Phocas is pretty easy to use, even to the not nerd people. It's interface is intuitive.

Dashboards can use some more features. Other than that all looks good.

We started with Phocas in 2009 with just the standard sales database for one region of our business but have now progressed to multiple sales databases for other business units with fully integrated rebates module as well as finance and procurement style database now, with plans to roll it out further in other parts of the business.

The ease of use of Phocas is what puts it at the top of our list for BI software. The set up of the data was quick and easy (with great support from the Phocas guys) and ability to drill down from top line data right into the detail of a transaction is what makes Phocas a great tool for us. Phocas is widely used across our business to track and analyse sales data, finance data and purchasing data with future plans to add more modules. The PUG Forum is also a good feature for me, if there is something that you don't know how to do then you'll find the info there or someone can point you in the right direction. It's also a great place to suggest the feature that you'd like to see and Phocas review and add on to their product road map, so you know they are listening to your ideas.

I'd say the visualizations and widgets on the dashboards could do with abit of updating. The charts aren't always a flexible as you'd like with axes labels and adjusting the axes to suit the chart, plus you have to be quite specific with the data in the first place to get the chart you want.

Good, basic BI tool that can give sales teams good information to understand their customers and opportunities to grow sales and margins.

Easy to pull in our ERP data. Good to summarize trends and KPI metrics. Matrix feature is great to find correlated products "like" customers aren't buying. Ability to filter (called "Focus") on a dimension and all of the widgets within the dashboards will update to just show the info relative to that filter. Ability to quickly change dimensions and measures to show information in different ways. The customer service department is awesome - will help whenever and however they can.

Custom calculations are hard to use. Graphing tools are not robust (i.e. no data labels, data tables, combo charts are limited, etc.) Needs an additional user license that fits in between the Viewer and Full Licenses to give additional user features like exporting, but not the ability to design dashboards. Formatting and sorting the data is below average. The back-end Designer tool takes awhile to master. Wish there was a handbook or instructions on how to use the different features of the software.

Overall we are very happy with this product. It has opened the door for getting information to our teams much faster and it also created a new full time position for data analysis! The flexibility of being able to create our own databases, & adding to existing databases has increased our ability to share information to our teams in a easy to view format instead of sending spreadsheets that some people did not look at.

It is very easy to use! I can show someone the basics in 5 to 10 minutes and they are off and running creating favorites and dashboards. The software is updated every month and their support and documentation is outstanding. The product gives us the information we need faster than doing it in our ERP system. With a couple of clicks you can analyze you sales data and then quickly change views to look at the data in a completely different way. It very robust in all the options you have. The company is developing based on their customer needs, you can tell that they all want to help us achieve success with this product.

This is hard to say because their are few cons. We have requested enhancements and we have some support issues that are submitted. But we have no visibility , (web portal), to review what we already submitted. It would be nice to have a support portal to check open cases and enhancements we have submitted.

It's really quick to get the information we need. When we implemented it we presumed the sales team would spend hours on it. They don't. They get the information they need within seconds and can quickly move on to do their actual jobs. It's an extremely powerful tool.Some functions in the business don't use it very much but that's because we didn't collect data before because we couldn't analyse it. Now that we can analyse it we need to collect a bank of data so we can see what we want to do with it. Chicken and egg.

The screens are easy to navigate and there aren't lots of clicks to get the information you need.I particularly like how easy it is to create Dashboards and delve deeper into dashboard data.The supporting team are excellent too. After a bumpy handover to BAU Phocas have completely turned it around. Their team are engaging, helpful and knowledgeable. I also know that, if I can explain the data composite I'm looking for, the team will find a way of getting it.

It isn't so easy for less skilled team members to use- those who don't understand databases, don't have very good computer skills or only use it occasionally.I'd like it to be easier to import simple data such as a spreadsheet.

The biggest benefit is not having our sales reps rely on our IT department to create a report from an old legacy system. They also don't have to rely on standard out of the box reports that can be limited in scope. Phocas allows them to instantly dive into their sales data and find anything they need--from summary numbers to very specific sales data. In fact, this applies across all departments including management. The ease and flexibility of finding information is incredible.

Ease of use. Within seconds I can find the exact data I am looking for. It requires very little technical knowledge, however, I have set up many advanced sales--and even financial--reports using Custom Mode. The software loads quickly, and I have rarely encountered a bug. On the few occasions where I have emailed the support desk they ALWAYS respond quickly and have a solution implemented right away. This is definitely not the case with many other software companies that I deal with. I love Phocas.

This is very minor, but exporting reports could use some touch ups. Exporting to Excel comes with conditional formatting. Some users may like it, however I almost always remove the conditional formats because it dramatically slows down other functions I may perform with the data in Excel. Again, this is very minor as I understand the usefulness to some users of having the conditional formats already set up. I also occasionally print a report that displays in a weird format with regards to column headings and column widths.

There isn't enough space to go through the numerous benefits I have gained since purchasing this software. I have reorganized sales territories based on overly concentrated vertical sales. Our team now has a place to review and track sales vs goals daily. I have a consolidated and by location view of my clients in an easy to find manner along with a customer stratification system to help manage margins, AR terms compliance, etc to educate the sales team on what we need to be doing differently with said accounts (spend more time, spend less, cross sell specific items....) . Like I say, I could spend all day on the benefits.

I have been exposed to 10 or more different operating systems over the course of my 26 year business career. NONE of them have provided adequate business intelligence tools. Phocas is highly intuitive and thorough which saves me hours per week of spreadsheet work. I cannot offer a better compliment than it being an amazing time management tool.

There are a few issues I have with loading budgets and working through Administrative User rights but that is an infrequent issue. I would like to have a few additional graphical options for data visualization but it works just fine as it is. What I like the absolute least is that we didn't add additional modules...accounting, pricing tools... and have no plans to do so in the near future due to budgetary contraints.

hocas Software is highly regarded as an effective business intelligence and analytics solution due to its user-friendly interface and customizable dashboards that enable easy data analysis and interpretation, even for non-technical users. The software's fast analytics capabilities are also a major advantage, making it ideal for businesses that need to process large amounts of data quickly and in real-time. Users have praised the software for its reliable performance and usefulness in facilitating data-driven decision-making.

Phocas Software is praised for its simple and intuitive interface, which enables me to navigate and analyze data in various ways. This feature is especially beneficial for businesses without dedicated data analysts, as it helps non-technical users to access and comprehend their data with ease.

Some users have pointed out that Phocas Software's integration options with other systems and tools are limited. This can be problematic for businesses that use various applications as it would force them to switch between different platforms to access all their data.

Phocas provided an ideal solution for producing the same views of information for Different job roles using the permissions in the background. This reduced our dependance on Excel reporting by around 60%

Phocas is more a visualisation tool rather than deep dive and planning is necessary to ensure output views meet the expected results, particular around columnar structure. That said it has had nothing but a positive impact on the Business reporting consumption by the masses.

Phocas is extremely easy to use for a non Technical users. It holds huge amounts of data and is pretty fast at being able to get the information required out of the system fast.

It is easy to use for all sales people. Lots of information at your fingertips.

Having all this data you need to understand d how to use it. This is not always easy.

overall I am very satisfied with this program and I highly recommend it to my clientele.

Ever Since the team has implemented Phocas, I have been able to track my sales progress and been able to keep up with my goals and successes. this program also allows me to have my track record available and see where I need improvement and have a clear written history in terms of graphs and charts as to what has been done in the past, and present.

the only problem I have with this problem is that sometimes , the program freezes, lags and does not upload the data from the day prior.

From day one, the support we have felt from our primary internal advocate has allowed us to venture further and deeper into the expanse of Phocas. I am taking this individual's deliverables as a testimony to the support being shared by the Phocas Team.

The apparently limitless possibilities. With our custom insulation solutions business, our metrics and analytics are unique, and Phocas has kept up, nay, surpassed our demands!

There is not a con to the software, the con comes with my time being able to dig in and leverage all of the cool factors. My analogy: my car has many special cool features, but most of the time, I simply get in it and drive. Need to stop, read the manual, and truly put it (and expect excellent performance) to the test!

I speak for all at 3E when I say this product is used daily and relied upon to be the source of good data for analytics from our ERP System.

Ease of use. Depth of its capabilities. Intuitive - Minimal Training needed for general user.

I wish I had more time to learn the product backend features.

Managing a sales force performance is key and the data provided by Phocas allows quick and easy benchmarking. There is also a superb level of output for the sales force to use to be better account managers and category champions.

The ability to dive into category data, and split by customers, customers groups, date ranges, sales rep, is excellent. Also the ability to present customers purchasing data to them via matrix reports and charts is very impressive.

Writing custom reports is a great feature but can be tricky if you don’t do it very often.

We have been a user of Phocas since 2003 and it has proved to be the single most useful piece of software we have ever used. We have our staff, customers and suppliers accessing the system, it is that good. Our suppliers prefer to use Phocas to their own in house systems and our customers say they have never seen anything as good. Without Phocas we would seriously struggle to know what is going on in our business.

There is nothing we don't really like...

great staff , great system I have nothing but praise for Phocas

The system is great to use and easy , I like the fact I can customize reports and dashboards to suit my business.

I have no issues with the software, the system works well for us.

With the ease of use and power of Phocas's customization we are able to solve data visualization not just in the main data sets but in side project data as well.

Phocas is an easy to use software that allows us to customize and take a lot of different data and consolidate it in one easy to use solution.

Not a real time application as of yet so the data is mostly reactive at this point.

I would diffidently use Phocas if I ever open up my own business

Showing Sales figures as opposing to same time last year, we are basing our bones system based on this.

It should have been accessible to all employee to keep checking the sales stats instead of just one user without a password and username.

I utilize data analysis in Phocas daily and help create dashboards for our branches. It is easily navigated and improves our data tracking and transaction searching.

Sometimes Phocas doesn't update, though I do not personally know if this is a Phocas issue or an issue with our Point of Sales program

I have been a Phocas user for a couple of years. Being a SHIMS user, we are always looking for software to enhance it and make the end users lives easier. Phocas has been a great fit for us.

We started using the CRM database about 6 months ago. After a somewhat rocky start, the salesforce is finally embracing the technology.

building dashboards is easy, building reports (favorites) is easy.

The data. Just like any other reporting software. If you don't have a good structured dataset (source files) then it makes it harder. That's not a bad thing about THIS software, though ;)

Team at Phocas has been very customer focused, easy to deal with. We have used this software for almost 2 years and have changed the way we do business today as all information is only a few clicks away.

The ease to use and train employees on this BI tool makes it best in the market. The power of building your own databases, customizing reports and the level of customer service is outstanding.

There isn't much I don't like about this software.

I'm able to see various snapshots of all the data that drives my business decisions in one place - and even better - I am able to slice and dice the data in different ways so as to get in depth analysis when needed

Not in real time (at least for my organization) - the data downloads every night so we have to wait until next day to see numbers up until the previous day

Phocas allows me to track the results of sales promotions with ease. It also lets me focus in on under performing product classes and identify the root cause. It's one of the best software programs we have.

* How quickly you can slice and dice your data * Reliability of data * No hidden costs and no extra charges * Support desk that helps and does not charge

* Remembering how to do things, * Inability to manage your favourites or saved reports e.g. folder arrangement would be great