clients deploying our Express bundle are provided at no additional charge access to tremendous education resources.

NO CHARGE, IN-PERSON, INSTRUCTOR LED CLASSROOM TRAINING

Hosted in Epicor Education facilities, clients are invited to 2-day long ‘deep immersion’ hands-on training classes to help them hone their skills as users and system administrators. Classes are offered monthly, and welcome users of all skill levels.

ONLINE, “EMBEDDED” EDUCATION

A no-additional charge, hands-on education system unlike any other and unique to Epicor—unlike any other and unique to Epicor where you can hone your skills at your own pace, learn how advanced features work, and experiment, all guided by our structured computer based training tools.

In addition to these free educational resources, Express clients are eligible to register for classes hosted through Epicor University. (Note: Some Epicor University classes have an associated fee.)

SUPPORT

If you ever suspect “something’s just not working the way you expect it to”, or need to talk to someone one-on-one, we’ve got you covered there as well. All Cloud Deployed Epicor ERP users are entitled to unlimited technical support, available through (your choice of) phone, e-mail, or our web-based support portal.

PILOT ENVIRONMENTS: “A SAFE PLACE TO TEST BIG IDEAS”

It’s not uncommon to have “What happens if I click on this…” questions with any new system. To ensure you can safely ask those questions (without impacting your production systems), we provide every Cloud Deployed Epicor ERP client a no-charge ‘pilot environment” in addition to their production environment. This is a safe place for you to play, test, explore, experiment, and answer all your ‘what if’ questions.

To ensure that this test environment feels just like “the realthing”, each month we refresh that test environment with a copy of your production data—providing a realistic test environment that is built on copies of your own Chart of Accounts, Customers, Inventory Items, Bills of Materials, and more.

OPTIONAL MODULES

With Epicor ERP there’s always room to grow. You can add a number of optional modules to your Express deployment at any time, including:


These optional modules require additional implementation time beyond the 30 hours assigned to a typical Express bundle deployment. Ask your Epicor Customer Account Manager for more details about this.

OPTIONAL SERVICES

We’ll never hold you back! Worried that our bundled Express deployment plan might not be right for your business? Got a really ambitious idea for your Epicor ERP systems, or have unique reporting requirements that will require modification to the ‘out of the box’ reports in Express?

If you want a completely bespoke configuration, more time from our consultants, or a totally ‘unique to you’ deployment package, our team of professional services experts would like to talk. We’ve implemented thousands of on-premises and cloud systems, so chances are we can bring some great ideas to your company

GROWING BEYOND EXPRESS

A well deployed ERP system is a business growth engine—so it’s not surprising that Express customers occasionally come to us and ask for more capabilities than initially deployed. Upgrading from Express to a broader solution within the Cloud Deployed Epicor ERP portfolio is a straightforward process, and allows you to protect the investment you made to date in your Express system by allowing us to migrate and build upon your Express system.

From time to time our clients decide to move their cloud deployed system to their own network, bringing what was a cloud deployed solution on premises—and we make that easy too. With product and financial investment protection, Epicor ERP stands beside you regardless of your deploying in the cloud, on premises, or as a hybrid deployment.

Should you decide at the end of your subscription term that Epicor ERP isn’t the right solution for your business any longer, we’ll be there too. It’s always hard to say goodbye, but we understand that sometimes your needs change—and we’ll be sure that you get a copy of your data in a machine readable format for wherever you find yourself next.
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July 21, 2017 Epicor Whitepapers Lindsey O'Brien