A quick synopsis of my experiences 15+ years implementing and support Tyler Technologies Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. This is not an exhaustive summary but rather me jotting down my thoughts on each section. I will continue to keep this document updated as more thoughts come to mind.
- Tyler Tech the company
- Great company, many employees spread across the country
- Publicly listed on stock exchange, which mean they are somewhat stable. They are not going out of business any time soon.
- They acquire smaller companies from time to time; the field of competition is shrinking
- Hold annual conference and have learning sessions at the conference
- Hold local user group meetings to collaborate, train, share best practices
- Support
- Tyler Community
i. An online portal that allows you to ask questions, search for solutions, access content created by Tyler staff
ii. Documentation is plentiful
- Support Portal
i. Functional support portal for submitting issues to Tyler engineers
ii. Calling into support organization is not encouraged; rarely get to resource you need in timely manner; better to submit case online
iii. I give Tyler a C+ on response time and follow up
iv. Tyler does provide post training on an annual basis for a cost
- Account Management
- Tyler assigns an account manager for escalation, advocacy, etc.
- Account management gets an A-; basically, “the squeaky wheel gets the oil”
- EERP (Munis)
- Hosting Platform
i. Tyler has effort underway to move parts of ERP to Amazon Web Service (AWS)
- System Administration
i. Tyler Deploy – Tyler created this portal that allow you as the administrator to manage your system
ii. I give this tool an A+ for its ability to allow you to administer your own system that is hosted by Tyler.
- User Provisioning
i. Pretty straight forward, system is based on Role Based Access Control (RBAC)
- User Interface
i. System is web based and is undergoing some face lifting
ii. Some parts of the system are very intuitive, other parts needs some work
- Reporting
i. The underlying database is Microsoft SQL Server
ii. Tyler uses SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) for reporting
iii. They have migrated away from Crystal Reports on newer installations
iv. The system provides very good mechanism for creating reports
- Integration
i. APIs – Tyler makes most parts of the system available to other external systems via Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).
ii. All modules allow for importing and exporting of data
- Functional Modules (i.e., Financials, HR/Payroll, Time Collection, Utility Billing, Revenue Collection, Licensing)
i. While I’m not one that directly enters data into the system, as a business analyst, I support many users who do. Their experiences depend on years of experience and number of years using the system.
ii. New users typically struggle in the early days of using the system but become more proficient over time
- Online Portals
- Tyler provides portals to allow the public the ability to transact business with their respective municipality
- There are portals for licensing, utility billing, paying taxes
- There is a portal for employees to manage their benefits, submit time for hours worked, access present and future paychecks, W2s, etc.
While ERP Pro is the lesser version of Tyler EERP, they share many similarities and therefore the experiences above may apply to ERP Pro as well. Please let me know if you would like to connect for further analysis.
Greg Dover
