Oracle is frankly the worst system i have ever used...

Oracle is frankly the worst system i have ever...

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I have to use this system everyday at my new job, it is without doubt the most mind boggling and confusing system i have ever had the misfortune of using.

It is slow, inefficient and has a mind of its own...

The public sector really need to switch to another system.....
Charlie

Replies (12)

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By neileg
13th Mar 2006 11:06

Sage Line 50?
I work in local government and we use Cedar e5. I can't see Sage Line 50 coping with 3,000 registered users with concurrency of several hundred!

I've not looked at Oracle GL but when we were looking at payroll/HR systems, it struck me that just about every project manager for Oracle systems had had a period off work with stress, and some had taken retirement...

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By dtweats
13th Mar 2006 11:12

Alistair, the cynic in me...
...wonders if govt depts actually ask their accountants what they want in terms of accounting packages? Or is there just such a love affair with consultants (we certainly pay them enough), that depts would rather listen to them than us?

Have to say that my experience of working with consultants during the testing of Sun Accounts was not a happy one! They were so demanding that at times I wondered who the client was!

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By listerramjet
13th Mar 2006 09:00

what does "big" mean in this context?
Typically a big system just costs more, and perhaps delivers less.

Consultants that charge big bucks but don't listen and don't (can't?) deliver! more fool you for paying them.

SageLine 50 is a much maligned application, but it is scalable if you have a lot of small nodes, and a good consolidation package supported by a suitable ETL. OK it falls down if you want centralised purchasing/stock control, or a complex linked manufacturing process - but "big" makes more sense in that context.

Why would the NHS need any more? I have an outsiders view of the NHS (although I have worked on the edges of public sector on a number of occasions) - it is a large complex organisation ruthlessly exploited by consultants, and managed by politicians - recipe for disaster.

Don't know about Oracle, but why should I care?

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Dennis Howlett
By dahowlett
10th Mar 2006 17:10

So then...
David's remarks are revealing on a number of levels. I have personal knowledge of Agresso in public sector and as I'm seeing it, they are much preferred by users. Evidenced by some great wins recently. They seem to inspire a level of confidence not shared by others.

Once again - Oracle? not favoured. Discoverer? I thought they'd killed that sick puppy off - shows I need to update myself.

Interesting about Cognos/Clime. Cognos is punted as an enterprise class solution but again, from what I've seen, it isn't and, to be blunt, its ETL is a dog. Clime always struck me as an oddball affair but ultimately competent.

At this level for reporting etc I don't think there's much that can touch Hyperion. They've made huge strides in the last couple of years and solved a lot of their scalability issues.

The comparison between large scale apps and Sage etc is very revealing. I think the thing people at the sharp end don't see is the massive integration issues going on at the back end and the process . No amount of Sage can do that but I take the point about functionality.

Latest doesn't always mean greatest.

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By dtweats
11th Mar 2006 14:11

Consultant-driven?
I wonder whether the reason for the choice of software is down to the fact that govt depts make big use of consultants? My own dept has paid millions ((I think hundreds) to Coopers & Lybrand and then PWC.

If PWC recommend Oracle, maybe that's what we get.

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By taylorag
12th Mar 2006 19:18

David, you are a cynic!
As David knows, I was in one of the first areas to implement Oracle in our department. I have to admit that I liked Oracle v7, even if it was 1999 and v7 was not 2000 compliant. I have never used Oracle 11, but I must confess it looks a lot harder than v7.

My experience of the system during implementation was that Oracle was okay, and relatively straightforward to implement ( I was a system administrator). The problem, as my friend rightly states, was the consultants. For example, I am an ex British Telecom engineer. This means that I know a bit about comms systems. This didn't stop the arrogant consultants (not PWC) telling me I didn't know what I was talking about when I told them why it was taking 30 minutes for data from remote locations to be seen at the centre - 'you're just an accountant, what do you know' being the attitude. When our tech guys forced them to check the system bit by bit (no nerd pun intended), guess who was right?

Which is all a long way of getting to my point. I do think that systems like Oracle are probably good in the right setting, it's just that (in my view)consultants like to install systems that they are comfortable with rather than what is necessarily right for the customer. Or am I wrong?

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By NeilW
10th Mar 2006 11:09

A triumph of marketing over substance
Most accounting packages I've seen are much the same - ineffective, inefficient and over-priced for what they are.

I find that there is generally an inverse correlation between marketing budget and quality of the product.

NeilW

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By dtweats
10th Mar 2006 11:13

I also work in the public sector
for a large central government department which is dispersed around the country. In the past, the various parts of the dept were allowed to choose to use either Oracle, Sun or Aggresso, but now all are required to use Oracle. I can tell you that some Aggresso users in particular were reluctant to switch to Oracle.

I do not personally have to use Oracle in my job, apart from occasional use of Oracle Discoverer. I have found this to be difficult to use and would quite frankly prefer not to have to touch it.

I have been a Sun Accounts user in the past, and was reasonably happy with that, although I seem to recall that it was a bit limited for reporting - we had to use COGNOS for that.

For consolidation, we used to use CLIME from PWC, which I got used to and developed a certain affection for, but there was much criticism of it.

One thing to note is that the public sector does not always use the latest version of software. In my dept, the current version of Oracle is 11i. Another issue may be that we don't adopt all of the modules - our packages seem to be able to do a lot less than what I read about the capabilities of Sage or VT on here, for example.

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By User deleted
09th Mar 2006 21:31

Perfick
It's slow and inefficient

Seems ideal for the public sector then

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By David Carter
09th Mar 2006 21:36

details, please!!
Charlie, would you care to identify the specific areas where you think Oracle is not so good, please? This is a big and very expensive package and AW ought to have a view on it.

So we need to compile some reader experiences. How about you kicking off with 2 or 3? Thanks in advance

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Dennis Howlett
By dahowlett
09th Mar 2006 22:44

Go for it
Oracle has had a chequered history.

If this is part of the NHS stuff then I'm not surprised. I've had a number of complaints about the procurement system. I know from personal experience that Oracle workflow is excruciatingly slow.

I've not looked at the warehousing system for some time but last time I did, it failed to balance back to GL inventory. I've been told consultants are so poorly briefed that training sessions are ineffective.

Do tell more. Is this accounting, procurement? With what parts specifically are you experiencing problems.

I'm picking this up here. It needs a much wider audience.

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By david_terrar
10th Mar 2006 08:29

Detail and examples please
We used to sell and implement Oracle Financials alongside an MRO solution. Our experience was that the accounting modules were the poor relations in the ERP family, and were cumbersome, slow, mainframe style separate ledgers which needed a batch style update (the concurrent manager) to be run at intervals to synchronise them. My knowledge is several years out of date, so I'd be interested in examples from the current product too.

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