CIS Configurator Reviews

Working with [SENSITIVE CONTENT] is always a pleasure. I would highly recommend CIS for your configurator needs.

We migrated from an excel-based quoting system to the CIS Configurator about 3 years ago. We use this application to configure and quote complex engineering systems. The Configurator was able to handle the logic that was previously handled using complex excel formulas and look-up tables. Salespeople are able to learn the system quickly - we have over 100 users with a variety of technical and non-technical backgrounds. Overall, we're very happy with the software.

Pros:
Quote Builder works as advertised. The integration of Quote Builder to Model Builder and the configurations is what sold us on the tool. Standard Quoting is Standard Quoting, but when tied to the Configurator your Sales Team are free to no longer remember Product Codes, but answer the questions and let the system resolve those questions and answers to the Products you sell. CIS has been a great partner in adding customizations to fit our needs. Whereas nothing is free in this world, their prices for customizations and changes are not out of line.

Cons:
Our only complaint has been the inability to customize our own Quote forms to fit our needs. Any changes need to go through CIS to get the forms as we need or to add new ones.

Faster quotation process.

For our business this software has been a great.

Most of our competitors do not have a quoting system. Next to our outstanding product lines, this has added the support our accounts need to be successful and close deal much faster.

When looking for a new ERP system, Visual Lighting Technologies (VLT), a manufacturer of specification-grade LED lighting products, was leaning towards SAP Business One but it wasn't until we found the CIS Configurator that we knew that Business One could handle dynamic creation of our millions of SKU's. Further, VLT has a special need where each of those millions of SKU's can be manufactured using up to eight distinct bills of materials.

VLT uses the PPS One add-on to SAP Business One, made by CIM Pool PPS, to manage production with these different BOMs, but that would only work with pre-entered Business One items. We needed to bridge the gap between the dynamically created CIS items and PPS One. CIS was able to work with CIM Pool PPS to facilitate a custom integration allowing VLT to create Configuration Models which include all of the components for the multiple BoM's which are then imported into PPS One and interpreted into PPS One standard Resource Lists. The end result allows the Quotations team to sell a "generic" product which the Production team can then choose to build in one of many different ways.

VLT also utilized CIS's Custom Solutions services for several other smaller tweaks, both directly within the CIS applications and also in CIS's SAP Business One integration component. This combination of core CIS functionality, customization of their application, and integration with PPS One make the CIS Configurator a key component in our ability to manage the sales and production of the millions of product variations we offer.

If you have a application for a product that requires different items to build. You should let CIS show you how they can increase your productivity the way they have ours. They have a very knowledge group that can build a solution for you.

I would definitely recommend this software for businesses looking to increase the speed and productivity of their sales force.

Pros: Reduces our Quote time from an hour to just a few minutes and errors on quotes are now a thing of the past. The reports that are available help us in several ways. We can now make sure the sales team is following up on quotes and sales.

Cons: Haven't found any cons.

Overall: If you have a application for a product that requires different items to build. You should let CIS show you how they can increase your productivity the way they have ours. They have a very knowledgeable group that can build a solution for you.

After setting up the configurators the final step was putting the quote system in place. The upload and export Excel feature made importing all of my items, descriptions, pricing, customer info, etc very easy. My outside sales reps all use this program and since it has gone live nearly two years ago I can't think of a single user who hasn't been happy with how easy the system is to use.

CIS configurator is helpful simplifying our day-to-day job and making our production process easier. CIS integrates tools into SAP B1 interface, we don't need to create BOM (Bill of Materials) for each order, CIS configuration can automatically create BOM during Sales order process. Also their service is always excellent and we are pleased with our relationship.

The software provided by CIS is extremely easy to use and quite intuitive. If you can use amazon.com you can use CIS software.