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Summary
DICentral offers a mixed bag of web-based and in-house solutions to provide EDI and EDI integration solutions for small and mid-sized organizations. Like most providers of web-based EDI software, DICentral’s primary goal is (obviously) to get you to use more of their web based system. This is true even for their DIIntegrator integration component which, by itself, is fairly useless and only provides integration capabilities when used in conjunction with their web system. While this method provides advantages in terms of ease of use and ease of deployment, long term most companies will find the product too limiting to serve their long-term EDI Integration needs. It is when viewed in this larger context that DICentral’s offering proves to be one of the weaker EDI Integration platforms available.
Strengths
As would be the case with most web-based systems, ease of use and ease of initial deployment is one of the strengths of the product. DICentral controls all the trading partner connectivity and makes adding new trading partners a relatively easy process. The integration aspect of DICentral is controlled through the DIIntegrator “add-on”, a cost add-on that customers use in-house to send data from DICentral’s servers to the in-house ERP or accounting system. This method allows for relatively easy processes and gives users the ability to send data relatively quickly to the in house system. It also allows for the continued use of an easy to use, low maintenance EDI platform that is hosted by the vendor. As we highlight in the next section, however, there are significant limitations and challenges that make this product ideal only for the smallest of businesses.
Limitations
The single biggest challenge with the approach taken by DICentral is that you are always at the mercy of DICentral. First in that you will always need to use their web based system, which by default means you will always need to pay ever increasing usage fees. For a more mature or large business this proposition could get overly expensive very quickly. The second challenge of DICentral’s approach is that it’s not really EDI integration - at least not the way we would like to see it. That’s because even with DICentral’s pre-built maps and adaptors there are always “manual” steps that require a user to validate data before it is sent to the ERP system - which pretty much dilutes the entire purpose of using integration to minimize human input in the process of transferring data to and from the EDI system. These two omissions are relatively large and put DICentral towards the very bottom of the list of EDI vendors.
Wish List
Our biggest wish list would be to give users the ability to create their own EDI Integration maps and the ability to create a full automated process without human intervention - this is after all what competing vendors like EMANIO are already offering.
Product Ratings
The product ratings below reflect our evaluation of DICentral with a rating score that ranges from 1 to 5, with 1 equaling “fail” and 5 being an “Excellent”. Our overall score for DiCentral is of 23 out of a total possible of 5.
| Product Area |
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| Setup & Installation |
Setting up and installing the product is relatively easy and fast since it is after all a predominantly web-based system. |
4 |
| Interface |
While the interface is easy to use, the lack of advanced features, advanced mapping capabilities and its reliance on human interaction forces us to lower the score. |
3 |
| Features |
While rich in features, DICentral lacks in major areas - including advanced self mapping capabilities as well as the lack of full automation. Having a user interact with EDI at all times is simply not a viable solution . |
1 |
| Ease of use |
Although the web based product is fairly easy to use, the integration component is overly cumbersome and requires too much oversight on the part of the user. |
2 |
| Automation Capabilities |
Extreme limitations in capabilities and “hands off” operation force yet again a low score for the product; DICentral is trying to force users hands by controlling how they work with EDI which is simply not viable for most companies. |
2 |
| Integration capabilities |
Integration capabilities are good, but ultimately fail to impress due to the lack of advanced mapping capabilities as well as the lack of automation that ultimately forces users to manually manage their system. |
2 |
| Performance |
Although the system performs reasonably well the forced interaction with users to complete the integration aspect forces limitations on how much data can be sent to the ERP system at any given time. |
3 |
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Overall Score |
2 |
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Our Team
About Team 
The strength of EDI Software Review is the individuals that make up the team. In fact, we believe that our team consists of a group of uniquely talented individuals. Each of the team members is an experienced consultant that is operationally savvy, demonstrating a deep levelof experience. Each member of the team has an intense commitment to board service and to working closely with the management teams of software companies to provide an unbias independant review. |
