Greetings everyone! Fall (Autumn) is upon us, with blue skies, orange leaves around us and shades of exposed glorious travertine create a wonderful casserole of colour and promise. There is no better time than now to lift the covers off the newest addition to the Exact Event Manager family, that of Exact Event Manager 1.8. This release is full of the colours and promises of my favourite time of the year. Whilst Exact Event Manager 1.8 is not yet into Controlled Release (more to come in a later blog), I thought it prudent to provide you some insight into the short term future of Exact Event Manager. Here are some interesting highlights of what you can expect to see, very soon!

Simple Grouping

Tables in emails with grouped data

Support for Stored Procedures as sources and actions

Creation of Projects, Accounts and Resources in Synergy Enterprise, as actions

Software Developers Kit or API

I could write a thesis at this point on all of these new features, but time and space does not allow for that right now. Today, I will focus on providing some insight into inserting Tables in email bodies with Grouped data. I think this way, I will maintain your attention, and get you coming back for a little more next time….

Simple Grouping and Tables in emails (Grouped data)

This collection of features has been requested for a while, but now you have it..!!! The essence of the feature is that you will be able to define within the Alert, what data you want to group, then create an action that will take that grouped data and disseminate the details in the appropriate manner, with all common data going to the identified (grouped) common recipient. By that I mean, you will be able to create an event that looks for all orders over $5,000 within the month, and then aggregate them together by customer (the grouping), and then send the customer an (only 1) email with all the data nicely tabelled within the body of the email. No more “one action for one row of data”.

Step 1 – Work out what it is you want to do?!

Step 2 – Create the Visual Workflow

Step 3 – Create the query on the action to include all the necessary data with grouping on columns where needed

Step 4 – Create the email action, setting the Body to Custom, and entering the new Rich text Editor

Step 5 – Insert a table with enough columns and 2 (two) rows, with headings in first row and desired data in second row.

Step 6 – Indicate if you want summation on any columns

Step 7 – Insert a beautiful picture of snow angels if you wish

Step 8 – Save it!

Step 9 – Hit “Queue Now” to run it immediately without having to define a schedule (because you can now!!)

Step 10 – prepare for the next release of Exact Event Manager.

So, there you have it! A slew of new features, that are exceptionally powerful, rounding out this latest offering from Exact. have fun and until the next time….

You may already know that we developed a new way to get started in Exact Online. Marco Kastrop wrote about it in his February post Get set, Ready…GO!. He explained there how we learned from the logistic pilot customers that we needed to improve the ‘Getting Started’-process. And we did!

You can access the new subscription Getting Started in both the Panel menu and the new Tab menu, but because I’m only going to show you how to access the Getting Started in the Tab menu, I’ll first explain how to switch to the new Exact Online menu style.

Robert Huberts wrote about the new menu last October in the post Introducing a new menu style for Exact Online. I’ll keep it short and just show you the menu style option.

1. Click the User settings link in the bottom-left of your screen.
2. Change the Menu style option from Panel to Tab menu.
3. Click Save to save the change you’ve made.

* You can easily switch back. In the new style click the General tab and click User setting. It’s in the bottom-right of the General tab.

When you change to the new menu style you can open the subscription Getting Started by clicking Sales tab > Getting Started > Subscriptions (bottom-left).

Congratulations! You’ve made it to the Subscription Getting Started -our new starting point to learn about the subscription functionality, set-up the system and even use the functionality on a daily basis, if you want.

There is a process flow visible that explains the way subscriptions works. Clicking an icon in the flow will guide you to that specific process in Exact Online. Clicking the Invoice generation icon – for example – will open the invoice generation page. Clicking the Invoice process icon will open a more specific Getting Started page where the invoice process is explained.

Furthermore, you have links on the right of the screen to the Customers cockpit and help files. Typing a question in the search box brings you answers from the range of available help documents.

In the top-left of the screen is the link Make this my startpage. If you click this link, this page will open when you start Exact Online. You can change the startpage (or homepage) again in the User settings.

Of course, it is still possible to use the subscription menu to access all the subscriptions functionality. Simply click Sales tab > Subscriptions > Show all.

I hope that with this guided start, you will enjoy a great new experience working with subscriptions!

I have received a couple of questions to what extent the new design of Exact Synergy Enterprise will be general available in the next product update.

In product update 245 you will be offered a new design for Exact Synergy Enterprise and you will be using a product which is not a final deliverable. Work is in progress because we focus now on extensive and collecting feedback from customers. We share this intermediate work with you because our main goal is to engage with you as a user. Please tell us what you think.

This new design doesn’t only mean new colors or buttons. It is aimed at supporting the goals you have and making it easier for you to execute your tasks. And of course we took the opportunity to revamp the visual design. For further details, please read my previous blog with the title “The new Synergy design. What has been done with your feedback so far”.

By offering this preview we give you a prerelease of our software, it complies with our testing procedures and quality standards. This means that the direction can change, for instance based on your feedback.
 
I can’t wait to hear your feedback on the new design.

Photo credit: Blumpy

Exact Synergy Enterprise is already integrated with Microsoft Exchange server for years. Purpose of this integration is to synchronize the Outlook calendar with the calendar in Synergy and to automatically create and maintain Exchange mail accounts and user accounts in active directory based on the persons in Synergy.

As of Synergy product update 244 we will support Exchange 2010. The integration with Exchange 2010 is different from other Exchange platforms:

• Integration of Outlook calendar with Synergy calendar is improved and will be near real time
• Creation of mail- and user account is no longer supported

Technically, the change is even bigger. The Exchange 2010 integration is based on Exchange Web Services, where previous Exchange integration was based on a background job. This has a couple of advantages:

• Synchronization is near real time
• Installation becomes easier, because of MSI installation process

Integration of Outlook calendar with Synergy calendar is improved

The synchronization of the calendars is two-way: Appointments created in Synergy will create/update appointments in Outlook and vice versa. The time between creation of an appointment and synchronization is close to near time. This has the big advantage that both the Synergy and Outlook calendar are up to date when an appointment is adjusted, created or deleted. This direct synchronization means that the calendar settings for defining the synchronization range (number of days back and forward) is no longer valid for Exchange 2010 integration. (System/Setup/Calendar settings)

With Exchange 2010 integration we offer the following functionalities:

Synergy –> Outlook

• When an appointment is deleted in Synergy, it will remove the corresponding appointment in Outlook [NEW]
• When an appointment request is created in Synergy, it will create an appointment in Outlook.
• When an appointment request is updated in Synergy, it will update the corresponding appointment in Outlook.

Outlook –> Synergy

• When a series appointment or an occurrence of a series appointment is deleted in Outlook, it will delete the corresponding appointment request(s) in Synergy. [NEW]
• When an appointment is created in Outlook, it will create an appointment request in Synergy
• When an appointment is updated in Outlook, it will update the corresponding appointment request in Synergy.
• When an appointment is deleted in Outlook, it will delete the corresponding appointment request in Synergy.

Windows services

The integration between Synergy and Exchange is based on Windows Services. The background job used in previous Exchange application is no longer applicable for Exchange 2010 integration. The 2 Windows services can easily be installed via an MSI installation process read.

Creation of mail- and user account is no longer supported

Important to know for customers who are migration to Exchange 2010: The creation of mail account and user account is not supported anymore in Exchange 2010 integration

Aad ‘t Hart has recently published articles about Functions and Features versus the User Experience, Simplicity, web identity and more. In this blog I want to zoom in on Employee Self Service (ESS) facilities in a simplified version of Exact Synergy we are creating, and especially requesting a day off. By making Exact Synergy simpler we aim to make it more designed for specific goals, more modern and easier to use.

The ESS portal gives your employees access to their personal data in a secure and transparent environment. As an employee you can for instance enter or change your time off period, enter an expense claim or change the personal address. This undoubtedly leads to reduction of administrative costs.

In the new simplified version of Exact Synergy, that will be available as a beta version in product update 244, we particularly focus on ESS features. One of them is Time Off.

The screenshot above is the entry part of Time Off. As you can see the screen is truly focused on getting the task of asking time off done easily. Also the user is presented the information he or she naturally needs, for instance “What is my balance?” The entry fields are linked based on the choices the employee made so the employee can quickly fill in the request and ask for approval without being confronted with unnecessary fields that may be left blank.

Now you can ‘dream’ about how to spend your personal time while entering the request instead of the think about which procedures to follow to enter a time off request. And that makes a lot more fun…

If you have any questions regarding this post, please create a comment to this article.

Image credit for the header image: neloqua.

Usually the Finance and Administration department check and approve all incoming invoices manually. From product update 242 we have introduced the Incoming Invoice Register (IIR) module for Exact Synergy Enterprise. The IIR module allows you to easily structure and monitor the incoming invoice process. Each invoice is scanned and immediately linked to the appropriate register and responsible person(s). Authorization requests are generated automatically, appearing in the workflow of the person responsible for approving the invoice. The responsible person can approve or reject the invoice at any time, from any location.

In the coming product update (244), we extend the IIR functionality with a document previewer, which shows automatically a preview of the scanned invoice that is attached to the IIR request. The big advantage is that the resource does not need to click on the hyperlink to open the attached invoice. The document is already visible in the request and the resource can directly compare the content of the invoice with the financial transaction lines in the request.
This saves the user a lot of time.

If you have any questions regarding the IIR document previewer, please create a comment to this article below or let me know directly via vincent.henricks[at]exact.com.

Image credit for the header image: cybrgrl (from Flickr).

—Update: the date has been set to April 9—

On behalf of the Product Management team, I am pleased to announce that Exact Synergy Enterprise will move into the controlled release phase for product update 243 as per April 9. Our stakeholders were very helpful to verify the functionality for this update. Your feedback is very much appreciated so that we can make this update general available. This new product update is planned to be generally available in May.

More than 30 customers are already lined up to participate in the controlled release and start using it. On top of that all of Exacts partners/resellers will be able to download the 243 release as well.

Vladimir Bataev posted the article ‘Five highlights of the product update 243 of Exact Synergy Enterprise’ on March 31. A summary of the highlights:

• Request labeling;
• Time & Billing;
• Notifications on updated requests;
• Synergy mobile;
• Integration with Microsoft SQL Reporting Services.

 I will give you an overview of other items that you can expect in this update.

CRM

• Faster access to back office reports of the customers: quotations, sales orders and sales invoices are available from the account card;
• Complete controls over contact details for customer and reseller portal users with editable external references for social networks;
• Multiple contacts can be added during account import;
• Richer mail merges with additional tags for the main debtor;
• Opportunity management: tighter control over reasons why opportunities get lost.

 HRM

• More flexible absence calculations based on calendar and working days;
• Improved absence balance overviews in hours and per 4 weeks in the absence and cost analysis reports;
• Instant Visibility of Information in Competency, Performance Review, and Target Agreement Profiles;
• Easier overviews on people search results with sorting on various columns.

 Business users

• Business users can take part in workflows, because roles can be assigned to them;
• A Business user can edit documents that he or she created;
• Business users can see all requests and documents attached to their customers.

 Employee Self Service users

• Employee Self Service users can now participate in workflow routing. It is now possible to add roles to employees who are assigned the Employee self service user license type.

 Data synchronization

• Near real-time data synchronization between Exact Synergy Enterprise and Exact Globe. This offers customers who are currently using Exact Globe and Exact Synergy (asp) in an integrated scenario, to migrate to and start benefiting from Exact Synergy Enterprise.

 Smaller enhancements

• Synergy Office Integration: an easy overview of unread activities;
• Support for fully-fledged CRM template in the templating tool;
• Customizable project and contact cards;
• Filtering on pending remarks so that it is easier to see what colleagues need to be poked.

Our release planning for 2010 can be found in the illustrations below. As you can see, a lot of product updates are planned for next year: approximately 1 product update every quarter for each product line.

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

In February 2008, the EU Ministers of Finance adopted a package of changes regarding the VAT system in Europe. One of the objectives of this package is to modernize and simplify existing rules regarding the cross-border delivery of services within the EU. Another objective is to reduce fraud. This new VAT package will be introduced in all EU countries on the 1st of January 2010.

This means that before the end of 2009, all 27 EU countries will have to include these changes in their local VAT legislation. I will not go in full detail of the new package in this post, but I will give you 3 major changes that might also impact your business (if it’s located in the EU, of course). It is a complicated manner, so I tried to write it down as clearly as possible.

• If you are a VAT-registered business and you sell or move goods to other VAT-registered businesses within the European Union (EU), you must record and report data on your activities. There are two systems: Intrastat and the European Community (EC) Sales List. This EC Sales List, the listing of delivery of goods, will be replaced by the listing of delivery of goods and services. This listing will thus not only be for the delivery of goods, but now also for the services that you provide to customers that are liable to VAT (B2B) located in another EU country. The periodicity of the ESL (EC Sales List) will be quarterly or monthly depending of the size of the company.
• In case of (cross-border) delivery of services, you will have to list these services on the EC Sales List if the location of your customer is in another European country than your own. In other words, the location where the service is actually executed is not relevant anymore. Only the country of your customer is relevant.
• The VAT return can also be changed, but this will differ per country. For example in the Netherlands, goods and services have to be reported in the existing ‘box 3′ while in Belgium two new VAT boxes will be added to the VAT return. Whatever solution a country will choose, the objective is always to have a full coherence between the EC Sales List and the VAT return.  

For some countries the modifications that have to be implemented in the EC Sales List and the VAT return are already known, while in other countries these modifications will not be totally clear before November or December of this year. 

Even though not all the changes are known yet, Exact Software will not and cannot wait until the last minute to implement these changes in Exact Globe and Exact Online. With customers in almost every EU country we have to take timely measures. Therefore we are currently, for each individual EU country, in contact with the local VAT administration and accountancy firms to investigate the impact for the local VAT return and EC Sales List.

Around Europe, you have probably received invitations to follow a seminar regarding this subject, often organized by the VAT authority, accountants offices or business organizations. We advise you to follow one of these seminars. This because the new VAT package will not only have impact on the VAT return or the EC Sales List, but it will also have an impact on the way that you will register your financial data.

As soon as we have new information about the VAT package of 2010 and/or the impact on our software, we will keep you informed via this blog.

Photo credit: Phillip