SYSPRO 8 Roadmap Themes

The SQL Health Dashboard program was improved to provide quicker performance when analyzing the health of tables, columns and foreign keys on a company database.

The dashboard now also includes the following information:

Instance Information

• Connection driver

  This indicates the ODBC driver used when connecting to Microsoft SQL Server.

• Connection encryption

  This indicates whether the connection to Microsoft SQL Server is encrypted.

• Connection protocol

  This indicates the protocol used when connecting to Microsoft SQL Server (i.e. TCP, Named pipes or Shared memory).

Database Information:

• TDE encryption status

  This indicates if Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) is in use and the current status of the encryption.

The parent item of contaminated or defective products can optionally be included in the Product Recall Selections Review to ensure that all potentially spoiled items are identified.

Although this initially increases the list of items included, filtering options are available to refine the results (typically useful for companies that retain traceability data and don't archive lots). This list can then be used by companies to identify the affected products.

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A new batching rule (O - Cover shortages less than min overages up to max) allows processing of supplies up to the warehouse maximum level, even though the quantity on hand is above the minimum level. This ensures that stock levels can be increased prior to promotions or anticipated demand.

This caters for raising a suggestion when the minimum stock level in the warehouse is greater than the demand. Further supplies can be raised outside of MRP until the maximum is reached, at which time a cancel action is raised (i.e. when the supply quantity exceeds the warehouse maximum for that stock code).

This feature is relevant to sites that are not licensed for the Inventory Optimization modules, but which are using warehouse order policies in MRP.

The Missions and Tasks feature lets you create a work-to-list for queuing and moving inventory within a warehouse. This gives warehouse managers greater work allocation control and visibility.

A mission can be created for inventory putaway, sales order pick or cycle count transactions. Once missions and tasks are assigned to the employee or team they can be serviced using the Missions & Tasks application in SYSPRO Espresso (where operators can then view their tasks from a mobile device) or the WHM Review Mission Tasks program using the SYSPRO Desktop or SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti).

The system is updated in real time as the stock is allocated, physically moved and the task completed. Once all tasks are done, the mission can be completed.

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Tariff codes can be selected at all sales order lines, regardless of the tax configuration defined at company level. Previously, this could only be done if the EC VAT system required setup option was enabled.

Pricing structures within SYSPRO have been simplified so that pricing methods can be created and maintained in one place.

Price groups can be linked to a customer, branch, customer class, geographic area or custom form. Pricing rules or lists are then set up per price group and governed by effective dates.

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The enhanced Warehouse Bin Query program provides an easy way to create bin and warehouse transfers.

The bins within the warehouse can be selected from a tree structure. The bin content is displayed in a listview where you can select the ellipses at the Action column to create bin and warehouse transfers.

From there the Inventory Movements program is displayed where all relevant fields are pre-populated for ease of use. If the Enable for put-aways setup option is enabled, you can also create bin or warehouse put-aways.

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.

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.

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: SORPPM 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.

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.

Intrastat Triangulation occurs when three EU states are involved in a transaction, where one orders goods from a second while goods are sourced from a third.

• The state receiving goods records an Intrastat arrival.
• The state dispatching goods records an Intrastat dispatch (declaring the ordering state as a recipient).
• The intermediary or agent state records nothing for Intrastat purposes.

When a requisition, purchase order or sales order is created, the triangulation role of agent, supplier or customer is selected, as well as the dispatch and destination states. These details are specified at order line level for stocked and non-stocked goods, so they are used when creating dispatch notes, credit notes or reprint files, and when receipting in stock from inspection.

You can view and change tariffs on the Intrastat triangulation transactions using the Maintain Intrastat Dispatches and Maintain Intrastat Arrivals programs. Intrastat transaction values are reported in the EC Triangulation Transactions - Dispatch and EC Triangulation Transactions – Arrivals reports.

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This program lets you view the history of successful MFA authentications for the company.

SYSPRO automatically tracks each time an operator successfully authenticates themselves to SYSPRO through Multi-Factor Authentication and logs which authentication method is used. Its purpose is to assist system administrators in effectively managing system security.

The product recall process includes any traceable parent item that has been received into stock, ensuring it can be quickly and easily located in the supply chain. It means that lot and serial traceable items received through jobs, inventory movements, backflushing or purchase orders are included when selecting items you want to recall using the Product Recall Selections Review program.

The product recall process includes stock items that were manufactured, sold and delivered to the customer, as well as items that were receipted into stock and are still residing in the warehouse.

The Job Nesting feature has been extended to include manufacturing units of measure (MUM). This means you can use the stocking, alternate, manufacturing or other units of measure when issuing stock to the nested job.

Affected programs

• WIP Nest Processing

  The Unit of measure field was added to the Issue Materials pane. This lets you select the unit of measure when issuing materials to the job nest.

You can now capture and save dates against specific lots to manage the shelf life and expiration dates of traceable items. These dates include: Use by date, Sell by date, Internal expiry date, Manufacturing date, Dispatch date and Best before date.

In most cases, the additional lot date fields are hidden by default and must be selected using the Show Captions option from the context-sensitive menu.

Affected programs

• Purchase Order Receipts
• Purchase Order Inspection
• Shipment Receipt
• Bins, Lots & Serial Capture
• WIP Inspection Document Print
• Job Receipts
• WIP Inspection
• WIP Inspection Accept into Stock
• Job Receipts
• Factory Documentation Format

eSignatures

Access and maintenance of recorded dates are included in and controlled by the following eSignatures:

• WIP Stocked job receipts
• WIP Stocked job receipts e.net
• PO Apportion quantity receipt
• WIP Inspection (accept)
• WIP Inspection (accept) e.net
• Inv Receipt
• Inv Receipt e.net

The Request for Quote System feature has been enhanced:

• Improvements to the governance of the RFQ process ensures that an RFQ can be sent directly to suppliers using the SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal. Once you end the RFQ, you can email it to suppliers, inviting them to submit a quote via the portal.

• You can use the Send Email program to configure the RFQ invitation email template that is sent to suppliers.

User interface changes

• The Expiry date wording was changed to Closing date. The supplier can submit a quote on or before the closing date of the RFQ and a quote can only be accepted after the closing date.

• The supplier cannot change the pricing unit of measure (i.e. the supplier must quote in the unit of measure provided).

• Only requisitions of type Normal can be accepted for RFQs using the Requisition Entry program.

  The Accept for RFQ tool is disabled if the requisition type is Issue or Transfer, as these are used for stock and/or warehouse management.

The Quick Quotes functionality has been enhanced to allow you to add the quick quote number field to the Quick Sales Order Entry program. This lets you search for quick quotes, as well as view the quick quote number on various sales order and printing programs once the quote has been converted.

The quote reference number is auto-generated according to the defined Quick quotes setup options (Setup Options > Keys > Distribution - Sales Management).

Affected programs

• SO Quotes
• Document Print
• Sales Order Entry
• Sales Order Query
• AR Branch Maintenance
• SO Document Formats

The Quick quote number field is hidden by default. You can reinstate it using the Field Selector option from the context-sensitive menu (displayed by right-clicking any field in the pane). Simply select the field from the Sales Order Quote Header and drag it onto the pane.

The Order Picking feature has been extended to let you configure how you want to account for stock shortages in the warehouse. Stock shortfalls can be processed as stock adjustments using inventory journals, or missing stock can be transferred to a separate lost and found warehouse. When using a lost and found warehouse, you can offset shortages when stock is found during stock takes or cycle counts.

A sales order and order line that is in status R - Released to picking or P - In picking can't be invoiced, as the picking cycle hasn't been completed. Once picking is completed, the sales order status returns to 1 - Open order line for invoicing.

Affected programs

• Warehouse Maintenance

  The Accounting for shortages option lets you select whether you want to process stock shortfalls as an adjustment against the warehouse or place the missing stock items in a separate warehouse.

• Sales Order Entry

  When stock can't be picked because of shortages, the quantity on the sales order is not adjusted, as the stock quantity is placed in back order.

• Pick Maintenance
• Pick Review

• Lost and Found Warehouse Review

  This program lets you view and manage the stock items placed in a lost-and-found warehouse during order picking and cycle counting.

The Cycle Count feature has been extended to let you manage stock surpluses discovered during cycle counting. You can also capture cycle count information from within the Browse on Cycle Counts program.

Affected programs

• Cycle Count Review and Confirm

  You can review and transfer surplus stock by selecting the Review link in the Lost and Found warehouse/Increasing column. The selected stock will be transferred from the lost and found warehouse to the bin that was counted during cycle counting using the Lost and Found Warehouse Review program.

  The Review link is only displayed if surplus stock was captured for the cycle count.

• Browse on Cycle Counts

  You can capture counted quantities by selecting the Action link at the Functions column and choosing Capture a cycle count. The Cycle Count Capture program is displayed.

• Inventory Lost and Found Warehouse Query

  This new business object lets you view all items in the lost and found warehouse.

This enhancement lets you view goods in transit information.

When the Goods in transit amendment journal setup option is enabled, amendment journals are created when GIT detail records are added or updated (Setup Options > Preferences > Distribution > Inventory). This occurs in a variety circumstances (e.g. processing a transfer in, creating or printing a transfer out, updating a transfer due date, etc).

The GTR Detail Amendment Journals program displays a list of amendment journals and the corresponding before and after values.

As an administrator, you no longer have to create and configure SQL logins for SYSPRO operators using Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio before capturing the SQL login and password details against the operator in SYSPRO.

This is now possible from within SYSPRO, with functionality added to the System Setup and Operator Maintenance programs. The process creates the following for a SYSPRO operator:

• SQL login

• SQL user

  This is used to access the relevant databases with the required permission access enabled (i.e. DataReader and DataWriter).

The following capabilities were added to the SYSPRO Installer Application to improve and enhance the deployment functionality:

• Update SQL Server credentials
• Update deployment service credentials
• Run the deployment service as named user
• Rename a server/machine
• Install SYSPRO Additional Services
• Clone machine or deployment group
• Manage hotfix notifications

The following new capabilities have been added to SYSPRO's mobile platform:

Espresso Xpress Cart

You can add columns to customize the grid view of the Espresso Xpress Cart (e.g. to display the information you deem important). You can use the Espresso Application Builder program in the core SYSPRO product and the Espresso Xpress Cart in SYSPRO Espresso to customize the search to display these columns.

AI Integration

SYSPRO Espresso supports client certificates installed on devices to assist with validation at the time of logging in.

This adds additional security and prevents unauthorized devices from accessing SYSPRO Espresso.

Forgot Password

The Forgot Password functionality (that lets operators reset their SYSPRO passwords without administrator assistance) is now available in SYSPRO Espresso.

The Recorded Dates feature lets you better manage the life-cycle of your products by enabling you to record several industry-specific dates against items.

The dates are captured and saved against specific lots, allowing you to manage the shelf life and expiration dates of your products. Dates include: use by date, sell by date, internal expiry date, manufacturing date, dispatch date and best before date.

The Request for Quote System feature forms part of the procurement process and extends collaboration to your suppliers by automating the quote process and servicing of the RFQ by the supplier.

Suppliers are invited to bid or quote for stocked and non-stocked products. Once the potential supplier's quotation is received, it is either accepted (a purchase order can be created and submitted to the supplier) or rejected.

This feature is designed to be used with the SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal, which allows suppliers to submit their quotations online.

The Return to Supplier feature facilitates the return of goods or services to suppliers as a result of defects or other reasons for dissatisfaction.

It simplifies the process of returns and provides an efficient method of controlling items leaving site for returns or repairs. This ensures visibility and tracking of the item until the process is concluded.

The Cycle Count feature lets you perform partial stock counts at specific intervals without disrupting daily operations.

This feature is designed to be used with the SYSPRO Scheduler to allow for the planning and scheduling of specific cycle-counts for particular areas in the warehouse.

A mission can be generated from a cycle count to assign counting tasks to the warehouse operation, which can then be completed using the Espresso Missions & Tasks application. The system is updated real time as the stock is counted and the task completed.

The Benefits:

• Increased stock accuracy by continuously assessing your inventory.
• Limit the amount of disruption in your warehouse by shortening the time between your counting processes.
• Fewer stock write-offs by reducing inventory variances.
• Ongoing insight into inventory accuracy, resulting in better governance and timely adjustments.
• Convenient scheduling ahead of time.

You can now use the RMA Issues and Receipts Program: RMAP20 program to consolidate credit notes when receiving returned stocked and non-stocked items.

Sales order lines from different invoices can be consolidated into a single credit note as long as the sales order headers have the same branch, area, salesperson and currency. Once created, the credit note can be allocated to a single invoice.

You can also create a single consolidated credit note for returned merchandise without specifying invoice numbers. If you choose to consolidate them, all RMA lines without invoice numbers are grouped together.

The SO Consolidate RMA lines eSignature has been added to control access to the credit note consolidation functionality.

The Customer Complaints feature forms part of the Quality Management System. It provides a platform for customers to raise complaints and for the organization to investigate and take the necessary action to address these complaints.

Once a complaint is received and categorized, possible corrective and/or preventative action can be developed and implemented to ensure customer satisfaction is maintained.

The Recall Management feature caters for a request from a manufacturer to return a product after the discovery of safety issues or product defects that might endanger the consumer or put the organization at risk of legal action.

A product recall can be applied at warehouse, bin, stock code, lot or serial level (effectively placing them on hold) and may affect sales orders, jobs, parent parts and kits.

Phase 1 of this feature has been released and is focused towards the Food and Beverage industry (as well as similar industries like pharmaceuticals) where expiry dates are regulatory.

In order to properly manage the life-cycle of a product, there is often the requirement for a unique range of recorded dates that need to be attached to any product.

New functionality in the Lot Number Maintenance program enables industries to record a further range of dates, where previously Expiry Date was the critical date recorded.

The Order Picking feature provides picking routines to improve order book fulfillment and the management of the pick processes. It is an extension of the multi-bin functionality that is currently available in SYSPRO.

A mission can be generated from a sales order pick in order to assign picking tasks to the warehouse operation. The picking tasks can be completed using the Espresso Order Picking or Missions & Tasks application. The system is updated real time as the stock is picked and the task completed.

Benefits:

• Better stock visibility by tracking items and locations.
• Improved fulfillment times for sales functions.
• Picking tailored to suit your business based on your requirements for batch, wave, or order picks.
• Standardized receiving, put-away, and picking processes.
• Batch transactions based on locality for improved efficiency of location visits.
• Reduced cycle times for larger orders using coordinated team picking.
• Work-to-lists provide clear visibility into resource demands by discipline, locality and date/time-based requirements.

This lets you reset your SYSPRO passwords without requiring the assistance of a system administrator (you're typically locked out of the system after exceeding a pre-defined number of login attempts allowed).

You can request a password reset from the SYSPRO login screen (select Forgot Password) and are then notified via email that a request for a password reset has been received and that the password has been reset. The email includes a temporary password which is valid for a specified time period. When next you log into SYSPRO using the temporary password, you'll need to enter a new password.

A new function in SYSPRO Espresso lets you use any camera-enabled device (e.g. smart phone) to scan barcodes on all fields where the scanning icon () is displayed.

SYSPRO Espresso lets users change their own password when logging in, reducing workload on system administrators.

This facility is available from the login screen, similarly to conventional SYSPRO.

The Espresso Xpress Cart provides manufacturers and distributors with an efficient, fast and simple-to-use mobile sales ordering app, extending the sales order experience directly to customers.

This is achieved using flexibility, efficiency, ease and speed of capturing orders online, mobility on the road and improved customer ordering experience.

The Espresso Application Builder program includes a script editor that lets you add scripting to an Espresso component. This allows you to build additional business logic into Espresso.

The Espresso Customer Workbench includes various customer components that lets you view customer data and add or update transactions within one application without having to leave the current application.

When maintaining a sales order in SYSPRO Espresso, the SYSPRO Espresso Sales Order Document Printing application lets you generate invoices, delivery notes and order acknowledgments.

When generating a document, the current status of the document and built-in business rules determine the type of document that can be generated and the document formats that can be selected. You can also reprint documents that have already been printed.

The Espresso SFDC (Shop Floor Data Collection) Workbench provides a mobile solution for capturing all production-related transactions directly from the shop floor.

It enables access to all job-related transactions and work-to-lists available to the shop floor via mobile devices.

Operators are directed to their work-to-lists, have insight into job specifications and are presented with a single point-of-entry for recording all their production progress.

Benefits:

• Reduce errors caused by manual data capture
• Eliminate shop floor paper
• Improve material accuracy and tracking
• Provide current production visibility for better decision-making support

The Job Nesting feature lets you combine several small jobs into one larger nested job process. This lets you view and select combinations of work orders that can be batched together into larger processes (e.g. you can nest multiple jobs using the same raw material or components).

The result is a reduction of waste and operational costs, optimized use of raw material and resources, and improved efficiencies.

Benefits:

• Group jobs requiring the same raw material (such as sheets) to a nested job. Optimize the raw material and labor usage against the nested job.
• Record actual raw material and labor usage against the nested job as well as results of the nest.
• Disburse material, labor and scrap against the original jobs on completion.

The Preferred Supplier feature lets you configure and manage sourcing policies for your stock codes.

A sourcing policy determines who is the preferred supplier of a stock item and helps a company stay competitive by ensuring that purchasing agreements and policies are upheld when creating requisitions and purchase orders.

A purchasing strategy benefits buyers and suppliers - suppliers have guaranteed sales, while buyers can negotiate favorable terms.

Benefits:

• Improved value-to-price relationship (i.e. achieve cost reductions while maintaining or improving quality and service).
• Understanding of category buying and management processes to identify improvement opportunities.
• Examination of supplier relationships across the entire organization.
• Leveraging the entire spend of the organization.
• Developing and implementing multi-year contracts with standardized terms and conditions across the organization.
• Sharing best practices across the organization.

The Bin to Serial Linkage feature lets you accurately determine where (from a bin perspective) serialized items reside in a warehouse.

This provides efficient traceability of stock serial tracking across warehousing functions. You can now find and use serials in a more timely manner, as any stock movement can be traced at bin level for serialized stock codes. You can also view the specific bin location of the serial when receipting, issuing or selling serialized items.

Benefits:

• Improve Traceability:

  An improved method of tracking serials linked to bins provides for better visibility into serialized stock items in specific warehouses.

The Sales Order Release function lets you release large quantities of sales orders from suspense.

SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) now supports SSO using Active Directory 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 Web UI (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 Web UI (Avanti) and engage as normal.

Benefits

• Increased login security

• Simplified login process for SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) users

• Convenient administration of users managed by Microsoft Azure Active Directory B2C

Requirements

• A registered certificate for the SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) server is required to run SSO using Active Directory.

• A customer account must be registered with Microsoft Azure Active Directory B2C and configured with the correct redirect URL back to the specific SYSPRO Web UI (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.

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The WIP Shift Patterns feature lets you establish schedules with different activities for work centers and machines within manufacturing and distribution facilities. Previously, you were restricted to allocating a full day for a specific activity.

Shift patterns can be defined at various levels (i.e. company, site, work center, production line, warehouse or machine) and a work day can have multiple shifts with different start and end times to accommodate shift requirements.

Allocating maintenance times ensures that machine time can't be booked for production time (i.e. avoids different activities coinciding at the same time on the same machine).

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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.

Read more...

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.

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 Web UI (Avanti) and SYSPRO Desktop):

• 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.

Read more...

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 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 WIP by Branch feature extends ledger integration options to include integration at branch level (only job classification was available before). This means that each branch and job classification can have separate WIP ledger control accounts. Previously, you could only define a single WIP control account and WIP variance account per company.

You can enable WIP branches for the following:

• Jobs
• WIP inspections
• Job numbering
• Job classification

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The VAT reverse charges for tax submission feature lets you record VAT which would've been paid by a company if services were procured from within their EU state, but which were in fact procured from another EU state. It caters for VAT requirements in UK and EU countries that need to disclose reverse charges when submitting tax reports.

The notional tax transactions are accumulated and made available for subsequent reporting using the MTD 9-Box Tax Return report and the Digital Tax Tool.

To determine the reverse charge amounts, a notional invoice is raised with the same value as is reflected on the actual invoice. Tax is then calculated using local tax rates. A notional tax credit note is generated to contra and therefore cancel the notional invoice.

Changes on the MTD 9-Box Return:

• The notional tax value of the invoice is displayed in box 4 (VAT Reclaimed).
• The notional tax value on the credit note is added to box 1 (VAT Due).
• The effect on the Net VAT in box 5 is thus zero.

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As data encryption technologies form a vital part of any security and privacy data compliance strategy, this feature lets administrators configure the connection between SYSPRO and Microsoft SQL Server using Transport Layer Security (TLS) to provide Data Encryption in Motion.

The feature assists with compliance to stringent privacy regulations and government acts, as it focuses on securing data from SYSPRO when using Microsoft SQL Server.

Data Encryption in Motion

This describes a technique of configuring SYSPRO and Microsoft SQL Server so that all communication between the two is encrypted. Now data encryption can enabled from the client, instead of only controlling encryption within the Microsoft SQL Server instance.

The following data is encrypted when using this type of configuration:

• Initial connection information
• SQL statements issued
• Actual data passed to and from Microsoft SQL Server

Read more

The following two articles provide more detailed information:

• SYSPRO and SQL Server Encryption Overview

  This document provides an overview of data encryption relating to SYSPRO and Microsoft SQL Server, detailing the two technologies known as Data Encryption at Rest (TDE) and Data Encryption in Motion (TLS).

  It also provides benchmarking information to demonstrate the minimal overhead when using these encryption technologies.

• SYSPRO and SQL Server Encryption Configuration

  This document contains detailed technical information about how to configure SYSPRO, Microsoft SQL Server and your Windows Server operating system to use Data Encryption at Rest and Data Encryption in Motion technologies.

The SYSPRO Scheduler lets you schedule a pre-determined activity at a given time in the future and then send a trigger for that activity at the appropriate time.

A calendar view (similar to Microsoft Outlook) is accessible from programs that have been designed to use the SYSPRO Scheduler. This lets you view existing tasks that have been scheduled as well as create and maintain schedules using the Maintain Schedules program.

Features currently using the SYSPRO Scheduler:

• Cycle Count

  This creates a cycle count schedule of stock counting policies.

Multi-Factor Authentication is a process that identifies a user by validating two or more authentication methods from independent credential categories. This ensures that a user is only granted access after successfully presenting two or more pieces of evidence to the authentication mechanism.

In SYSPRO, the traditional user name and password has been bolstered by the addition of Email and Google authentication to improve security during the login process.

• Email authentication sends an email to MFA-defined operators containing a Time-based One-time Password (TOTP) required as part of login verification.
• Google authentication uses an app to generate a QR code for first time user configuration and a Time-based One-time Password (TOTP) is required as part of the verification process for subsequent logins.

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

Once configured, it enables a complete single sign-on experience as SYSPRO users are authenticated by Microsoft Windows and then simply use a shortcut to run SYSPRO without being prompted for a user name and password at the login screen.

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

Benefits

• Increased security around SYSPRO logins (you can lock-down users and only allow them access to SYSPRO using their specific operator code).

• Convenient administration of SYSPRO operators managed by Microsoft Active Directory (AD).
• Simplified login process for SYSPRO operators.

This feature solves the issue of a SYSPRO administrator having to capture the same SMTP email options for each company in the system.

The Digital Tax System feature lets you generate tax returns for electronic and/or manual submissions. This is in response to tax authorities around the world increasingly requiring businesses to submit VAT and GST returns in an electronic format.

The feature also assists with tax queries and reconciling VAT entries from the transactions in the company’s general ledger.

The Detail Posting to Control Accounts feature lets you configure control account integration to General Ledger in detail. Previously, transactions to control accounts were consolidated and written to the ledger in summary, regardless of your integration level. The detail lines are now printed on distribution reports and can be viewed using the GL Query program as well as from within the relevant ledger journal maintenance program.

The detail integration to control accounts facility has been added to the following modules:

• Inventory Control
• GRN
• Trade Promotions
• Work in Progress
  • Part Billings
  • Labor Posting

The Tax on Settlement Discount enhancement enables all programs in the Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable modules to handle withholding tax and tax on settlement discount at the same time.

The user interfaces of the programs weren't changed, only the calculation for tax on settlement discounts was adjusted and is now calculated according to the selected tax codes. The same tax codes (and therefore percentages) that were applied to the invoice lines are applied to the settlement discount.

Setup Options

The following setup options must be enabled to apply this feature:

Calculation for terms discount

(Setup Options > Preferences > Financials > Accounts Receivable)

• Determine tax based on invoice paid
• Include tax
• Credit and/or debit notes

Affected programs

• AR Payments and Adjustments
• AR Period End
• Cash Posting Worksheet
• AR Post Permanent Entries
• AR Finance Charge Calculation
• AR Initial Invoice Capture
• AR Currency Conversion
• AR Customer Code Conversion
• AR Collector Run Maintenance
• AR Post Dated Check Status
• AR Payment Run
• AR Credit Checking
• Master Sub-accounts
• AR Initial Invoice Capture
• AR Master/Sub Account Maintenance
• AR Invoice Posting
• AR Payment Run
• AR Payments Import
• Customers
• Cash Posting Worksheet
• Tax Return
• Document Print
• SO Counter Sales
• Customer-Supplier Contra
• Interface Import
• AR Payments and Adjustments business object
• Post Accounts Receivable Setup Options
• Query Accounts Receivable Setup Options

The AP payment cycle process is not affected by this change.

The Detail Posting to Control Accounts feature lets you configure control account integration to General Ledger in detail. Previously, transactions to control accounts were consolidated and written to the ledger in summary, regardless of your integration level. The detail lines are now printed on distribution reports and can be viewed using the GL Query program as well as from within the relevant ledger journal maintenance program.

The detail integration to control accounts facility has been added to the following modules:

• Accounts Receivable
• Accounts Payable
• Assets
• Cash Book

This program lets you balance SYSPRO sub modules to General Ledger, allowing you to detect discrepancies between them. These discrepancies can occur because of data corruption (e.g. power outage during posting) unposted journal entries or journals being edited before posting to General Ledger. It is important that you resolve discrepancies, as inaccurate financials will have a detrimental effect on your financial reporting and planning.

The Multi-currency Payments facility lets you make payments to a supplier and receive payments from a customer in a different currency. It lets you manage funds across various currencies and countries, reducing the risk of errors arising from manual calculations. It eliminates the need to process receipts and payments in alternate currencies and provides a complete audit trail of the transactions.

The SQL Health Dashboard provides SYSPRO Administrators and SQL Database Administrators a one-stop-shop for viewing and managing the system for high availability.

The dashboard displays information on both the system and company databases to assist in identifying potential problems, as well as enabling the repair of certain issues found within the databases.

The new AR Invoice Age and Terms Business object: ARSQAG business object lets you query customers' invoice details and age them according to the invoice terms code defined using the invoice ageing methods available for current period, previous period 1 or previous period 2.

The invoices can also be aged using the supplied aged date, the aged buckets held against the customer, or you can elect to ignore ageing.

Available invoice selections include zero current period invoices and zero retained invoices.

It also caters for credit control options such as credit status, highest invoice due, average number of days to pay and available discount due.

Supplementary Information: A tax reporting business object has been developed that produces a generic tax activity report in XML. This extract can be used in the creation of statutory tax reports.

Benefits:

• An export facility Tax Submission Query for your input/output tax submissions.
• You now can create your own tax reports using this feature.
• Functionality now exists to extract tax data (Sales Invoices, Purchase Invoices and Cash Book, etc.) based on your defined filters and date selections.
• A generic extract template is available that allows you to develop your own reports or import into other systems.

The Dunning System feature manages the generating and distributing of periodic reminders for unpaid invoices.

This helps streamline the credit management process and reduce the risk of incurring bad debts. Once configured, the process can be automated to routinely send out payment notifications.

A payment cycle can be completed without needing to first print a check remittance.

You can select from the following printing options within the Accounts Payable module:

• Print checks and remittance advices combined on pre-printed stationery
• Print checks and remittance advices separately on different stationery and/or printers
• Print only remittance advices

• Print nothing at all (useful for electronic payments as remittance advices are often not sent when paying via EFTs)

This functional enhancement provides for better visibility, control and management of variances associated with purchase price variances and exchange rates in the purchasing cycle and sales cycle.

Benefits:

• Better visibility of exchange rate variances allows for better control over variances during your purchasing and sales cycle.

All programs in the Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable modules handle withholding tax and tax on settlement discount concurrently, depending on the configuration settings.

The following programs in the Accounts Receivable module were enhanced to ensure that both types of taxes can be used at the same time:

• AR Payments and Adjustments
• AR Bank Deposit Slip
• AR Payments Distribution Query
• Payment Cycle Maintenance 
• AP Manual Check Entry
• AP Release Invoices to Pay by Review

The Re-establish Invoice pane has been updated to accommodate this change.

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)

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.

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.

Read more...

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).

SYSPRO's portal architecture now caters for dedicated Portal supplier and Portal customer fields against each operator.

Previously, when a portal user logged into the SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal, the system used the Default supplier code entered in the E.net pane of the Operator Maintenance program as the supplier code.

The new Portal user fields are maintainable within the Options pane of the Operator Maintenance program.

The SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal allows users beyond a SYSPRO site to connect, interact and transact using the SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) HTML5 user interface.

Adding Portal users to your SYSPRO configuration provides external user access to specific functionality (using a dedicated user interface and menu system) based on the portal features available.

The new Purchase Order Bulk Email functionality lets you email multiple purchase orders to corresponding suppliers in a single process.

Benefits:

• Improved purchasing efficiencies

• Quicker processing time

The platform is embedded in the SYSPRO product and combines a number of technologies (e.g. Social Media, Collaboration, Machine Learning, Cognitive Services and Data Analytics) into one application:

Benefits:

• View your company's operating status 24/7
• Drive user collaboration with social ERP conversations
• Harness the power of machine learning on your data to achieve sentiment analysis on your transactions
• Simplify complex technologies and business processes
• Enable faster decision making
• Follow relevant information and have this surface automatically
• Enable integration of SYSPRO data onto a messaging platform
• Enable trend analysis in conversations
• Improve user experience with a familiar, easy-to-use social media-type user interface
• Encourage system usage across the entire organization

Follow information

As with social media, Harmony users can follow, post and collaborate within the organization network using real-time information from the SYSPRO database. Using the data generated from these interactions, the system intelligently pushes pertinent information to the user using familiar interfaces.

This provides a more personalized working platform for users, allowing them to create their own profile, follow and track key data, take action and provide and share insights relevant to both internal and external stakeholders, all from a single view.

Social ERP conversations

Harmony is a collaborative, user-friendly social platform at the core of ERP that gives users a familiar interface through which to interact with the SYSPRO ecosystem and conduct their daily business.

Sentiment integration

Data Sentiment enables a complete spectrum picture of customer opinion about your services or products for informed and strategic decision making. Visual ques (the equivalent of emoticons) help alert users by attaching sentiment to specific items.

Key notes attached to these items are detected to reveal the tone in terms of the state of an event, customer or component which tracks potential future issues regarding customer service and happiness before they arise.

Emoji	Sentiment
	Very happy
	Happy
	Neutral
	Unhappy
	Very unhappy

Trend Surfacing (Auto-Aggregation)

Most social media applications (like Twitter or LinkedIn) use intelligent machine learning algorithms to detect trends from the messages posted and then surfaces that information to the user according to relevance.

Similarly, Harmony uses predictive analytics to reveal trends that provide actionable insight. The difference is that not only does Harmony process machine learning and trend detection on conversations, it also processes these on the core SYSPRO database.

Harmony identifies transactions on the SYSPRO database, the key fields against which these transactions are being processed and then performs trend detection and aggregation on the data. It presents this information in chart form to reflect what is currently trending in the SYSPRO database.

For example:

A stock code could be used in a large number of sales orders, as well as some purchase orders and RMAs. In this case, that stock code would be trending.

This highlights critical information without you having to request it or consolidate reports across the different modules.

The SYSPRO Reporting Services architecture for printing and reporting (both client-side and server-side) has been upgraded to use SAP Crystal Reports 2020.

The advantages of this upgrade include:

• Faster installation time (depending on the hardware and software configuration).

• Reduced footprint on the reporting server installation (SAP Crystal Reports Server 2020 SP2 is 64-bit).

• Faster start-up time for the Java server when using client-side reporting.

• Improved performance when previewing, printing and archiving documents (depending on the environment and hardware configuration).

  Our internal testing has indicated an average of 50% reduction in processing time.

• Quicker processing times when previewing reports and documents using the native XML driver.

• Increased scalability lets you process reports with larger XML (depending on the complexity of the XML structure).

The install and use of the SYSPRO Additional Reporting Software is dependent on your installed version of SYSPRO 8:

• Additional Reporting Software 2013 (i.e. SAP Crystal Reports 2013):

  Applies to SYSPRO 8 2020 R1 and prior versions.

  Due to SAP Crystal Reports 2013 having reached the end of its life cycle, the Additional Reporting Software 2013 is no longer available for new installations from January 2024.

• Additional Reporting Software 2016 (i.e. SAP Crystal Reports 2016):

  Applies to SYSPRO 8 2020 R2, SYSPRO 8 2021 R1 and SYSPRO 8 2021 R2.

  Due to SAP Crystal Reports 2016 having reached the end of its life cycle, the Additional Reporting Software 2016 is no longer available for new installations from January 2024.

• Additional Reporting Software 2020 (i.e. SAP Crystal Reports 2020):

  Applies to SYSPRO 8 2021 R2 to SYSPRO 8 2023.

  From January 2024, the Additional Reporting Software 2020 is the only SAP Crystal Reports version available for new installations.

• Additional Reporting Software 2020 SP4 (i.e. SAP Crystal Reports Server 2020 SP4 server-side and SAP Crystal Reports Server 2020 SP35 client-side):

  Applies to SYSPRO 8 2023 and later versions.

  This is only applicable within SYSPRO 8 2023 if Hotfix KB8100663 has been applied.

Read more...

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.

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.

Read more...

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 OData Custom Datasets

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.

Read more...

The Insight Tile Definition program simplifies designing, verifying and deploying business insight tiles. New tiles are easily created with the revised program which supports regular text, line and bar chart tiles.

Existing and standard SYSPRO tiles can be copied and subsequently changed. The Insight Tile Definition program integrates with the new Business Activity Query Builder program to allow easy access to custom SQL views.

This functionality lets SYSPRO administrators import customized report templates into SYSPRO Reporting Services from any location (i.e. local disk or external hard drive). Previously, this involved a lengthy process of manually copying the relevant report templates in to a specific directory.

Customized report templates are created using the SAP Crystal Reports designer and imported into the SrsReporting table of the system-wide database.

Read more...

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).

Document printing in SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) has been simplified with the addition of new format setup programs that let you view the SRS document options.

You can now define format templates for SRS document printing in SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) :

• AP Check Format for SRS

• AR Permanent Entries Format for SRS

• AR Statement Format for SRS

• AR Discount Cr Dr Notes Format

• AR Dunning Letter Format for SRS

• Cash Book Remittance Format for SRS

• Inventory Document Format for SRS

• Purchase Order Format for SRS

• Inspection Document Format for SRS

• Quotation Document Format for SRS

• RMA Document Format for SRS

• SO Document Format for SRS

• Factory Documentation Format for SRS

• WIP Inspection Document Format for SRS

From SYSPRO 8 2020 R2, you'll be upgraded to use SAP Crystal Reports 2016 SP8 as the reporting technology for both server-side and client-side reporting. The upgrade is mandatory for server-side reporting and optional if you are using client-side reporting.

This means that when using server-side reporting, part of the upgrade process involves uninstalling SAP Crystal Reports 2013 from your server and installing the later SAP Crystal Reports 2016 SP8 version. You should be aware that the uninstall and install process can take a significant time because of the complexity of the Crystal Reports product (some customers have reported this taking 2 or more hours).

When using client-side reporting, your clients can remain on the existing Crystal Reports version and upgrade to SAP Crystal Reports 2016 SP8 later when required (i.e. they can continue to produce reports using the previous Crystal Reports version).

Server-side Reporting

SYSPRO Reporting Services for server-side reporting now uses the following from SYSPRO 8 2020 R2:

• SAP Crystal Reports Server 2016 SP8
• SAP BusinessObjects BI platform .NET SDK Redistributable 64bit 4.2 SP8
• SYSPRO 8 Reporting Host Service (64bit)

Client-side Reporting

The changes to SYSPRO Reporting Services for client-side reporting from SYSPRO 8 2020 R2 are as follows:

• The Report Designer has been upgraded to use SAP Crystal Reports 2016 SP 8.
• The new client runtime used is SAP BusinessObjects BI platform .NET SDK Redistributable 32bit 4.2 SP8.
• The updated SYSPRO 8 Reporting Components that are installed include the native xml driver and necessary Java runtime.

The AI administrator program was expanded to include an importance gauge for AI projects.

The Feature importance graph (displayed below the Model information) displays a score for each SQL column in the AI project, indicating which data affects the predicted value the most.

This graph and a link to the corresponding data is also displayed when selecting an AI tile in SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti).

The suite of GL Trial Balance programs now includes summary totals for the current financial period according to the defined GL accounts. This is displayed in the final page of the report in a Company totals - Summary for current period page.

This feature includes the following programs:

• GL Trial Balance
• GL Trial Balance for Excel

• GL Trial Balance by Group

  This report also displays an account type breakdown at the end of each group defined for ledger codes (if you are generating the report for a current period or year-to-date).

There is a new Optimize print option available from within the Maintain SRS Document Templates Program: SRSPM2 program.

In a server-side environment, this option lets you print documents as soon as the data becomes available as well as archiving the documents at the same time.

Although this dual capability of printing and archiving applies to both single and batch modes, the performance benefit is more visible when printing in batch mode.

Document Batch Printing

When you enable the Optimize print option and are batch printing in a server-side environment, the XML file that is generated for each batch is now only generated once, resulting in improved performance (i.e. a document can be sent to the print queue as soon as the data is extracted and the previous document has completed).

Using the Document Printing API architecture, this XML file is now generated from the core program instead of the applicable document printing program (e.g. AR Statement Print) and is then sent to the SYSPRO 8 Reporting Host Service to produce the document.

Document Archiving

When you enable the Optimize print option and are printing in a server-side environment that requires document archiving, the process is now simplified by combining the process of printing and archiving (i.e. you don't need to split your archiving into multiple batches).

Document types

When you enable the Optimize print option, it applies only to the following document types:

• A/R Statement Print

• Purchase Orders – Foreign

• Purchase Orders – Local

• Quotation - Multiple Column

• Quotation - Multiple Line

• Quotation – Single

• Delivery note

• Dispatch note

• Invoice

• Order acknowledgment

• Factory Documentation

Configuring security and ensuring consistency across various operators is a complex process that typically involves a number of programs.

SYSPRO's Security Settings Dashboard program lets SYSPRO administrators query operator security settings within a single program.

Benefits:

• Query and view security information.

• Verify which operators have access (and how the access is configured) to various securable entities.

• View possible program conflicts.

• Amend security configuration in related programs via smart links.

Additional improvements have been made to the business insights feature:

• Simple and flexible warning and critical threshold definition.
• Color and/or Icon override when thresholds reached or exceeded.
• Operator, Role, Company and System-wide KPI definition.
• Definition provides single view of all KPIs.

Machine learning forms part of the SYSPRO Artificial Intelligence module. It uses specific algorithms and statistics to examine historical data. The program then uses the data patterns to reveal trends and predict future outcomes, benefiting management by presenting the big business picture.

Although these predictions require minimal human intervention, they rely heavily on the data quality and the attributes of the SQL statement. Reliable predictions will support business processes and improve decision making by learning from past experiences.

Business insight tiles (also called insight tiles or just tiles) are essentially SQL scripts displayed in a tile format within a SYSPRO web view. These tiles are context-driven and let you act instantly on events, facilitating informed business decisions and sound business behavior.

They are an individual employee performance management tool for all levels of engagement, providing an intuitive, real-time view of performance against KPIs, goals and targets.

The Insight Tile Definition program lets you create and deploy business insight tiles. You can define specific thresholds for targets or key performance indicators (KPIs) and highlight these values on business insight tiles.

KPIs on tiles can be used to highlight values approaching or exceeding pre-determined objectives or thresholds. This lets you proactively keep an eye on approaching targets. These targets could be a certain value, company-wide goal or a specific target agreed for a person or a role within the organization.

Tiles can be added to the main SYSPRO menu to surface company information (e.g. the total backorders for the company) or they can be added to specific programs and provide the key field as a context (e.g. the total backorders for a customer).

Additionally, when you click on a Business Insight tile, you can drill down to more detailed information displayed in a list view that derives its context from the specific tile measurement parameters.

You can also create administration insights (e.g. failed transactions, users logged in, etc).

Benefits:

• Accelerate turnaround time and drive throughput by streamlining the actions and activities that occur between one task and the next.

• Increase decision-making capability with increased visibility into operational performance of the company by individual and department across the entire operation to determine where you are successful and where you need to improve.

• Measure and improve performance by assigning standard, or tailoring specific, key performance indicators and metrics designed with the ability to immediately action work-to-lists - converting KPIs into meaningful improvement.

• Empower the workforce to meet goals and targets by assigning insights in an intuitive, self-explanatory, easy-to-use interface, aligned with critical business drivers and work-to-lists to be actioned

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

Read more...

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

Read more...

New power tailoring functionality in SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) lets you customize the platform to suit your own personal requirements:

Customize applications

SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) lets you customize applications (such as adding scripts to change the behavior of form fields or grid data) or extend the capabilities of any application to display more information, either from the SYSPRO database or from any external application.

All applications in SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) or SYSPRO generally comprise grids, form fields, charts, notepads and toolbar buttons. You can also add user-defined customized panes to any application which can contain a grid, form or a number of other types of controls.

To customize aspects of the SYSPRO application in the core product, you would previously right-click on a form field, toolbar, grid column header or docking pane window title, which enabled you to access the VBScript Editor, add a customized pane or to generally access customization capabilities.

All customization capabilities in SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) are controlled by a single program: Customize Application which you can access from the Settings icon in any application. The program is only available if the VBScript security option is enabled and are not logged in as a role.

The program provides the following capabilities:

• List views

  • Add a custom column

  • Edit a VBScript

  • Apply conditional formatting

  • Add or remove a grid column's visibility

  • Remove a custom column

• Form fields

  • Edit a script for a form or form field in the application

  • Add or remove a field’s visibility in SYSPRO

  • Remove a custom form field

• Toolbar buttons

  • Edit a script for any toolbar button used in the application

• Custom form fields

  • Create or modify a custom form field

  • Add a custom form field to the application

  • Add a field from an associated master table to a form

  • Add a scripted field to a form

• Additional components

  • Create your own customized pane or component

  • Add a pre-built component to the application

• Customized panes

  • Edit or remove any existing customized panes

  • Reset the layout for the application

Considerations:

• You can also access the Customize Application program with identical capabilities from the gear icon in core SYSPRO..

• In SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti), it is typically a two-stage process for a web view to be enhanced with new content or controls:

  1. Customize the application to add capabilities.
  2. Modify the web view using the Visual Designer Program: IMPFRZ to position the new controls or content.

Define personal settings

Individual operators can define the following personal preferences in SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) by selecting the Personal Settings option from the settings icon on the home page:

• Define the company date for all operators, or temporarily for the current run of SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti).

  This is dependent on the operator having the correct security access.

• Reset the saved settings for window positions and grid layouts.

  SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) automatically saves window positions and changes to grid layouts by operator. However, you can now reset these to their default values using the links provided.

• Configure your own Office 365 credentials.

Modify a grid

You can modify the contents of any SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) grid by using the following capabilities:

• Conditional formatting

  This lets apply formatting against any column in the grid based on simple rules.

• Custom columns

  You can add columns to the grid based either on custom form fields or from master table data.

  The custom columns that can be added are determined by the keys that are available in the grid columns.

• Column sum | Column average | Row count

  You can select any numeric column to be either summed or averaged.

  If you select to display a row count, this is then displayed in the grid footer for the first column in the grid.

• Edit a macro

  You can create a script to execute against the grid for various events, such as when the grid is populated with content, or when a grid's contents are about to be submitted to the database.

Add toolbar items to a web view

You can add toolbar items to a web view using the Visual Designer Program: IMPFRZ.

Select the Add toolbar item option from the left or right-hand side of the Visual Designer Program: IMPFRZ to add items to the left or right-hand side of your web view.

Toolbar buttons correspond to their equivalent in the core SYSPRO product.

Automate startup parameters

You can configure SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) to automatically run a program when you log into the system. Open the browser URL and append a question mark, followed by startup parameters using the following syntax:

?StartupParameters=/prog=xxxxxx /link=y

where xxxxxx indicates the name of the program and y indicates the entry to be used in the program.

For example:

If you want to automatically launch the Customer Query program for customer 1 when opening SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti), your browser URL should reflect the following syntax:

?StartupParameters=/prog=ARSPEN /link=1

The login page is displayed first if you haven't enabled the Keep me signed in option on the login page. The program defined in the startup parameter is then launched once you are successfully authenticated.

Automate tasks

You can now create a series of tasks (i.e. programs) in SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) that can be executed sequentially by selecting the Task Automation workspace option from the settings icon on the home page.

For example:

You may want to create a month end procedure that must run a series of programs one after the other. This can be automated so that when you start to run the task group, all programs are automatically run one after the other until the group is complete.

A task item can run a program or report and can be scheduled to run on a certain day and, optionally, recur daily, weekly or monthly. Programs can also be automated so that they apply specific values to form fields.

When a task group has completed, the executed tasks are then displayed in the Task Messages grid.

Move and re-size modal windows

Applications in SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) are designed to display most information in a single page and, where appropriate, the use of pop-up windows enables additional information to be surfaced.

For example:

You can view Movements and Warehouse history lists as pop-ups in the Inventory Query program.

Lists such as these are displayed by default in pop-up windows that can be re-sized and repositioned in the browser. However, you can change this behavior using the Visual Designer Program: IMPFRZ to make these lists appear in the single page.

Some windows are displayed as modal, meaning that you can't click behind the window and that you must first complete the task within the current window before returning to the previous screen.

You can now move and re-size these modal windows as required. The position and size of the window is then automatically remembered so that it is repositioned to the same location when the window is displayed again.

Modal window positions for SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) are saved on the application server in the text file \Settings\AVANTI\ModalWindowsAdditional_operator.txt.

Read more...

The SYSPRO Avanti Software Development Kit lets developers create their own applications that connect to SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti).

A Microsoft Visual Studio extension (included in the SDK) provides templates for new projects (and controls used within those projects) together with a number of development productivity features. In addition, the extension allows for debugging of SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) plugins and supports the creation of bespoke cards.

The SYSPRO Avanti Software Development Kit supports a variety of use cases, from basic customization and scripting in SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti), to entire embedded applications in the SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) infrastructure.

You can still use VBScript customization for simple user interface customization and automation, but for more complex scenarios the SYSPRO Avanti Software Development Kit provides a powerful solution.

The benefits of this SDK over VBScript customization includes:

• Better performance.
• Full development environment of Microsoft Visual Studio with productivity extension.
• Intellisense and code completion.
• Live debugging of code with breakpoints.
• Access to the entire SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) API.

The SYSPRO Rules Engine helps you streamline your business processes by acting as a sophisticated if/then statement interpreter (i.e. rule translator).

A set of services monitor your SYSPRO transactions in real time and (once a specific set of rules is defined) they analyze and determine when something you're interested in happens. Your configured actions required by each rule are then processed accordingly.

Rules are applicable to all SYSPRO transactions, regardless of where they originate (e.g. SYSPRO Desktop, SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti), SYSPRO Espresso, etc.).

Benefits:

Incorporating rules that monitor your SYSPRO database log enable the following capabilities:

• Stay informed

  Always be aware of what's happening in your business by configuring rules that inform you when specific transactions take place.

  For example:

  When a customer reaches their credit limit, SYSPRO can push a notification to SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) and surface a SYSPRO Harmony beat.

• Automate processes

  Automate actions that are required when particular events occur.

  For example:

  Track the history of a specific database column.

• Predict outcomes

  Use predictions supplied by the SYSPRO 8 Machine Learning service within any part of a rule.

  The SYSPRO Rules Engine automatically picks up any active AI Models focused on the same table as your target table, making these outputs available within your list of variables.

  This lets you add conditions to a rule, as well as use prediction outcomes in your actions.

  For example:

  If the probability of a purchase order being late is higher than 80%, then push a SYSPRO Harmony beat that states 'There is an 87% change that order 000164 will be late'.

  HTM version PDF version

Rules Administrator

The Rules Administrator lets you create and maintain rules within SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti).

You can define the following parts for rules:

Part	Description
Target	This indicates the table (and operation on the table) that should initiate a rule.
Variables	These are used to define or manipulate any values required in the Conditions or Actions. They include fixed values (e.g. strings, integers, dates) C# snippets and SQL retrieval.
Conditions	This is a set of conditional expressions that must be met before any actions are performed. To execute a specific action, conditions act as triggers that are initiated according to how the condition was configured.
Actions	Actions are executed when the rule conditions are met.

AI Integration

You can now use predictions supplied by the SYSPRO 8 Machine Learning service within any part of a rule.

For example:

The SYSPRO 8 Rules Engine Service automatically picks up any active machine learning models focused on the same table as your target table, making these outputs available within your list of variables.

This lets you add conditions to a rule (e.g. if the probability of a purchase order being late is higher than 80%, then continue to the actions) as well as use conditions in your actions (e.g. a Harmony message could state: 'There is an 87% chance that order 000164 will be late').

Notifications and Actions

A number of new actions can now be executed by the SYSPRO 8 Rules Engine Service:

Action	Description
Avanti Notifications	These are messages sent to an operator in SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti).
Espresso Notifications	These are messages sent to an operator in SYSPRO Espresso.
Delete Rule	This deletes a rule after all its actions have executed (useful for once-off rules).
Disable Rule	This disables a rule after all its actions have executed.

Sample Rules

A number of sample rules have been added to the Rules Administrator:

LCT shipment might arrive late

Description	Notifies an operator that a shipment might arrive more than 10 days late.
Actions	Sends an Avanti notification Posts a Harmony beat
Uses	Sample Machine Learning model LctDaysLate.

Job status rule

Description	Notifies an operator if a new job will be Late or On time.
Actions	Sends an Avanti Notification.
Uses	Sample Machine Learning model JobStatus.

New stock code added

Description	Notifies an operator when a new stock code is added to the inventory list.
Actions	Posts a Harmony beat Sends an Avanti notification

WIP Material Cost

Description	Notifies an operator when the actual material cost exceeds the expected material cost.
Actions	Posts a Harmony beat Sends an Espresso notification Sends an Avanti notification

AR Invoice Late Payment Predicted

Description	Notifies an operator when a late invoice payment is predicted for a customer.
Actions	Posts a Harmony beat Sends an Avanti notification
Uses	Sample Machine Learning model CustomerInvoicePayDays

Sales order return reason

Description	Notifies an operator why sales orders over a certain value might be returned.
Actions	Sends an Avanti notification.
Uses	Sample Machine Learning model LostSaleReason

Predict supplier payment

Description	Predict supplier payments.
Actions	Sends an Avanti notification
Uses	Sample Machine Learning model ApInvoicePayment.

Workspaces are customizable dashboards in SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) that supply user roles with everything they need to perform their tasks efficiently and effectively.

They are essentially web views for roles and can contain anything that can be designed in the Visual Designer (e.g. Business Insights, Program Tiles, Charts, Flow Graphs, Cards, Grids, Forms, and any customized panes associated with the role itself).

A workspace is a way of grouping tasks or processes together in a way that is meaningful or relevant for an individuals role (i.e. similar to a Favorites menu, except that it is defined at a role level).

Benefits:

• Users have access to a single, customizable and personalized workspace.
• A single dashboard provides a view of the activities, actions and events most relevant to the user.

The Avanti Flow Graph Designer lets you add flow graphs to programs as well as create custom flow graphs to streamline your daily activities. A flow graph typically contains programs, reports and tiles that form part of a business process that you can navigate by selecting the flow graph entities.

Web Views are self-contained HTML5 pages that can include Fields, Charts, Cards and Tiles.

They provide a complete picture on a single screen and have been designed to display the most important information in a manner that is intuitive and simple to use.

You can design and customize your own Web Views using the Visual Designer Program: IMPFRZ program. Once deployed, these Web Views can be viewed by pressing F11 in the program for which one was created.

SYSPRO ships template Web Views with the product, which are located in the \Base\Samples folder of your SYSPRO installation.

The SYSPRO Advanced Browse feature consolidates SYSPRO's traditional browse look-ups into a single program, making it easier to administer and customize. The traditional browse look-up programs are typically accessed from the browse icon, or by pressing F9.

Read more...

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

The functionality of the legacy eSignature Setup program has been split into the following new programs (which are accessible both within the SYSPRO Desktop and SYSPRO Web UI (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 Web UI (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.

GL Financial Reporting

The GL XML Report Viewer program is available in SYSPRO Web UI (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 UI (Avanti) 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 listview lets you query a GL code, post to the applicable account and drill down to transaction level.

• The Transactions listview 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

Support Diagnostics

The Avanti Event Viewer (accessible from the icon on the Home page) logs all events and calls to the system so that support personnel can identify and resolve technical problems that may arise.

The Support Diagnostics function (accessible from the icon on the Home page) can also be used to help resolve issues with grid content not populating. Enabling this function retains grid files in the \Base\Settings\HTMLUX folder during the run of SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) for the logged-in user. When exiting SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti), these grid files are removed and the Support Diagnostics option automatically switched off.

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 Web UI (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 Program: IMPFRZ 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 Web UI (Avanti).

Read more...

As part of the continuing process to simplify SYSPRO configuration and consolidate the user interface, administrators can now manage the Company password and Prevent logins functionality from within the Setup Options program (Setup Options > Company > General).

This functionality was previously located within the Company Maintenance program.

Administrators can now add multiple printer devices that enables the printing of PDF documents using any third-party application. Depending on the application you choose to install, these third party applications dramatically improve print quality issues experienced when using Type 3 fonts and dot-matrix printers. These applications integrate to SAP Crystal Reports 2016 (used within SYSPRO) and let you silently print a PDF file with Adobe Acrobat Reader DC on your client machine.

Previously, SYSPRO required the underlying associated document information before it could print a PDF document. The file previously used to configure specific printer device names (UserSrsDocumentPrint.txt) has been replaced by this new functionality.

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: COMNXK 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.

Read more...

User Interface

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

• GeoLocation support

  When working with address fields in a web view, you can now use the Resolve Address feature to ensure that the customer or shipping address is correct, or the Map Directions feature to get directions using Google Maps.

  You can configure how GeoLocation works within SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) using the Setup Options program (Setup Options > System Setup > System-Wide Personalization).

• Multimedia object inclusion

  Using the Visual Designer Program: IMPFRZ or Customize Application programs you can now select the Multimedia button to add multimedia objects (e.g. images, documents, etc.) associated with key fields.

• Multiple web page handling

  The SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) infrastructure has been enhanced to allow for a new browser tab to be opened for a given URL.

• Simplified interface customization

  When adding a custom form field using the Customize Application program, you can now select to automatically add the field to the web view, without having to use the Visual Designer Program: IMPFRZ.

• Easier program navigation by role

  A Program List card that mimics the functionality of the Avanti Program List in the hamburger menu has been added to the Visual Designer Program: IMPFRZ to allow easier navigation of programs by certain user roles.

• Program name and version visibility

  For improved debugging purposes, you can now access the (Admin Shift+F7 System Information) program from the Gear menu to view the name and version of a program in SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti).

• Quicker grid entry

  Editable grids in SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) that support the notion of automatically adding rows now enable you to paste the contents of your clipboard directly into the grid.

• Help popups & group headings on forms

  To assist you when configuring new or existing setup options within the Setup Options program, form fields now include descriptive group headings and you can hover over fields to view Help text for each option.

Enhanced initialization service

The SYSPRO 8 Avanti Initialization Service has been enhanced to improve performance and enable more concurrent SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) user sessions.

Increased stability and reduced memory usage

A number of enhancements have been made to increase stability and reduce memory consumption, including:

• The ability to limit the number of SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) instances.

• Improved support for comments in cells.

• Minimal CPU consumption when idle.

• Decreased memory usage per user upon initial login to the home page.

• Increased robustness when handling rapid data entry in data grids (specifically to prevent data corruption in grid rows).

Reduced file system persistence

The footprint on the file system has been reduced by moving non-static data (e.g. setting files) to the SQL database.

When you enable the Persist operator UI settings to SQL setup option (Setup Options > System Setup > System-Wide Personalization) the ADMPRO.DAT indexed file is converted to the AdmProControl table in the system-wide database and thereafter any records are stored in this table. The ADMPRO.DAT file contains information about custom fields, table master and scripted fields that have been added to forms.

App store plugin

An App Store plugin has been developed that allows you to activate or deactivate SYSPRO applications in SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti). The SYSPRO.AvantiAppStore.Avanti.Plugin.dll plugin is accessible from the hamburger menu.

Read more...

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.

Tax Connectors

The following modules are now available for licensing to run in SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) and the core SYSPRO 8 product:

• Avalara Tax Connector

• Vertex Tax Connector

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.

SYSPRO Run Time Errors

When the SYSPRO Run Time System (RTS) detects a problem, diagnostic files are now written to the \Work\Diagnostics folder using a naming convention that includes the date and time. The current contents of the black box are also appended to the existing log, providing a trace of the events leading up to the RTS error.

SYSPRO64.DLL exceptions & Client-server failures

A single log file per exception or message is written to the \Work\Diagnostics folder instead of all exceptions or messages being concatenated into a single file. This simplifies the SQL Server handling of log files on an individual basis and improves the performance during the upload process. It also lets you check each exception or message as an individual record in the AdmDiagDetail table.

Micro Focus unhandled exceptions

If an unexpected error occurs in the underlying run time when you log into SYSPRO, the system first verifies whether the mfdebug.log file exists in the \Base folder before moving it to the \Work\Diagnostics folder. The system then creates the new mfdebug.log file for the current unhandled exception in the \Base folder.

This effectively retains a record of all exceptions instead of just the last example (previously, the original file was overwritten by a subsequent unexpected error).

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).

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.

Read more...

SYSPRO 8 is on a journey to reduce files being persisted to the file system by migrating them to Microsoft SQL Server. This offers many benefits, such as helping simplify your backup strategy, improving performance, protecting your data and providing controlled access to third parties, where relevant.

Because of this, you will notice an increase in the size of your database once you update to SYSPRO 8 2020 R2. The increase in size will be proportional to the size of the data being migrated from the file system. Also note that the majority of the files uploaded to SQL Server are migrated to your system-wide database.

During the migration, the system will determine if your SRS Report Archive files are significant in size (over 500MB) in which case you can choose to defer the migration of these files to allow the rest of the upgrade process to complete and users to start transacting as normal.

Choosing to defer the import means that reports archived prior to SYSPRO 8 2020 R2 won't be available for viewing until they are migrated. This is performed by running the SRS Import Archive Files to SQL program (Ctrl+R > SRSPAL).

A number of areas in the product are affected by this change.

Operator Settings

As part of the effort to decrease SYSPRO's footprint on the file system, you can enable the new Persist operator UI settings to SQL setup option (Setup Options > System Setup > System-Wide Personalization) to store all operator UI settings files in the SysSettings table of the system-wide database (usually stored in the \Base\Settings folder).

License File

From SYSPRO 8 2020 R2 the License Manager is used to select and import a provided license. The license information resides in the AdmSystemLicense table of your system-wide database in Microsoft SQL Server.

From SYSPRO 8 2020 R2 all software that requires the license will automatically locate the current license in the system wide database.

If you are using the SYSPRO Cloud ERP environment, the license import is applied automatically.

SRS Reports and Documents

From SYSPRO 8 2020 R2, enhancements to SRS architecture cater for the migration of content to the system-wide database:

• Document and report printing
• Report archiving
• Report scheduling
• Report customization

The custom reports and documents mentioned above are automatically uploaded to Microsoft SQL Server during the minor database upgrade to SYSPRO 8 2020 R2

All future custom reports and documents, archived reports and documents and other SRS-related files will be stored in Microsoft SQL Server.

In addition, the document archiving architecture has been changed to save the archived documents to the company database when SYSPRO is run in a SYSPRO Cloud ERP environment.

Read more...

A new document printing activity (SA_DocumentPrinting) is available within SYSPRO Workflow Services so that invoices, order acknowledgments and delivery notes can be saved, emailed and printed as part of a workflow process (e.g. the capture of an order initiates a workflow that produces the document which is available for sending to the customer).

Prerequisites include:

• The SYSPRO 8 Workflow Service must be installed.
• The SYSPRO 8 Reporting Host Service must be installed.

• The Server-side reporting using SQL option must be selected against the Reporting configuration setup option and details must be configured for the Reporting service setup option Setup Options > System Setup > Reporting.

• The E.Net Service Details must be configured in the Maintain E.Net Service Details program.

A host of new capabilities has been added to SYSPRO's web-based platform.

Multi-Factor Authentication

SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) now supports Multi-Factor Authentication (i.e. the process of identifying a user by validating two or more methods of authentication from independent credential categories).

SYSPRO Reporting Services

• Reports can be processed and viewed immediately.

  1. Select Process report and preview to view the report as PDF in your default PDF viewer.
  2. Select Add to print queue to print the report.
  Both options also add the report to the report queue for later viewing.

• Reports can be archived using the Report Archive program.

  Archived reports can be viewed as PDFs and purged using this program.

• Report data can be exported to additional formats (e.g. xls, csv, txt and xml).

• Reports with Crystal Report parameters can be processed.

Card builder

This lets you create customized cards based on business objects or XML files.

• Design a card from various layout types (e.g. tabs, section headings, carousels, accordions and tables).

• Map XML fields from SYSPRO business objects (or other XML files) to populate fields.

• Define and customize values of XMLIn fields.

Themes

The look and feel of SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) can be changed by applying a theme.

1. Select the Themes option from the User name field to use a theme.

Keep me signed in

A Keep me signed in option was added to the SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) Sign in window which lets users access SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) without needing to supply login credentials.

Logon details are still requested if your credentials change or if you are signed out of SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) using the Sign out option (instead of just closing the browser).

The SYSPRO architecture now supports multiple tenants for Microsoft Office 365.

A Microsoft Office 365 tenant is a regional location that provides cloud services dedicated to an organization (e.g. Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Teams, etc). It falls within the overall O365 Data Center and can be seen as an organization's sandbox environment, housing all its digital assets (e.g. users, domains, subscriptions and data).

You can maintain multiple tenants in SYSPRO using the new Office 365 Tenant Maintenance program (Program List > Administration > General Setup) which stores the information in the AdmOfficeTenants system-wide table.

Once configured, you can use SYSPRO's Personalize program (SYSPRO Ribbon bar > Home > Personalization) to select the tenant to use when operators communicate with Microsoft Office 365.

The enhancement centralizes SYSPRO's system-wide and company-wide setup options into the Setup Options program.

The aim is to ease the workload of system administrators by letting them manage these options in a single location.

Where to find the new options

The following table will help you navigate the transition of System Setup options to the Setup Options program by indicating where the new options are now located.

Location in the System Setup program	NEW location in the Setup Options program
General	General System Setup
Login Dialog	Login System Setup
Database	SQL System Setup
Date Format	General System Setup
Folders	General System Setup
Reporting	Reporting System Setup
	SQL System Setup
Espresso	Connectivity System Setup
E.Net Service Details	E.Net Service Details System Setup
Office Integration	Connectivity System Setup
Rules Engine/Harmony	Rules Engine/Harmony System Setup
	SQL System Setup
Artificial Intelligence	Artificial Intelligence System Setup
Email/SMTP settings	Connectivity System Setup
Password definition	Password Definition System Setup
Avanti	Connectivity System Setup
Multi-Factor Authentication	Login System Setup
Single Sign-On	Login System Setup

This feature lets administrators place the entire system into maintenance mode. This solves the issue of having to maintain each SYSPRO company to prevent users from logging in while maintenance is in process (e.g. when upgrading to a new release).

The feature is enabled by switching on the Prevent login setup option (Setup Options > System Setup > General). The SYSPRO and e.net Solutions login process first checks the system-wide configuration before checking the company-specific configuration to either allow or deny access to the system.

Managing your SYSPRO product licensing is now so much easier.

Enhanced process

The process of importing SYSPRO licenses and applying them to one or more companies has been simplified with the License Manager program.

This new licensing platform (available from within the Company Setup program) enables the following:

• View current license information.

• Apply a new or current license across all existing companies.

• Apply a new or current license to a single company.

• Apply a new or current license to multiple selected companies.

• Change a company name to one of the licensed names.

One of the key benefits of the new License Manager is when you have any changes to your system-related license parameters (e.g. the number of Concurrent users, Point of Sale users, Espresso seats, Licensed Workflows, Analytics seats, Portal seats or other system-wide settings).

In addition, the process of applying an updated annual license is greatly simplified.

License history

All Licence.xml files are saved with a unique file name in the \Work\license.sav folder and are recorded in the AdmSystemLicense table of the system-wide database.

This provides a history of all licenses that have been selected.

SYSPRO's Admin Notepad Editor (Rich Text) has been standardized to support Rich Text Format (RTF) documents of any size.

You can also now insert images in the Admin Notepad Editor (Rich Text) program because of the increased file size support.

This facility is available in the standard product as well as SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti).

When editing notes in various text editing scenarios in SYSPRO, the date stamp inserted is now standardized to use the Short date format (Setup Options > System Setup > General).

To better support multiple monitor environments, the SYSPRO architecture responsible for window positioning and sizing was re-engineered for the login window, the SYSPRO main menu and subsequent windows.

This improves consistency in how windows are sized and positioned, particularly when extending your desktop across two or more monitors.

As before, SYSPRO defaults to display on the primary monitor. However, if you subsequently move the SYSPRO main menu to another monitor, all subsequent programs loaded from the menu are shown on the same monitor as the menu.

Various changes have been made to assist administrators in managing SYSPRO's Document Flow Manager module.

Affected programs

• DFM Document Queue Query
  • A Workflow path column (displaying the last successful step in the workflow) helps administrators establish where and why a document failed. This lets an administrator fix the error and resubmit the previously failed document for processing.
  • A Resubmit action is displayed in the Action column if a queue item fails and the system allows you to resubmit the file.
  • The Date and time indicates when the file was placed in the queue.
• DFM Service Maintenance

  You can define the interval in which 0KB files should be deleted (at the File delete interval column).

The SYSPRO architecture has been enhanced to simplify the process of logging out users and their associated SYSPRO processes when using the following programs:

• Display Users Logged in
• View Users
• Windows Task Manager

In addition, a new AdmPidHistory table has been added to the system-wide database to store details of processes linked to users that have been logged out.

Simplified process

The ability to kill associated processes when logging out users resolves the issue of unknown SYSPRO processes on the application server with no information about the process or the user to whom it relates.

The Logout function ends process option has been standardized across the following programs and lets an administrator kill the associated SYSPRO process when logging out a user:

• Display Users Logged in

• View Users

Enabling the option applies for the current run of either program, so administrators can log out multiple users (as well as end the associated SYSPRO processes) without having to reselect the option.

When using this option to kill the associated process, the system also updates the operator logged in flag of the AdmOperator table. This ensures that concurrent license usage is updated when operators are logged out.

Increased visibility

A new Unknown process details pane in the View Users program provides an administrator with insight into unknown processes resulting from a user being logged out.

It details the process information that was recorded in the AdmPidHistory table when the user was logged out without ending the process (i.e. with the Logout function ends process option disabled).

This feature optimizes the MRP calculation for SQL without using the file system as a temporary scratch pad.

Affected programs

• Requirements Calculation

  The feature is disabled by default so that existing systems work unchanged. To enable the new MRP SQL Optimization, you must uncheck the new processing option: Run calculation in legacy mode.

  If you are retaining the legacy processing method, then ensure that the snapshot folder still exists.

  When using the new MRP SQL Optimization process, the progress bar only displays the text: Processing Requirements Calculation during the entire process.

• MRP Requirements Calculation object

  The MRP Requirements Calculation object Business object: MRPTRC business object takes advantage of this feature to perform the MRP calculation.

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A number of new capabilities have been added to SYSPRO's web-based platform.

SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal

The SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal allows users beyond a SYSPRO site to connect, interact and transact using the SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) HTML5 user interface.

Adding Portal users to your SYSPRO configuration provides external user access to specific functionality (using a dedicated user interface and menu system) based on the portal features available.

Features currently available from the SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal:

• Request for Quote System:

  This lets you collaborate with your suppliers by automating the quote process and enabling suppliers to action an RFQ.

HTM version PDF version

Translation

All fields in SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) can be translated into a different language (with the exception of the logon screen).

This is applied when the language is configured within the System Setup program of the SYSPRO Desktop.

Support for Large Rich Text Notes

Notepads that have been built into a SYSPRO application (or Customized Panes that use the notepad control) can now be added to a web view to be surfaced in SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti). There are two types of notepads: simple text notepads and Rich Text Format (RTF) notepads.

The rich text notepad displays a special toolbar with all the formatting options. This toolbar does not appear for a notepad that only supports simple text (e.g. the Additional Notes in the Customer Query program).

Considerations:

• In SYSPRO, all complex notepads are stored in RTF format. Because this format is not supported in a web browser, it needs to be converted to HTML format for rendering in SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti). The converse is also true - when saving notes entered in SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti), the system must convert the HTML format to RTF format.
• If the notepad in SYSPRO includes a Save button, then this will also be shown in the notepad toolbar of SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti).
• As in SYSPRO, notes in SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) are automatically saved where appropriate (e.g. there is no Save button in SYSPRO's main menu notepad because any notes entered are automatically saved when you exit SYSPRO.

Visual Designer by Role

You can now design web views by role in SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti). From within a SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) program, select Design Web View by Role from the Customize icon and then specify the role for which you would like to design the web view.

Customized Pane support

Toolbar buttons for Customized Panes are now surfaced in the Visual Designer and can be added to a web view.

Gantt, Pie and Funnel chart support

You can now add Gantt, Pie and Funnel charts to visually represent data in SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti).

Global help support

The SYSPRO Online Help can be accessed by pressing F1 in SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti).

Forgotten password

The Forgot Password functionality (which allows operators to reset their SYSPRO passwords without administrator assistance) is now available for SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti).

Workspaces

You can define multiple workspaces in the home menu, when it is not associated with a role.

Additional VBScript Support

Although VBScript provides functions and sub-routines, basic date/time and string manipulation, math functions, user interaction, error handling, and regular expressions, additional functionality can be added using ActiveX technologies.

VBScript Desktop Alerts are now surfaced as Toast Notifications in SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti).

The following VBScript functions are now supported for grids in SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti):

• OnPopulate
• OnSubmit
• OnRowSelected
• OnDblClick
• OnLinkClicked
• OnAfterChange

Additionally, the OnDELPressed and OnChecked functions are now supported for customized pane listviews.

The Diagnostic Extract Utility lets you supply support teams with relevant information about the configuration and usage details of all companies in your SYSPRO environment. The aim is to facilitate the diagnostic process for the speedy and efficient resolution of issues you may encounter.

The extracted information is encrypted and compressed before being emailed to SYSPRO for analysis and troubleshooting by the relevant support team.

SYSPRO's Notepad (rich text and plain text) has been standardized to support larger text files. This is available in the core product as well as SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti).

SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) lets users change their own password when logging in, reducing workload on system administrators.

This facility is available from the login screen, similar to the SYSPRO Desktop version.

SYSPRO running on Azure provides you with a choice of running SQL Managed Instance or SQL Server running on a Virtual Machine (VM).

With SQL Managed Instance – a cloud-based managed database - you provision the SQL environment based on CPUs, Memory and Disk usage, and SQL Server is automatically configured and enabled for you. There is, therefore, no need for you to provision a separate Windows Server VM and then install and configure SQL Server.

Benefits:

• Simplified SQL environment setup.

• PaaS environment - Automated patching and version updates, automated backups and high availability.

• Reduced management overhead and TCO – Improved IT flexibility and responsiveness.

• Flexibility to scale-up (and down) as required.

• Ability to exchange existing SQL Server licenses for discounted rates on SQL Managed Instance.

The new Hotfix Notification Maintenance program gives you more control over your site deployments.

Benefits:

• View who has conducted deployments on your site.
• Maintain who receives hotfix notifications.