Highlights: SYSPRO 8 2021 R2

User Experience

SYSPRO Avanti Enhancements

GL Financial Reporting

The GL XML Report Viewer program is available in SYSPRO Avanti from the GL Financial Reporting option of the Financial Reporting menu.

This lets you process GL financial reports based on a specific report code and allows for GL reports that have been designed for the XML Viewer to be rendered in the SYSPRO Web Client and previewed in PDF format.

Other capabilities include:

Financial figures within the report include hyperlinks that let you drill down to the applicable account.
The Account Transactions list view lets you query a GL code, post to the applicable account and drill down to transaction level.
The Transactions list view allows you to view journal information and execute the following Zoom functions for a specific source against the journal:
- General ledger
- AP Expense Journal
- AP Expense Journal
- A/R Cash Posting Journal
- A/R Invoice Detail
- Inventory Journal
- GRN Journal
- WIP Labor Journal
- WIP Part Billing
- AP Disbursement
- Cashbook Journal

User Interface

The user-interface includes the following improvements for a more intuitive and engaging user experience:

To-Do List

You can display the To-Do List in SYSPRO Avanti (which lists activities that require your attention) by selecting the Gear icon () on the Home page, followed by the Enable To-Do List option.

Similarly, you can display the To-Do List in a web view by launching the Visual Designer and adding the To-Do List Details grid to your layout section.
Customizing Task Dialogs

You can customize task dialogs to improve throughput, particularly on transactional screens. These customizations range from removing buttons and changing the default action button, to preventing the dialog from being displayed at all.

Currently, task dialog customization must be performed in SYSPRO using the Customize Task Dialogs program (accessible from the Administration tab of the Ribbon bar) however, these customizations are also applied when running in SYSPRO Avanti.

SYSPRO eSignatures UX Improvements

The architecture of the Electronic Signatures system has been re-engineered to simplify and enhance the user experience of configuring eSignatures in SYSPRO Avanti.

The functionality of the legacy eSignature Setup program has been split into the following new programs (which are accessible both within the SYSPRO core product and SYSPRO Avanti):

Electronic Signature Configuration Setup

This program lets you enable the Electronic Signatures system and create or maintain your eSignature configuration levels and their associated access control.
Electronic Signature Transaction Setup

This program lets you configure specific transaction conditions against your eSignature configuration levels.

This assists system administrators who prefer to manage their administrative tasks in SYSPRO Avanti, as they can now configure the Electronic Signatures system using the web UI.

In addition, new import and export functionality has been introduced within the Electronic Signature Configuration Setup program that lets you import and export your eSignature configuration levels from one environment to another.

The eSignature Setup program is still accessible via the Ctrl+R command and is fully functional in the SYSPRO core product, however this will be rendered obsolete with a later release of SYSPRO 8.

Operator customization across any machine

To provide operators with the same customization experience across any machine (and in the event of a pod loss in a SYSPRO Cloud ERP environment) the following customization settings per operator are now retained in SQL within the SysSettings table of the system-wide database:

System-wide personalization settings
Recent Programs
Favorites
Other SYSPRO menu personalization

When an operator logs into SYSPRO and the Persist operator UI settings to SQL option is enabled, the system checks the SQL system database for any customized operator settings defined and returns these if found. If these settings are not found during the start-up process, the system checks the file system (\Base\Settings) and, if found, copies these to the SysSettings table and returns the settings to the SYSPRO instance.

Advantages of storing this data in the database include:

Centralized access to all related data
Simplified portability of data and backup strategy
Improved performance
Provision for enhanced scalability in future releases

Role customization across any machine

To provide operators within defined roles with the same customization experience across any machine (and in the event of a pod loss in a SYSPRO Cloud ERP environment) the following role customizations are now retained in SQL within the system-wide database:

Role customization files (e.g. \Settings\Role_xxx, stored in the SysRoles table)
Role menu files (stored in the SysMenu table)

When operators within a defined role log into SYSPRO, the system checks the SysRoles and SysMenu tables for any customized role settings or menus defined and returns these if found. If these settings are not found during the start-up process, the system checks the file system (\Base\Settings) and, if found, copies these to the respective SQL database tables and returns the saved settings to the SYSPRO instance.

Advantages of having this data available from the database include:

Centralized access to all related data
Simplified portability of data and backup strategy
Improved performance
Provision for enhanced scalability in future releases

Simplified Administration

Database Optimization: GL and Inventory control records

Inventory and General Ledger control records within the SYSPRO database architecture have been redesigned for greater scalability to allow the independent management of individual key numbers (e.g. registers, journals, etc.). This addresses the need to cater for the locking and, by extension, queuing of processes of the current control tables while a process retrieves and uses the next keys held in these tables.

Benefits

Greater scalability for high-volume sites
Less excessive blocks and bottlenecks in high transaction environments

Control records (which have been a core part of the SYSPRO architecture for many years) are used to store certain values that are updated continuously by multiple transactions (e.g. Financial next journal and register numbers, Lowest unprocessed journal numbers, MTD and YTD values per module, etc.). In high-volume environments (with high user activity or high automated transactions) these control records are read and updated constantly and can potentially cause record locks and result in SQL deadlocks and rollbacks.

From SYSPRO 8 2021 R2, the next key and next journal columns have been removed from the GenControl and InvCompanyCtl control files and redefined as individual rows in a new set of tables that are defined by module:

GL register numbers: GenNextKeys
Inventory journal numbers: InvNextKeys

The next numbers are now allocated in a self-contained SQL transaction by the COM Fetch Next Key And Update Audit business object and an audit record is created to track when this number was allocated. The transactional data is then created in a separate SQL transaction and used to update the audit record to indicate that the transaction has been completed.

This prevents record locks by ensuring that the InvCompanyCtl and GenControl records aren't accessed or locked as frequently.

To assist with auditing purposes, the InvNextKeyAudit and GenNextKeyAudit tables can be used for the following:

Trace the next numbers allocated (where no transaction was created).
Explain missing transaction numbers in the transactional tables.

In addition, the Lowest Unprocessed Journal numbers (used for locating unprinted journals and unposted GL integration records) have been removed from these control records (they were originally introduced to speed up the processing time in C-ISAM environments and have little value in SQL). Using the capabilities in SQL enables SYSPRO to locate unprinted journals and unposted GL integration records quickly and easily.

Single Sign-on for SYSPRO Avanti in Azure environments

SYSPRO Avanti now supports Single Sign-on capabilities when using Microsoft Azure Active Directory B2C.

This provides a simple to setup and robust method of using Microsoft Active Directory (AD) to control your SYSPRO Avanti users.

Administrators can use Microsoft Active Directory (AD) to add, change, disable and delete operators virtually seamlessly and any changes to user attributes automatically reflect against the operator without manual intervention.

Once configured, it enables a complete single sign-on experience as operators are authenticated by Microsoft Windows via the Microsoft Azure Active Directory B2C login page configured for their organization. Operators can then use their email address to log into SYSPRO Avanti and engage as normal.

Benefits

Increased login security
Simplified login process for SYSPRO Avanti users
Convenient administration of users managed by Microsoft Azure Active Directory B2C

Requirements

A registered certificate for the SYSPRO Avanti server is required to run Single Sign-on.
A customer account must be registered with Microsoft Azure Active Directory B2C and configured with the correct redirect URL back to the specific SYSPRO Avanti instance.
The relevant tags within the Web.config file of the SYSPRO Avanti Web Service service must be updated accordingly.
As AD users are mapped to SYSPRO operators, each operator's configured email address must match their registered email address within the Microsoft Azure Active Directory B2C portal.

The SYSPRO Cloud Services team are responsible for enabling Single Sign-on for customers in a SYSPRO Cloud ERP environment.

Supply Chain Portal

Customer and Supplier Account Management

Online web portals have become the connection point for organizations, and self-service that maximizes the efficiency of interactions is key to empowering users, having connected interactions across channels, and enabling successful organizations.

In keeping with this self-service trend, the SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal has evolved to provide SYSPRO sites with enhanced account management capabilities for end-customers and suppliers.

The following functional roles are currently available when using the portal:

Request for quote (RFQ)
Supplier Account Management (SAM)
Customer Account Management (CAM)

These functional roles will be extended as the capabilities of the feature grows.

A SYSPRO company can provide its customers and suppliers with access to information relevant to their relationship and the transactions between them. This forms the basis of self-service access and reduces the administrative burden of sending and requesting specific information through other communication channels.

Benefits

End-customers and suppliers have direct access to information relating to their account, including transaction details.
End-customers and suppliers can download invoices, statements (Customer Account Management) and remittance advices (Supplier Account Management) in PDF format, as required.
Self-service access improves the administrative response time to communicate customer or supplier-specific information.
The average accounts receivable turnaround time is reduced for the SYSPRO company because of the immediate availability of information to the end-customer.
The immediate availability of information to the supplier can reduce supplier lead times and increase opportunities to take advantage of any early settlement discounts offered by the supplier.

Security

The portal's security ensures that the correct access is given to each portal user and that your end-supplier or customer can't access any unauthorized information.

This is achieved by each portal user being linked to a specific supplier or customer account from the SYSPRO company and then linked to a functional portal role. When logging in, portal users are presented with a landing page determined by their functional role(s) and includes insights into the relevant information.

For example:

Customer Account Management functional roles includes insights such as credit standing, average days to pay, receivable days outstanding, outstanding balances, etc.

Supplier Account Management functional roles includes insights such as agreed invoice terms, value of goods ordered but not yet received, value of goods received but not yet invoiced, outstanding balances, etc.

Administrators can easily configure security access for each portal user by defining an operator as a portal user; configuring each portal role with the appropriate access; and assigning the correct functional roles to the portal operators.

Insights & Reporting

SYSPRO OData Connector

The SYSPRO OData feature lets you connect securely to SYSPRO data without direct SQL access and retrieve data for use by third-party applications. It is a future-proof technology that provides a RESTful API to the SYSPRO database and allows OData-compliant applications to query SYSPRO data in a standard and controlled manner.

Although it is available for both on-premise and cloud solutions, SYSPRO OData is the only mechanism available when applications need access to SYSPRO data in the SYSPRO Cloud ERP environment (the SYSPRO Cloud ERP platform doesn't allow direct database access by any application or personnel).

Accessibility

You can connect to the SYSPRO OData Service on an HTTPS endpoint and retrieve live data from the SYSPRO company and system-wide SQL databases (in that SYSPRO instance).

Security

SYSPRO OData is secured via a prerequisite SSL certificate on the endpoint. You can then use your predetermined SQL user credentials to access the underlying SYSPRO SQL table data.

For SYSPRO Cloud ERP, external access is then protected from attack and subject to intrusion detection.

Functionality

You can connect external third-party applications to the SYSPRO OData Service for analytics, reporting or triggering requirements. Scalability is supported by best practice guides.

Solution Use

A typical user would connect a product such as Microsoft Excel or Tablaeu to the SYSPRO OData solution, extract data for further analysis or presentation in a visualization tool, and set up schedules to refresh the data.

SYSPRO Business Activity Queries

SYSPRO Business Activity Queries provides a low-code dataset creation tool based on business logic that solves custom dataset requirements across a number of areas of enterprise reporting in SYSPRO.

These include:

Business insight tiles
Crystal Sub Reports
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Dataset Inputs
Business Intelligence Tools
SYSPRO Report Writer (via the Data Dictionary)

SYSPRO Business Activity Queries are SQL views that are created in the relevant company databases and (because they are defined in SYSPRO) are recognized as data sources. They provide a view into the business data commonly used during the typical business management process. The queries are built and secured in the core ERP system and then surfaced to users via their enterprise reporting and connectivity solutions.

Benefits:

Reduced risk of inappropriate access to SYSPRO data.
Increased flexibility of creating custom linked data, including custom form fields.
SQL views no longer need to be created outside of SYSPRO (i.e. using a tool like Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio).
Less reliance on custom SQL objects for data access (for both reporting and integrations).
Reduced need for SQL knowledge in creating custom datasets.

Manufacturing

Distribution

SYSPRO Point of Sale

Quoting: Generating quotes for customers on hold

The existing access control in SYSPRO Point of Sale has been extended within the Store > Manage Quotes and Store Management > Order Maintenance programs so that you can control operator access to creating and maintaining quotes for customers on hold.

The new Allow Quotes against Customers that has been placed 'On Hold' access control setting has been added to the Functionality column of the Access Control Setup program and is set as Deny by default. This enables administrators to define one of the following options:

Deny - Prevents quote generation for customers on hold.
Allow - Allows a customer to be selected for quote creation, regardless of their hold status and without user intervention.
Allow (auth req) - Quotations for customers on hold only allowed when supervisor authorization is provided.
Inherit all - The system checks higher up in the access control hierarchy to determine the function's access.

Once you've configured access control, the system allows quote generation, but blocks the quote from being converted to a sales order until the hold against the customer is released.

This only applies to SYSPRO Point of Sale when running in SYSPRO Avanti and doesn't apply when running in Silverlight.

Security and compliance enhancements

HTTPS and HSTS security

SYSPRO Point of Sale compliance and security features when running in SYSPRO Avanti has been strengthened by being able to run the application using HTTPS, a more secure form of communication.

During the installation, maintenance or upgrading of SYSPRO Point of Sale via the SYSPRO Installer Application, you can now specify the communication method you want to use.

Owing to its inherent security benefits, HTTPS has become the default and preferred method for running SYSPRO Point of Sale.

Single Sign-on

SYSPRO Point of Sale now supports Single Sign-on capabilities when running in SYSPRO Avanti.

Single Sign-on provides a simple to setup and robust method of using Microsoft Active Directory (AD) to control your users. Once configured, it enables a complete single sign-on experience as users are authenticated by Microsoft Windows and then simply use their email address to log into SYSPRO Point of Sale.

It means that administrators can use Microsoft Active Directory (AD) to add, change, disable and delete operators virtually seamlessly. Any changes to user attributes automatically reflect against the operator without manual intervention.

Benefits

Increased login security.
Simplified login process for SYSPRO Point of Sale users.
Convenient administration of users managed by Microsoft Active Directory (AD).

Requirements

A registered certificate for the SYSPRO Point of Sale server is required to run Single Sign-on.
A customer account must be registered with Azure B2C and configured with the correct redirect URL back to the specific SYSPRO Point of Sale instance.
SYSPRO Point of Sale users must be configured with an email address for the system to identify the correct operator.

Setup

To enable Single Sign-on functionality in SYSPRO Point of Sale (when running in SYSPRO Avanti) add the following tags within the Web.config file located in the \inetpub\wwwroot\SYSPRO8POS_xxxx\SYSPROPOSAVANTI folder (where xxxx is your company code):

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<add key="ida:IsB2Cauth" value="true" /><add key="ida:Tenant" value="yourcloud.onmicrosoft.com" />
<add key="ida:TenantId" value="yourUniqueTenantId" />
<add key="ida:ClientId" value=" yourUniqueClientId " />
<add key="ida:ClientSecret" value="YourClientSecret" />
<add key="ida:AadInstance" value="https://yourcloud.b2clogin.com/tfp/{0}/{1}" />
<add key="ida:RedirectUri" value="https://yourCompany.com/SYSPRO8POSAVANTI_EDU1/" />
<add key="ida:SignUpSignInPolicyId" value="b2c_1_susi" />
<add key="ida:EditProfilePolicyId" value="b2c_1_edit_profile" />
<add key="ida:ResetPasswordPolicyId" value="b2c_1_reset" />

This functionality doesn't apply when running SYSPRO Point of Sale in Silverlight.

Financial

Tax Connectors

The Tax Connectors feature has been enhanced with the following improvements when using the Tax Connector - Avalara module:

The filter options of the Tax Interface Setup program (which allow you to exclude certain states and countries from submission to Avalara) have been extended to filter submissions by product class.
The process for manually importing tax rates into SYSPRO using the Tax Rates Import program has been enhanced by the addition of the following new standardized panes:
- Options - These options let you define import criteria.
- Details - This lets you view and edit specific details of the import file.
- Import Results - This displays a summary of the import results.
You can now select specific Customers and Sales orders for which you want to run the report when you use the Tax Interface Error Log Print program to view and print any errors that may have occurred during the posting of transactions.
In addition, the following new columns have been added to the Tax Interface Error Log Print pane for ease of reference to information:
- Customer - This indicates the customer assigned to the transaction.
- Line type/Increasing - This indicates the status of the transaction.
- Transaction description - This indicates a detailed description of the error that occurred.
The Exemption Certificates Setup program has been updated so that it is only accessible when the Tax Connector - Avalara module is licensed and installed.

Business Objects

Setup Objects

The BOM Production Line Maintenance business object lets you add, change and delete production lines.
The BOM Multiple Shift Allocation business object lets you add, change and delete shift allocations.
The BOM Site Location Maintenance business object lets you add, change and delete site codes.
The BOM Shift Detail Setup business object lets you add, change and delete shift details.
The BOM Shift Header Setup business object lets you add, change and delete shift code records for the BomShiftHdr table.
The SO Price List Detail Maintenance business object lets you create price list detail records.
The SO Pricing Engine Price Group Setup business object lets you create price group records.
The SO Price List Header Maintenance business object lets you create list price header records.
The SO Pricing Engine Price Group Rules Setup business object lets you create price group rule records.
The WHM Mission Team Maintenance business object lets you allocate a mission to a team.
The WHM Mission Team Employee Maintenance business object lets you add, change or delete employees that form part of the teams to which missions can be allocated.
The Teams Maintenance business object lets you add, change and delete teams that can be allocated to missions.

Query Objects

The AP Check and Remittance Format Query business object is used for online SRS printing and lets you query AP check and remittance format information for all document types against each bank code.
The AP Check/Remittance Document Query business object is used for online SRS printing and lets you query AP remittance format information against a single supplier.
The Shift Pattern Query business object caters for the creation of the BOM Shift Pattern Report.
The COM Query OData Operators business object lets you query OData operator information (e.g. operator code, name and credentials).
The SO Price Group Discount Breaks Query business object lets you query order discount breaks for price groups created by the SO Price Group Order Discounts program.
The SO Price Group Query business object lets you query price group and price group rule information.
The SO Pricing Price Query business object lets you query the best price details per stock code (and other prices available in a price group) for a specific customer.
The SO Pricing Best Price Query business object lets you calculate the best price for a given stock code and price group.
The SO Price List Query business object lets you query a price list, with the option to see all associated stock codes and calculated prices.
The WHM Completed Missions Query business object lets you query all completed missions and tasks.
The WHM Mission Query business object lets you query a mission, and the tasks associated with that mission, from the WhmMission table.
The WHM In Progress Missions Query business object lets you query all missions from the WhmMission table that are still in progress (i.e. missions that are not canceled or completed).
The WHM Missions Query business object lets you query missions in the WhmMissionTasks and WhmMission tables and displays their status and source (i.e. picking, cycle counting or inventory putaway). It is called from the WHM Review Mission Tasks program and loads the results in the list view.
The WHM Mission Team Employees Query business object lets you query any single input team operator from the WhmTeamEmployees table.
The WIP Balance Query business object is part of a suite of business objects that lets you quickly identify whether there are imbalances between Work in Progress tables.
The Job Nesting Query Business Object business object lets you query job nests according to a range of filters (e.g. job, job nest, nest status, parent stock code and work center. You can optionally choose to view a summary of the data, or a detailed query that shows all the information regarding the nests.

* Development-Authors@syspro.com

Highlights: SYSPRO 8 2021 R2

User Experience

Simplified Administration

Considerations:

Benefits

Benefits

Requirements

Supply Chain Portal

Benefits

Security

Insights & Reporting

Accessibility

Security

Functionality

Solution Use

Benefits:

Manufacturing

Distribution

HTTPS and HSTS security

Financial

Business Objects