Anyone Use ShopController?

[marksnyder]

Have a demo scheduled tomorrow for ShopController, a shop management software solution.

Did a search here and found no previous posts discussing ShopController.

Does anyone have experience with ShopController? What are the pros and cons?

[sjdieselrepair]

Please let me know your feelings on this program. I have been searching for a replacement, I currently have Napa tracs and want to change it for the first of the year. 

[Junior]

What did you think of shop controller? I just scheduled a demo

[TopNotchAK]

I did a demo of Shop Controller- seemed pretty good. Only downside I saw is they do not have a report tracking manual inventory adjustments.

[Junior]

I thought shop controller was overall pretty decent. The application itself is quite flexible and does contain a rather broad feature set that I really like, but a few faults that are an issue.

First its basic architecture. Its a Windows based client with a cloud hosted database. The setup restricts you to Windows devices and doesn't layout well on a tablet. It also had some performance issues communicating with the database during my demo. They don't offer a locally hosed database option so if you loose internet you loose your software. This is typical for browser based cloud platforms but the Shop Controller implementation doesn't allow the flexibility of a browser based application with greater restrictions. Its a design choice that only really works if you are a multiple location shop on Windows only terminals.

In addition there are some features that are missing, like the ability to capture a customer authorization signature. Also SMS messaging and schedule options are POOR. SMS (txt) messaging requires you purchase a messaging plan. Messages, (SMS or email) can not be pushed from the software. This means you can't automate things like confirm customer appointments or inform a customer that their vehicle is ready for pickup. Its basically a stand alone add-on with no integration. The poor schedule is what really killed it for me, and lack of portability. Plus for the feature set its quite expensive compared to the competition.

 

I'm posting this is the other thread I have going as well