This year the list of legislatory changes includes the new VAT rules for countries in the European Union and the Importer Security Filing (ISF) for the US legislation. All changes in payroll legislation are also included in this product update and substantial improvements have been made to Pick-IT.

More information about product update 396 can be found in the release notes for Exact Globe.

Photo credit: Optical illusion

If you are interested in the contents of these product updates, and we hope you do, please keep an eye on this blog. Here we will share our ideas, experiences and news about all planned new and improved functionality.

And what is even more important: we hope that you are also willing to share your opinions and suggestions with us. In the end, you will be working with our solutions and therefore it is extremely important for us that we know exactly what you need. This blog is one of the channels we use to gather your input, so please make yourself heard.

Please keep in mind that this is a planning that might be subject to change.

Photo credit: doug88888

New brand strategy: rebranding our products

This week we celebrate our anniversary and today we have reveilled a new brand strategy to the world. As you can see on this blog, a new visual identity with a new logo and a new tagline, ‘Exact. And it all comes together.”,  are part of this new brand strategy. We have launched a new website, all over the world our offices have been redecorated and the new logo already shines brightly on our new headquarter office that is under construction.

As a customer using Exact Globe, Exact Synergy and Exact Synergy Enterprise  you will notice that your product has been rebranded too. As of today, if you update or upgrade your software, our new visual identity will smile at you whenever you start your systems. Our Exact Online customers have maybe already noticed that the live environment of Exact Online has also been rebranded during the weekend.

For more information about our new brand strategy, please visit the new Exact corporate website. In the press release about our brand strategy you can also read the reaction of Bo Lykkegaard, IDC’s European Enterprise Applications Program Director.

Exact Online: more than 10.000 customers

But there is more to celebrate. Today we are also proud to announce that we are supporting more than 10.000 Exact Online customers in the Netherlands with growing their businesses. Thank you all for the trust you have placed in us! We will keep innovating and extending our Exact Online offering in the coming period of time, just like we have done in the past.

Product Update 395 now available

And like that is altogether not enough reason to have a party, today we have also made product update 395 for Exact Globe available for you to download. This blog is all about our products, so of course we have created a special blog post about product update 395 to show you what benefits this product update has to offer you.

If you would like to congratulate us with our anniversary: of course you are welcome do so in the comment section below.

If you are a user of the E-Report module in Exact Globe, you are for sure going to benefit from Crystal Reports XI. This is our new reporting engine for Exact Globe E-Report, offering easier report design, simplified report maintenance and expanded data access. Every customer with an active maintenance agreement for E-Report will receive a DVD with the Crystal Reports XI software. Important: For E-Report users it is mandatory to install Crystal Reports XI together with product update 395.

Electronic Invoicing is a hot topic at the moment: it saves you the costs and efforts of printing and sending physical invoices, it saves your customers the costs of entering invoices in their bookkeeping systems and without using paper, ink and transportation services it also saves the environment. Product update 395 offers customers in the Netherlands and Belgium the opportunity to send invoices electronically. Electronic Invoicing currently supports exchanging invoices between Exact solutions and during this introduction period the use of this new service is free.

Under the hood, we have also done quite some efforts to improve the performance of Exact Globe. The degree of improvement you will notice is influenced by a lot of factors in your hardware and software. We are however proud to let you know that we received very positive feedback during the controlled release phase from both our partners and customers.
 
More information about product update 395 can be found in the release notes. Please let us know your experiences with product update 395.

Exact Software is preparing to become one of the first European software vendors to receive an official certification for Windows 7. In the movie below Aad ‘t Hart, technology & research director of Exact Software, explains how Exact is getting ready for Windows 7 and what are the advantages for our customers.

If the movie does not play, you can find the original movie here.

First of all we introduce to you a totally renewed Synergy Office Integration. It provides you with new opportunities to access your workflow, planning, and nearly all other Exact Synergy Enterprise operations directly from Microsoft Outlook. We know that many, many users of Exact Synergy Enterprise also use Microsoft Outlook and these two products are now joined in one single interface.

Also, a new screen for creating requests has been implemented, already introduced to you earlier in this blog post. We asked your feedback and we got it! Thanks for all your suggestions and comments.

New search functionality in this product update enables you to search for terms with diacritics, as explained earlier in this blog post.Product update 241 also introduces support for both Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008.

Over the coming period of time we will highlight some of the new functionality in this product update on this blog. Please subscribe to our RSS-feeds or e-mail newsletters so we can keep you informed.

First of all, let me explain what Small Business Server is. Microsoft has developed Small Business Server specifically for small businesses and it is an integrated server suite designed for running network infrastructure for no more than 75 workstations or users.  So that is obviously a very important limitation: if you foresee you will have more than 75 workstation or users connecting to your server(s), now or in the future, Small Business Server does not suit your business needs.

Looking at Small Business Server 2008, there are two editions available. The Standard Edition offers (amongst others) Windows Server 2008, Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0. The Premium Edition adds Microsoft SQL Server 2008 For Small Business to that package. Both versions are only available as x64 (64 bits) software.

It is important to know that we always advise our customers to use a dedicated database server when using Exact Globe. If SQL Server runs on the same machine as Microsoft Exchange Server, Windows Sharepoint Services or other applications, those other applications can potentially have a negative influence on the speed and power of SQL Server and thus Exact Globe. What is new in Small Business Server 2008, is that the Premium Edition can run on two hardware servers, with the second server running Windows Server and SQL Server for line-of-business applications. In this case that line-of-business application is Exact Globe. So, for the first time with Small Business Server you can install a dedicated database server as advised by Exact.

A technical limitation of Small Business Server is however that it only supports one Microsoft Active Directory. If your IT environment exists of multiple Microsoft Active Directories and data for Exact Globe need to be send across multiple domains, Small Business Server cannot be used. This is not a limitation of Exact Globe, but a limitation of Small Business Server.

An important limitation in terms of service and support is that Microsoft’s guidelines say that products like SQL Server have to be supported by the vendor that sells the license to a customer. An additional option is to purchase support or services directly at Microsoft. Of course there is a lot of self-service support information available on the internet, but when you need expert advice or troubleshooting specifically on your SQL Server software,  Exact only provides service and support on SQL Server software that is acquired through Exact. If you decide to purchase the  integrated Small Business Server suite, which can’t be obtained through Exact, you will also have to get service and support on your Small Business Server solution at the vendor of your software or directly at Microsoft.

One of the most important reasons for small and medium businesses to consider purchasing Small Business Server is the low price of the suite compared to the total price of purchasing all applications separately. This low price is justified by the limitations that Microsoft has build into Small Business Server. If and how these limitations conflict with your business needs can only be judged by yourself and your IT advisers.

Being an Independent Software Vendor (ISV) of Microsoft, Exact can offer so-called runtime licenses for SQL Server as part of the total Exact solution at a lower price than the standard full-use licensing options offered by the Microsoft dealer channel. Advantage of such a runtime license is its appealing purchase price, a possible disadvantage can be that SQL Server under a runtime license can only be used in conjunction with Exact software. If you want to use SQL Server not only for Exact solutions, but also for other applications, a runtime license cannot be used.

We are happy to send you an offer for SQL Server licenses, so you can make an objective and well-informed choice between the Small Business Server all-in-one suite and the purchase of separate licenses. To check whether or not the limitations of Small Business Server conflict with your business needs, we advise you to contact Microsoft or a certified Microsoft partner.

In the interview Paul explains how Exact helps businesses during these challenging and uncertain times of economic downturn.

Dashboard Insight: You recently announced the development of a program geared toward helping businesses proactively address the economic downturn. Can you tell us more about the program?

Paul Challinor: Exact provides real-life solutions to pressing business problems for companies working their way through the challenging economic environment. From business-process assessments – which help optimize the efficient use of Exact applications – to point solutions that help businesses focus on deliverables that increase the satisfaction of their customers, Exact is committed to helping customers prepare for the eventual upturn of the economy.

Paul also shares two interesting real-life examples of businesses that have inproved their efficiency with Exact’s business analytics solutions: both Liberty Hardware Manufacturing and Parker Hannifin use business analytics solutions from Exact to combine information from different sources and to turn those data into valuable information.

Dashboard Insight: Can you tell us about some of your key clients?

Paul Challinor: EBA has been particularly successful in the manufacturing and CPG industries. Two key clients come to mind quickly: Liberty Hardware Manufacturing and Parker Hannifin.

Liberty realized that to maximize the value of their ERP application and provide a solid foundation for business decisions, they needed to improve the frequency, accuracy and accessibility of their business reporting. Specifically, business users needed the ability to perform their own analysis, without routing information requests through the IT department. Their existing reporting tool did not allow users to select data fields using business terminology, which leads to frequent questions of reporting accuracy. Also, Liberty needed a solution that could integrate vitally important point-of-sale (POS) data from their major clients, which was stored in a Microsoft Access database.

With our help, sales, inventory, purchasing, and POS data is now accessed and applied on a daily basis, greatly increasing the overall value of Liberty’s ERP solution. Integrating the POS data with other business information has also proven to be highly valuable. Sales teams conduct in-depth analysis of products and programs to measure the success of specific items or sales strategies. The integrated information also enables much tighter control of inventory levels and production planning.

As for Parker, they had a 12-year investment in their JD Edwards World ERP system and recognized an opportunity to leverage that asset to support specific business objectives, including sales analysis and strategic pricing initiatives. The company also sought to provide a standardized reporting structure for all departments and locations that would eliminate duplicate and repetitive report generation. Their goal was to ease the reporting burden on the IT department, while providing a single information resource with accurate data for all locations across their very large organization.

Exact’s ability to dynamically combine data from multiple sources was uniquely suited to Parker’s complex data environment, which includes 46 distinct JDE databases in multiple locations. GPS enables business users to access the specific information they need to see without being concerned where the data is stored.

Please read the complete interview of Dashboard Insight with Paul Challinor.

Photo credit: Unhindered by Talent

On this blog we will of course share product related news with you, mainly focused on our corporate product lines Exact Globe, Exact Synergy and Exact Online. We will provide you tips & tricks and we will give you insight in the future direction of our products by showing you what we are developing for new product updates. But also if you just want to know what it is like working for Exact or if you’re wondering how Exact develops its products, you came to the right place.

At Exact, just like at many other companies, a lot of interesting conversations take place near the coffee machine. Colleagues tell each other what they are working on, exchange opinions and ask each other for advice. This Product Blog is our virtual coffee place where we want to have these kind of conversations with you, so your feedback is highly encouraged and appreciated. Feel free to share your two cents on how we could make this Exact Product Blog more useful and informative. If you want to keep track of what is going on here, please use the RSS-feeds or e-mail subscriptions to receive our latest posts at your own convenience.