Our Experience With Shopworks Onsite 8.3

[TCred]

Is anyone using Deconetwork?

Yes, and after two years using it we are going elsewhere.

The quoting system is unstable to the point that on numerous occasions in the last six months a quote was raised and sent to the customer, but when the customer approved and paid on-line for the job the price had mysteriously changed. Needless to say the new "lower" price didn't cover the job and we are then faced with going cap in hand to the customer to ask for more (although correct) money.

Customers are hard enough to come by as it is, to be forced to call a customer and tell them that our computer system under charged them and we can't print their job causes stress that I can do without.

If you want ECommerce though their long awaited V8 is about to go live, it looks pretty good.

[mk162]

What if a bunch of shops built a check list for a platform that was flexible, workable, managed jobs, held information.  I would put $5k in towards.  There must be 100 plus companies here struggling.  Big systems trying to clumsily re-invent accounting packages or CRM platforms and creating huge platforms - not streamlining the information process.  I dont need Email Marketing, I have Mailchimp, I dont need accounting - I have Xero, I dont want to be inputting 300 pieces of information that may not be required.  I kind of like some of the parts of wheresmyjob.com - it works for me as a contract decorator that vendors could self populate job sheets to a point, search and manage their own artworks, see where their jobs are at in the schedule.  But its too small and lacks a lot also, but it does do scheduling and production management.  There is room for coding something that is decorator driven and selling it in a modular system according to requirements.  That you can turn off or purchase functionality.  Why sync into a secondrate or light accounting package if you have a good package, or crm or email platform....  Why re-invent existing wheels and not cover other basic functions...

I would love to get some checklists from folks.  I am meeting with our Java, API, and some other things expert on Monday to bring him up to speed.  I don't know why it's so hard to find a good solution.  A lot of folks really liked T-quoter/Fast Manager/Price-it style of systems, why can't something like that be done in the cloud?

I have a list of my most important features listed out by each section of the program, like Quoting Screen, purchase orders, invoicing, customer portal, etc.  We have a meeting on Friday with the whole team to see what we can do.

If anyone is interested you can send it to brad at replaprints com

[ericheartsu]

zoo and Zane and I have talked about this. but ultimately it becomes to challenging. Each shop is going to have it's own wants and needs, and ultimately the cost just gets to high.

[Stinkhorn Press]

after a couple years printing manual, I was shocked to find out just how basic most of the automatic presses were. clearly kludged together aping a manual and newer generations sometimes addressing the problems that posed. I couldn't believe that no one had sat down and engineered something, well, better.

after a couple more years I went out looking at the various "shop management" programs on the market, to go with my functional, but-really-it's-a-mechanized-manual, automatic press. We are a backwards industry. crap, screen printing, roughly how we do it, was done, what 4,000 years ago? we haven't cracked this nut. it's a wasteland. "shop management" programs. ha!

someday I too will have a pile of otherwise un-related apps that are packaged together and marketed as a "screen printing shop management program." I'll roll my eyes at how we remain cavemen, but I won't fix the problem, I'm just a screen printer!

[T Shirt Farmer]

I used Shopworks for 14 years, FILEMAKER is the problem!  I agree with most of what he said.  Support I would imagine is getting worse as they sign up new customers.  I left Shopworks in the dust 7 years ago and never looked back!  My opinion, some people love it and I may would revisit it down the road if it ever gets a new platform.

What did you buy to replace shopworks?

[dirkdiggler]

I used Shopworks for 14 years, FILEMAKER is the problem!  I agree with most of what he said.  Support I would imagine is getting worse as they sign up new customers.  I left Shopworks in the dust 7 years ago and never looked back!  My opinion, some people love it and I may would revisit it down the road if it ever gets a new platform.

What did you buy to replace shopworks?

Nothing, just quickbooks.

[alan802]

So if I scanned well enough I see that 3-4 people here have/had shopworks?  We've used it for about 15 years.  I've tried to look at what other programs are out there and if there is legitimately something better/more robust I'd love to hear about it.  At this point, I can't fathom being able to move all our data currently in shopworks to another program, then I don't think there is something out there that performs what we need better so those problems equal us staying put.  I don't LOVE shopworks, but I don't fully understand why so many people hate the program. I read the first post and saw some valid subjective issues (clunky, outdated, etc.) and the fact that if you press "enter" in a field nothing happens until you move the cursor to the "find" or "done" button...well, ok, fair enough.  It wouldn't be too hard to add the function that when you were finished entering data into the specific search fields it would automatically do the search by hitting the enter key, but since you can literally search about 100 different fields at the same time you better be careful not to accidentally hit the enter key before you've completed all of your search parameters or you'll be starting over.  And maybe that's why the OP would like the undo function so that when they make a mistake they don't have to start the search all over again.  As far as needing an undo function when the vast majority of what we do with shopworks is simply data entry doesn't make it something that is given much thought.  It's managed to keep hundreds of thousands of orders organized and easily accessible.  It allows us to enter every piece of data that one could imagine within a work order then it can analyze all of that data and/or show it to you in a few dozen different ways, at a minimum.  It keeps up with everything we purchase, any damages we have, and a bunch of other stuff we don't really use.  So maybe it doesn't function as good as most applications, software and programs in other industries and it certainly doesn't look as jazzy and sophisticated, but there isn't anything that I can think of that this shop would need it to do to run a more successful operation.  It is incredibly simple, enter the data correctly and I don't see how/why it doesn't do what shops need it to do.  Once or twice a year something happens to it and they log in remotely and fix the problem.  It's been many years since it's been down for more than an hour.  It's not cheap, and maybe that's why many don't like it because they think they should get more for their money.  That's another fair criticism I suppose.

So yeah, that's just my opinion.  And I poke around Shopworks all the tim to see what else it can do that we don't currently use, and I do see the flaws, but I judge this issue by this question:  Compared to what? 

[ericheartsu]

So if I scanned well enough I see that 3-4 people here have/had shopworks?  We've used it for about 15 years.  I've tried to look at what other programs are out there and if there is legitimately something better/more robust I'd love to hear about it.  At this point, I can't fathom being able to move all our data currently in shopworks to another program, then I don't think there is something out there that performs what we need better so those problems equal us staying put.  I don't LOVE shopworks, but I don't fully understand why so many people hate the program. I read the first post and saw some valid subjective issues (clunky, outdated, etc.) and the fact that if you press "enter" in a field nothing happens until you move the cursor to the "find" or "done" button...well, ok, fair enough.  It wouldn't be too hard to add the function that when you were finished entering data into the specific search fields it would automatically do the search by hitting the enter key, but since you can literally search about 100 different fields at the same time you better be careful not to accidentally hit the enter key before you've completed all of your search parameters or you'll be starting over.  And maybe that's why the OP would like the undo function so that when they make a mistake they don't have to start the search all over again.  As far as needing an undo function when the vast majority of what we do with shopworks is simply data entry doesn't make it something that is given much thought.  It's managed to keep hundreds of thousands of orders organized and easily accessible.  It allows us to enter every piece of data that one could imagine within a work order then it can analyze all of that data and/or show it to you in a few dozen different ways, at a minimum.  It keeps up with everything we purchase, any damages we have, and a bunch of other stuff we don't really use.  So maybe it doesn't function as good as most applications, software and programs in other industries and it certainly doesn't look as jazzy and sophisticated, but there isn't anything that I can think of that this shop would need it to do to run a more successful operation.  It is incredibly simple, enter the data correctly and I don't see how/why it doesn't do what shops need it to do.  Once or twice a year something happens to it and they log in remotely and fix the problem.  It's been many years since it's been down for more than an hour.  It's not cheap, and maybe that's why many don't like it because they think they should get more for their money.  That's another fair criticism I suppose.

So yeah, that's just my opinion.  And I poke around Shopworks all the tim to see what else it can do that we don't currently use, and I do see the flaws, but I judge this issue by this question:  Compared to what?

Alan, you're right, Shopworks is one of the only options out there, but it's far from a useable solution for alot of us. And just because it's the only comprehensive system around, doesn't mean it's an actual good option.

[DannyGruninger]

Not much to add at this time but overall we are a happy shopworx user. I cant imagine what we would do without it.... We have looked at everything out there and unless you build your own shopworx is absolutely the best we have found.

[kirkwad]

Not much to add at this time but overall we are a happy shopworx user. I cant imagine what we would do without it.... We have looked at everything out there and unless you build your own shopworx is absolutely the best we have found.

I feel the same way. There are a number of things I have gripes about with Shopworx, but overall I feel it's a great tool that keeps almost all aspects of the operation centralized, organized & available to everyone. Especially if you're a small shop that is growing into a medium or larger operation. Figuring out the processes of how you want to use it and training everybody accordingly is key. It's far from perfect & cumbersome at times, but we would be WAY less organized & efficient without it.

[ThePrinter]

Is it ShopworX ERP ya'll are talking about?

https://softwareconnect.com/job-shop/internetworx-shopworx-erp/

[cbjamel]

No, this is https://www.shopworx.com/

Shane

[ThePrinter]

No, this is https://www.shopworx.com/

Shane

That's what I was wondering, the web address is "Shopworx" but on the site shows "Shopworks", a little confusing when it is referred to both ways.
Either way...Now we know and knowing is half the battle!

[Ron Pierson]

I'm with the guys that have positive things to say about Shopworks. Is it the be all to end all - nope. Have I used it to it's fullest - nope. Does it REQUIRE MASSIVE TRAINING for an employee to use it - you bet!! The program is a BIG investment - sure is. The bigger investment you will NEED to make is employee management of the damn thing after install.

Shopworks, or any management program is just that - a program. It ain't goin to do the work for ya - you gotta invest time in the damn things to get what you want. We do these three things to make it work - training, training, training. Their online videos aren't the best they can be - watch them and read between the lines. You should be able to figure it out. No they don't answer the phones after business hours in Florida. Get over it, they aren't Amazon. Should they fix this issue - sure they should.

I got over 100 employees and it works for us. I have EVERYONE in my building involved. If they don't involve themselves in our software, they can't work here - simple. The best thing it does - gets us through our day without too much issue. The real job we do - screen-printing - is hard enough as it is without having untrained employees running your software.

My Humble Opinion
RP

[GKitson]

So if I scanned well enough I see that 3-4 people here have/had shopworks?  We've used it for about 15 years.  I've tried to look at what other programs are out there and if there is legitimately something better/more robust I'd love to hear about it.  At this point, I can't fathom being able to move all our data currently in shopworks to another program, then I don't think there is something out there that performs what we need better so those problems equal us staying put.  I don't LOVE shopworks, but I don't fully understand why so many people hate the program. I read the first post and saw some valid subjective issues (clunky, outdated, etc.) and the fact that if you press "enter" in a field nothing happens until you move the cursor to the "find" or "done" button...well, ok, fair enough.  It wouldn't be too hard to add the function that when you were finished entering data into the specific search fields it would automatically do the search by hitting the enter key, but since you can literally search about 100 different fields at the same time you better be careful not to accidentally hit the enter key before you've completed all of your search parameters or you'll be starting over.  And maybe that's why the OP would like the undo function so that when they make a mistake they don't have to start the search all over again.  As far as needing an undo function when the vast majority of what we do with shopworks is simply data entry doesn't make it something that is given much thought.  It's managed to keep hundreds of thousands of orders organized and easily accessible.  It allows us to enter every piece of data that one could imagine within a work order then it can analyze all of that data and/or show it to you in a few dozen different ways, at a minimum.  It keeps up with everything we purchase, any damages we have, and a bunch of other stuff we don't really use.  So maybe it doesn't function as good as most applications, software and programs in other industries and it certainly doesn't look as jazzy and sophisticated, but there isn't anything that I can think of that this shop would need it to do to run a more successful operation.  It is incredibly simple, enter the data correctly and I don't see how/why it doesn't do what shops need it to do.  Once or twice a year something happens to it and they log in remotely and fix the problem.  It's been many years since it's been down for more than an hour.  It's not cheap, and maybe that's why many don't like it because they think they should get more for their money.  That's another fair criticism I suppose.

So yeah, that's just my opinion.  And I poke around Shopworks all the tim to see what else it can do that we don't currently use, and I do see the flaws, but I judge this issue by this question:  Compared to what?

I have watched this thread with some interest and decided not to participate because of accusations of favoritism, however Alan has summarized the response better than I could therefore my response is simply "What Alan said"!

My 2 cents,

Kitson