Highlights: SYSPRO 8 2021 R1

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As part of the journey to reduce file system persistence, when running SYSPRO 8 on-premise you can opt to retain the following RTF and CMS data in the SQL database (instead of the file system):

• RTF notepad documents attached to entities

• CMS Activity body RTF documents

• CMS Activity attachments

• CMS Organization lists

Advantages of moving this data from the file system to the database includes:

• Centralized access to all related data

• Reduction of file system usage

• Simplified portability of data and backup strategy

• Improved performance

• Provision for enhanced scalability in future releases

During the SYSPRO 8 2020 R2 release, the custom SRS Document Print XML control files were migrated to Microsoft SQL Server as part of the initiative to reduce file system usage.

Continuing on this journey, the setup and printing processes for SRS Document Printing is now optimized to reduce file persistence and address the overhead of loading the control information into memory when using SRS Document Printing.

The standard SRS Document Print XML control files and templates are now loaded into a set of three global SQL temporary tables for each instance of SYSPRO as they are required:

• Standard document types

• Standard document samples

• Available archive fields

In addition, the SRS Document Print programs that read the control files are now SQL-optimized for faster retrieval and updating of data. This improves performance, eliminates the use of in-memory collections and reduces the scope of resource locks.

SYSPRO's licensing system has been extended for both SYSPRO 8 on-premise and SYSPRO Cloud ERP sites.

To assist service personnel in providing speedy resolutions, the diagnostics capability of SYSPRO 8 has been extended to record a log of identified problems in SQL Server for current and future analysis. A Black-box capability has also been introduced to record what was happening on a system prior to failure. Recording the information in SQL is vital for the SYSPRO Cloud ERP offering where the file system cannot be used to persist information.

The introduction of Service Accounts in SYSPRO Cloud ERP aims to provide controlled access for selected SYSPRO personnel and partners to assist with various support related tasks like implementation, system configuration and training.

SYSPRO Cloud ERP administrators can now designate an operator as a service account, assigning the email address of the support person to the account (the email address is the unique identifying attribute used as part of the cloud authentication).

Although the service account operator can access the SYSPRO Cloud ERP environment without affecting the Named User licensing, the local site administrator retains full control over the account (i.e. the service account is treated as a regular user and all the standard access permissions, logging and auditing capabilities are available). These service accounts have no effect on SYSPRO 8 on-premise sites.

To implement this feature, the account status of the operator must be enabled within the Operator Maintenance program (i.e. the Service account option must be enabled), as well as the SYSPRO Cloud ERP Active Directory (managed by the SYSPRO Cloud ERP team).

In a server-side reporting environment, the SYSPRO Reporting Services infrastructure caters for using the operator's Office 365 account when sending emails. This provides visibility to the recipients of distributed reports by displaying the address of the operator who emailed the report.

This only applies if a valid Office 365 account is configured and enabled within the Personal Settings program (SYSPRO Ribbon bar > Home > Personal Settings) and the appropriate Email/SMTP settings for emailing via Office 365 are configured at company or system-wide level (depending on your setup options).

The Utilities panel lets you download all product files (including hotfixes) to your local SYSPRO Deployment folder.

The download process occurs in the background so you can continue using the SYSPRO Installer Application, or close the app and leave the download to continue overnight.

The Utilities panel also lets you delete downloaded media files, such as product and hotfix files.

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New customization capabilities in SYSPRO Reporting Services allows the SYSPRO company database connection string to be dynamically set at run-time when processing third-party SRS reports. This effectively allows the same report to be used across multiple companies.

Whereas standard SRS reports in SYSPRO are typically driven by business objects that query data from the company database to which you are connected, third-party SRS reports (such as Crystal) were designed using a specific data source connection that was fixed per report. In the past, to run the same report in all companies, you had to copy the report to each company and configure the connection string for each report, for each company.

From SYSPRO 8 2021 R1 there is a new Use current company database for ODBC data option available within the SRS Report Control).

When processing third-party SRS reports, this option allows the SYSPRO 8 Reporting Host Service at run time to dynamically update the connection string to the database that you are currently logged into.

If you then switch SYSPRO companies and run the same report, the data source automatically points to the currently logged-in company database for which you are processing the report. This effectively reduces the burden on report management and maintenance across multiple companies, as the same single Crystal report can now be used across multiple companies.

Considerations:

• This option uses the credentials configured against the SRS reporting database connection setup options (Setup Options > System Setup > SQL).

• This option is configured per report and applies to any third-party report developed using the ODBC (RDO) connection (including sub reports attached to standard SYSPRO reports).

• The report control file is defined at system-wide level. Therefore, when enabled, it affects reports that have been defined at system, company, role, group or operator level.

• This only applies to SRS Report Printing (server-side and client-side) and has no effect on SRS Document Printing.

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The Order Picking application has been added to SYSPRO Espresso. It lets operators remain on the shop floor to conduct order picking in a quicker and more efficient manner.

The SYSPRO Espresso application is equivalent to the Pick Maintenance program in the core SYSPRO product and lets you maintain order picks with the following functionality:

• Start, stop, complete and cancel a pick.

• Start, complete and cancel a pick line.

• Complete selected pick lines.

The WIP by Branch feature (which initially introduced ledger integration for work in progress at branch level) has been extended to include separate control accounts at work center level - useful when jobs are in transit during the production process.

A job transfer feature has also been added to let you track the total costs of a job when transferring a job between operations. The job's total cost is transferred to the WIP branch ledger account of the next operation. The WIP branch defined for the work center is used when posting labor transactions.

This feature optimizes the BOM Cost Implosion for SQL without using the file system as a temporary scratch pad.

Because the price of an item can change after a dispatch is created, a new setup option (Use sales order price on invoice) lets you choose to use the sales order price when consolidating dispatch notes for invoicing instead of defaulting to the original dispatch invoice price.

A new operator preference has been added to the Sales Order Entry and Sales Order Entry Express programs that lets you indicate that the back order quantity must be updated before the ship quantity when maintaining orders. Previously, the ship quantity was impacted first when you adjusted the order quantity of an existing order line.

The Adjust b/order when order qty changed preference is available from the Options tab of the Preferences pane and requires that the Automatically put order qty in b/order operator preference is also enabled.

When you decrease the order quantity, the back order quantity is decreased first, followed by the ship (or reserved) quantity, if there is not enough stock on back order to satisfy the change. Similarly, when you increase the order quantity for an existing line, the additional quantity goes into back order.

Intrastat reporting now includes freight and miscellaneous charges for dispatches as well as service charges on non-stocked lines for arrivals. This addresses the need for European countries to record and report on Intrastat transactions that occur when goods are purchased from or delivered to other countries within the EU.

Other enhancements include:

• Supplier invoice values can now be used to report on Intrastat arrival transactions (no longer Goods Received Notes).

• The supplementary unit factor and method can be captured for sales orders and purchase orders to ensure recording of the actual quantity invoiced.

• Goods for demonstration purposes and goods on consignment that are transported to a warehouse outside the supplier’s country are included.

The SYSPRO 8 architecture has been re-engineered to cater for connecting to cloud-based tax calculation systems. This provides a more sophisticated tax capability that allows you to remain compliant when facing complex tax scenarios in your business.

The following tax connector modules are now available for SYSPRO Cloud ERP and SYSPRO 8 on-premise (both in SYSPRO Avanti and SYSPRO Windows Client):

• Avalara Tax Connector

• Vertex Tax Connector

Once you obtain the appropriate licensing for these connected services and configure your preferred tax connector, you can establish a direct link between these platforms and SYSPRO using a prebuilt connection that allows for seamless interaction.

SYSPRO sends transaction data to Avalara or Vertex and receives the tax total in return, enabling the following capabilities:

• Calculate tax requirements.

• Record tax transactions in Avalara and Vertex.

• Use the tax transactions recorded in Avalara and Vertex for reporting purposes.

• Record invoices.

• Create, maintain and store Avalara tax exception certificates (only applicable to Avalara Tax Connector).

• Perform other tax-related functions.

Benefits include:

• Simplified sales and use tax processes for all US states and Canadian provinces (from tax determination on transactions to exemption certificate management and tax returns).

• Monthly updates to ensure constant application of current tax rates.

• Analysis capability by state, county and city.

• Enhanced VAT process efficiency (from indirect tax determination to reporting).

• Improved accuracy and reliability of tax calculations at the federal, state, and local levels in the US and Canada.

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The following enhancements were introduced to the Digital Tax System for this release:

• You can now capture the VAT registration number and User tax reference field at company and branch level.

• The Digital Tax Tool program lets you design a template with your preferred input and output options while the new Browse on Digital Tax tool Template program lets you search and choose an existing template.

• The Consolidated Tax Return program lets you identify records that still require submission in the selected financial period, by displaying transactions that have been submitted, not submitted and not printed.

• The Tax Transaction by GL Allocation Account report includes the VAT registration number and User tax reference field.

• The Digital Tax Tool Status report displays the status of the tax return for the selected financial period.
• The VAT at a Glance program displays the month-to-date printed and unprinted VAT transactions for the current financial year.

The Tax totals for SRS sales order documentation feature (exclusive to SYSPRO Reporting Services) is designed to comply with the Canadian and US legislation that requires tax total amounts to be shown on sales order documentation. All calculations relating to order and line totals in Sales Order Entry and Point of Sale Entry are performed using a 3rd party tax system.

Totals you can add when using a 3rd party tax system include:

• Canadian GST and PST

• US State, County and City tax

This feature is available once you have enabled the Apply USA 3rd party tax in Sales Orders setup option (Setup Options > Tax > Sales and Use Tax).

The AP Group Payments feature simplifies the allocation of a single supplier remittance to multiple related suppliers, in a single transaction.

This avoids errors typically associated with the manual preparation of transactions related to secondary suppliers and improves the administrative time taken to process them.

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The AR Group Payments feature simplifies the allocation of a single payment from a customer to multiple related customers, in a single transaction.

This avoids the errors typically associated with the manual preparation of transactions related to secondary customers and improves the administrative time taken to process them.

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• The AP Supplier Group Maintenance Business object: APSSSG business object lets you define primary and secondary suppliers for payment against a supplier group. Records are written to the ApSupplierGroup table.

• The AR Customer Group Maintenance Business object: ARSSCG business object lets you define primary and secondary customers for payment against a customer group. Records are written to the ArCustomerGroup table.

• The Inventory Warehouse Bin Maintenance Business object: INVSBW business object lets you add, update and delete fixed bins.

• The Port/Airport Maintenance Business object: SALSPT business object lets you create ports and airports that are used for Instrastat transactions.

• The Regime Code Maintenance Business object: SALSRG business object lets you maintain regime codes (used to identify and report on Intrastat transactions) stored in the SalRegimeCode table.

• The AP Group Supplier Cash Requirements Business object: APSQGR business object lets you query cash requirements for a supplier group.

• The AP List of Supplier Groups Query Business object: APSQSG business object lets you query records held against the ApSupplierGroup table in order to establish the primary and secondary supplier relationships for processing group payments.

  The AR Customer Group Query Business object: ARSQCG business object lets you query customer groups in the ArCustomerGroup table.

• The AR Group Payment Run Report Business object: ARSQGP business object lets you query customer group payment records to establish which payments have been made.

• The Asset Balance Health Check Business object: ASSQBF business object lets you report on and create log files of any integrity errors detected within tables of the Assets module, without actually updating any values.

• The COM SAMS Extract Query Business object: COMQAS business object lets you collect system configuration information from a site and upload it to a cloud service.

• The Digital Tax Tool Status Business object: IMPQDS business object lets you report on the reprint flags added to the AdmTaxReturn table for the Digital Tax System. It compiles a summary or detailed view on whether the transactions have been printed or submitted based on the DttStatus and DttSubmitted columns of the AdmTaxReturn table.

• The SO Customer Balances Query Business object: SORQCB business object forms part of a suite of business objects that lets you identify imbalances between the active orders in SYSPRO and records held in the ArCustomer table.

• The WIP Branch Costs Query Business object: WIPQBC business object lets you query the total material costs, total labor costs and total hours booked for each WIP branch and job.

• The Branch Transfer Query Business object: WIPQJB business object lets you query WIP branch transfer transactions recorded in the WipBranchTransfer table for jobs are processed at different WIP branches.

• The WIP Job costs per WIP Branch Query Business object: WIPQJC business object lets you calculate the total material costs, labor costs and hours booked per job and WIP branch, using the job detail information from the WipJobPost table.

• The Transfer Job to WIP Branch Business object: WIPTTB business object lets you transfer a job to another WIP branch that is used against one of the job operations.

• The Asset Balance Health Fix Business object: ASSTBF business object lets you report on, fix, and create log files of any integrity errors detected within tables of the Assets module.

• The CSH Deposits and Withdrawals Business object: CSHTWD business object lets you enter details of deposits and withdrawals; change existing transactions; reconcile or unreconcile transactions and process inter-bank transfers in Cash Book. It can also be used to process foreign currency transactions through either a local or foreign bank account.

• The BOM Cost Implosion Business object: BOMTCI business object lets you calculate and update costs using SQL-only statements (instead of temporary files). The business object is only used if you uncheck the Run cost implosion in legacy mode option of the Cost Implosion program.

• The Tax Interface Business object: IMPTAT business object interfaces with the Avalara and Vertex tax systems.

• The Stock Take Cancellation Business object: INVT6C business object lets you cancel a stock take and clear the stock take tables. It is called when you run the Stock Take Cancellation program from the core SYSPRO product.

• The Stock Take Selection Business object: INVT60 business object lets you select the stock codes you want to include in a stock take count. The selection of stock items to count is the first step in the stock take process.

• The SO Customer Balance Function Business object: SORTCB business object forms part of a suite of business objects that lets you correct imbalances between the active orders in SYSPRO and records held in the ArCustomer table.