Multi Company Blank Title 77771

Yahoo Archive
1
Yea, I guess I was remembering that all wrong...it was quite a while ago. Maybe it was something we were just brainstorming about. Both companies were sold and relocated or absorbed a few years ago and I don't believe either still uses Vantage anymore. That was the only other time I ever had a need to even look at the multi company module. I think it might have been brand new at that time and did not seem to have much benefit to us other than to combine the financials. Looks like it has a lot more funtionality in version 8.xx+.

Greg


----- Original Message -----
From: Ned
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, May 13, 2009 9:11 AM
Subject: Re: [Vantage] Multi Company





Greg,

You need 30 user licenses if you are using a second database. If you are
using more than one database for Vantage in a Production Environment, you
need a seperate Serial Number, and individual module codes for both
installations of Vantage. Even if on the same server it is considered a
completely seperate installation of Vantage for licensing purposes.

If you use the same serial number, and same module codes in more than one
database in a production environment you are in violation of the licensing
agreement with Epicor, and that can open you up to some serious financial
liability if that's ever discovered or known by them.

----- Original Message -----
From: "gclauser" <gclauser@...>
To: <vantage@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 13, 2009 8:19 AM
Subject: Re: [Vantage] Multi Company

> Actually, user licences needed I thought was a negative for multi company.
> About 6 years ago (at a different company) we aquired another company and
> put them on a separate Vantage database on our server (much like our test
> database). With a 15 user license, there could be 15 users in each
> database. If I used multi company, I would need 30 user licenses.
>
> Maybe it was just a temporary (unpublicized) quirk when multi company
> first came out but I don't think I'm remembering it wrong. Combining
> financials in Excel from Vantage exports was all we needed.
>
> Greg
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Techno Babbler
> To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 9:51 PM
> Subject: RE: [Vantage] Multi Company
>
>
>
>
>
> Licensing Costs for an entire second DB compared to using Multi-Company.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
> Of
> greg_clauser
> Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 5:18 PM
> To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [Vantage] Multi Company
>
> Anyone using the multi company module? What's the advantages? Seems like
> it
> would be better to have separate databases for each company.
>
> Greg
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Useful links for the Yahoo!Groups Vantage Board are: ( Note: You must
> have
> already linked your email address to a yahoo id to enable access. )
> (1) To access the Files Section of our Yahoo!Group for Report Builder and
> Crystal Reports and other 'goodies', please goto:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/files/.
> (2) To search through old msg's goto:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/messages
> (3) To view links to Vendors that provide Vantage services goto:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/linksYahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Useful links for the Yahoo!Groups Vantage Board are: ( Note: You must
> have already linked your email address to a yahoo id to enable access. )
> (1) To access the Files Section of our Yahoo!Group for Report Builder and
> Crystal Reports and other 'goodies', please goto:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/files/.
> (2) To search through old msg's goto:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/messages
> (3) To view links to Vendors that provide Vantage services goto:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/linksYahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
2
Anyone using the multi company module? What's the advantages? Seems like it would be better to have separate databases for each company.

Greg
3
Any BAQ and BAQ Report that you write is good for use in all the companies. Same with Report Data Definitions.

Although I have not done it yet, I believe that you can create dashboards that will optionally pull & view data in all companies at the same time.

You can make customizations apply to all companies (or make some customizations apply to only one company).

Of course, these things can be exported from one database and imported to another; but it is much easier to update and maintain modifications to BAQs, BAQ Reports, RDD's, and customizations if you only need worry about one Live database.

User Security maintenance needs to be done in only one database and there is a Company tab which allows you to give access to each user only the company or companies he needs. If you had multiple databases, then you would need to duplicate the user securities in each database for each person.

Same with menu maintenance. It is much easier to maintain menus in one Live database rather than several.

Your personalizaions will apply to all companies. Same with Styling and Theme maintenance.

I believe there is an optional consolidated purchasing module that will allow you to consolidate purchasing for all companies. If my understanding is correct, this module would only be applicable for use with the multi-company module.

When you copy Live to Training which companies do frequently when they are testing, you would only be dealing with one database.

In fact all the database maintenance would only be done for one database. If you have more than one database, you increase the database maintenance time for your network administrator.

There are probably a lot more advantages to using the multi-company module that I haven't mentioned here.

I cannot think of any advantage to purchasing a separate database for each company.

Lynn


--- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, "greg_clauser" <gclauser@...> wrote:
>
> Anyone using the multi company module? What's the advantages? Seems like it would be better to have separate databases for each company.
>
> Greg
>
4
Licensing Costs for an entire second DB compared to using Multi-Company.



-----Original Message-----
From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
greg_clauser
Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 5:18 PM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Vantage] Multi Company

Anyone using the multi company module? What's the advantages? Seems like it
would be better to have separate databases for each company.

Greg



------------------------------------

Useful links for the Yahoo!Groups Vantage Board are: ( Note: You must have
already linked your email address to a yahoo id to enable access. )
(1) To access the Files Section of our Yahoo!Group for Report Builder and
Crystal Reports and other 'goodies', please goto:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/files/.
(2) To search through old msg's goto:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/messages
(3) To view links to Vendors that provide Vantage services goto:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/linksYahoo! Groups Links
5
Actually, user licences needed I thought was a negative for multi company. About 6 years ago (at a different company) we aquired another company and put them on a separate Vantage database on our server (much like our test database). With a 15 user license, there could be 15 users in each database. If I used multi company, I would need 30 user licenses.

Maybe it was just a temporary (unpublicized) quirk when multi company first came out but I don't think I'm remembering it wrong. Combining financials in Excel from Vantage exports was all we needed.

Greg



----- Original Message -----
From: Techno Babbler
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 9:51 PM
Subject: RE: [Vantage] Multi Company





Licensing Costs for an entire second DB compared to using Multi-Company.

-----Original Message-----
From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
greg_clauser
Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 5:18 PM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Vantage] Multi Company

Anyone using the multi company module? What's the advantages? Seems like it
would be better to have separate databases for each company.

Greg

------------------------------------

Useful links for the Yahoo!Groups Vantage Board are: ( Note: You must have
already linked your email address to a yahoo id to enable access. )
(1) To access the Files Section of our Yahoo!Group for Report Builder and
Crystal Reports and other 'goodies', please goto:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/files/.
(2) To search through old msg's goto:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/messages
(3) To view links to Vendors that provide Vantage services goto:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/linksYahoo! Groups Links





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
6
A lot of good points but don't the companies have to be pretty similar for a lot of this? How many users need to be doing stuff in more than one company? When there are big changes in one of the companies doesn't that potentially complicate things?

Greg


----- Original Message -----
From: Lynn
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 8:58 PM
Subject: [Vantage] Re: Multi Company





Any BAQ and BAQ Report that you write is good for use in all the companies. Same with Report Data Definitions.

Although I have not done it yet, I believe that you can create dashboards that will optionally pull & view data in all companies at the same time.

You can make customizations apply to all companies (or make some customizations apply to only one company).

Of course, these things can be exported from one database and imported to another; but it is much easier to update and maintain modifications to BAQs, BAQ Reports, RDD's, and customizations if you only need worry about one Live database.

User Security maintenance needs to be done in only one database and there is a Company tab which allows you to give access to each user only the company or companies he needs. If you had multiple databases, then you would need to duplicate the user securities in each database for each person.

Same with menu maintenance. It is much easier to maintain menus in one Live database rather than several.

Your personalizaions will apply to all companies. Same with Styling and Theme maintenance.

I believe there is an optional consolidated purchasing module that will allow you to consolidate purchasing for all companies. If my understanding is correct, this module would only be applicable for use with the multi-company module.

When you copy Live to Training which companies do frequently when they are testing, you would only be dealing with one database.

In fact all the database maintenance would only be done for one database. If you have more than one database, you increase the database maintenance time for your network administrator.

There are probably a lot more advantages to using the multi-company module that I haven't mentioned here.

I cannot think of any advantage to purchasing a separate database for each company.

Lynn

--- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, "greg_clauser" <gclauser@...> wrote:
>
> Anyone using the multi company module? What's the advantages? Seems like it would be better to have separate databases for each company.
>
> Greg
>





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
7
Companies in the same database in Vantage are in almost every respect quite separate from one another. Almost every table's primary key includes the Company column, and most of the layered functionality (e.g. the MultiCompany process) is dealing with this segmentation by copying data between companies (even though the records reside in the same table).

So I think the segmentation you're looking for you'd get from using MultiCompany, without all of the overhead (support, licensing[?], duplication of testing environments, etc. etc.) associated with completely separate databases.

You can have completely separate COAs, parts, customers, suppliers, BOMs, etc. in one company versus another. MultiCompany gives you the *option* of sending records marked as Global from one company to be linked to another, and you can do consolidated AP (but not AR).

I find some aspects of the MultiCompany components flaky in .405, but if you're essentially dealing with side-by-side segmentation I can't think of a good reason why you'd want to do separate DBs.

If in the future you sell a business and need to 'carve off' its company from your main DB, you can make a copy then, and use the admin tools to delete the 'other' companies from your forked DB.

I would seriously recommend getting Epicor consulting involved if you're going to setup MultiCompany as its not necessarily straightforward, or you can ask here and you'll probably get most of what you need. ;-)

-bws

--
Brian W. Spolarich ~ Manager, Information Services ~ Advanced Photonix / Picometrix
    bspolarich@... ~ 734-864-5618 ~ www.advancedphotonix.com


-----Original Message-----
From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of gclauser
Sent: Wednesday, May 13, 2009 8:28 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Vantage] Re: Multi Company

A lot of good points but don't the companies have to be pretty similar for a lot of this? How many users need to be doing stuff in more than one company? When there are big changes in one of the companies doesn't that potentially complicate things?

Greg


----- Original Message -----
From: Lynn
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 8:58 PM
Subject: [Vantage] Re: Multi Company





Any BAQ and BAQ Report that you write is good for use in all the companies. Same with Report Data Definitions.

Although I have not done it yet, I believe that you can create dashboards that will optionally pull & view data in all companies at the same time.

You can make customizations apply to all companies (or make some customizations apply to only one company).

Of course, these things can be exported from one database and imported to another; but it is much easier to update and maintain modifications to BAQs, BAQ Reports, RDD's, and customizations if you only need worry about one Live database.

User Security maintenance needs to be done in only one database and there is a Company tab which allows you to give access to each user only the company or companies he needs. If you had multiple databases, then you would need to duplicate the user securities in each database for each person.

Same with menu maintenance. It is much easier to maintain menus in one Live database rather than several.

Your personalizaions will apply to all companies. Same with Styling and Theme maintenance.

I believe there is an optional consolidated purchasing module that will allow you to consolidate purchasing for all companies. If my understanding is correct, this module would only be applicable for use with the multi-company module.

When you copy Live to Training which companies do frequently when they are testing, you would only be dealing with one database.

In fact all the database maintenance would only be done for one database. If you have more than one database, you increase the database maintenance time for your network administrator.

There are probably a lot more advantages to using the multi-company module that I haven't mentioned here.

I cannot think of any advantage to purchasing a separate database for each company.

Lynn

--- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, "greg_clauser" <gclauser@...> wrote:
>
> Anyone using the multi company module? What's the advantages? Seems like it would be better to have separate databases for each company.
>
> Greg
>





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



------------------------------------

Useful links for the Yahoo!Groups Vantage Board are: ( Note: You must have already linked your email address to a yahoo id to enable access. )
(1) To access the Files Section of our Yahoo!Group for Report Builder and Crystal Reports and other 'goodies', please goto: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/files/.
(2) To search through old msg's goto: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/messages
(3) To view links to Vendors that provide Vantage services goto: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/linksYahoo! Groups Links
8
Greg,

You need 30 user licenses if you are using a second database. If you are
using more than one database for Vantage in a Production Environment, you
need a seperate Serial Number, and individual module codes for both
installations of Vantage. Even if on the same server it is considered a
completely seperate installation of Vantage for licensing purposes.

If you use the same serial number, and same module codes in more than one
database in a production environment you are in violation of the licensing
agreement with Epicor, and that can open you up to some serious financial
liability if that's ever discovered or known by them.


----- Original Message -----
From: "gclauser" <gclauser@...>
To: <vantage@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 13, 2009 8:19 AM
Subject: Re: [Vantage] Multi Company


> Actually, user licences needed I thought was a negative for multi company.
> About 6 years ago (at a different company) we aquired another company and
> put them on a separate Vantage database on our server (much like our test
> database). With a 15 user license, there could be 15 users in each
> database. If I used multi company, I would need 30 user licenses.
>
> Maybe it was just a temporary (unpublicized) quirk when multi company
> first came out but I don't think I'm remembering it wrong. Combining
> financials in Excel from Vantage exports was all we needed.
>
> Greg
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Techno Babbler
> To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 9:51 PM
> Subject: RE: [Vantage] Multi Company
>
>
>
>
>
> Licensing Costs for an entire second DB compared to using Multi-Company.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
> Of
> greg_clauser
> Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 5:18 PM
> To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [Vantage] Multi Company
>
> Anyone using the multi company module? What's the advantages? Seems like
> it
> would be better to have separate databases for each company.
>
> Greg
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Useful links for the Yahoo!Groups Vantage Board are: ( Note: You must
> have
> already linked your email address to a yahoo id to enable access. )
> (1) To access the Files Section of our Yahoo!Group for Report Builder and
> Crystal Reports and other 'goodies', please goto:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/files/.
> (2) To search through old msg's goto:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/messages
> (3) To view links to Vendors that provide Vantage services goto:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/linksYahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Useful links for the Yahoo!Groups Vantage Board are: ( Note: You must
> have already linked your email address to a yahoo id to enable access. )
> (1) To access the Files Section of our Yahoo!Group for Report Builder and
> Crystal Reports and other 'goodies', please goto:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/files/.
> (2) To search through old msg's goto:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/messages
> (3) To view links to Vendors that provide Vantage services goto:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/linksYahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
9
I'm using it, as it fits our business logic well. For me it's much less maintenance than trying to chase two databases at once, but we're a very small volume operation, so I can't talk to the pros/cons for a large one.

Lynn Thomas
Senior Engineer
SAIC
317-357-4041 X255



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
10
--- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, "Thomas, Lynn A." <thomasl@...> wrote:
>
> I'm using it, as it fits our business logic well. For me it's much less maintenance than trying to chase two databases at once, but we're a very small volume operation, so I can't talk to the pros/cons for a large one.
>
> Lynn Thomas
> Senior Engineer
> SAIC
> 317-357-4041 X255
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

Using two databases makes consolidated reports to an entity a little more complicated. GEt used to Frx verses CorVue for those reports. That's what I have gleamed so far from doing what you are thinking about.

Tom Bosko
Miner Enterprises
11
A few years back we set up different companies under the same database to accomodate our new shop that would be producing stock jobs rather than make to order jobs as we do in our job shop.

The plan was great until we began running jobs between companies, and we were forced to 'manually' transfer these jobs. Without the multi-plant functionality (VERY EXPENSIVE!) there is no way to automate this transfer.

We will be upgrading to 8.03 in 3-4 months, we plan to combine the 2 companies, setting up separate G/L's and writing reports to separate our financials.

The users find 'swapping' between companies a pain as well. If we knew then what we know now we'd have set up under one company to begin with.

HTH,

Jill





--- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, "greg_clauser" <gclauser@...> wrote:
>
> Anyone using the multi company module? What's the advantages? Seems like it would be better to have separate databases for each company.
>
> Greg
>
12
Jill,

WE had to go to multi company becuase we have two companies, under our "umbrella," that have different FED IDs..no choice. To further complicate this issue one is actually the sales arm for the other. The other company produces product for the main company though they are , by FED definition, two seperate companies.

We are have a SC WF being created to drop the sales order from one company to the other. Which means parts must exist in both, ship to and customers as well. To be fair this is not normal but it is what it is...

The multi-company functionality from Vantage is misleading. It's true in the fact you can have inner comapny transactions but both side of that tranaction need to be manually handled.. that won't fly here, so we are having SC WF to automate as much as we can of that process. This will include the change process..

We haven't even drove into the reporting of all that but becuase we are on one DB, which really has no advantage of one verse two DB, but it does when make creating the financial reports. From what I understand so far it is easier doing one DB verses two when having to pull the info together.


Tom
Miner Enterprises