As of product update 247 Exact Synergy Enterprise supports tab sheets in workflow requests. Although you should always carefully consider when it’s better to have all information one screen or when tabs are more useful, you now have that option. In general, using tabs could be nice when the information that needs to be shown belongs to a specific workflow state, but off course it’s totally up to you when to use this functionality.

How to enable tabbed request sections?

In order to adjust an existing request type to use tabs you need the appropriate function right (Function Right 232: Function: Viewing and Modifying Workflow Requests) to adjust the request definition. For the sake of simplicity, I will assume you are a system administrator which has the appropriate function rights. To adjust existing request types go to the request type definition (open any request of the type you want to change and press I in the upper right corner).

You are now in the request type definition page. If you go to the fields tab sheet, you will find a checkbox on top (Show sections as tabs). If you check it, all sections that you have defined in the request will be automatically turned into tab pages. The process is reversible so you can play around with it. After you saved the request type, go back again to a request of that type, you will see it has changed the sections into tab pages. 

 Have fun!

Did you know that you can stay informed about any request even though you are not an actor in the request process?

Instead of searching for the request in order to see which changes have been made or what the status is, you can use the notification feature. With a simple click on the ‘light bulb’ icon, you can activate the notification and receive a copy of the request in your workflow. Whenever the request is updated, you will get a copy of the request in your workflow. You can recognize a request notification in your workflow by the word ‘check’ in the action column.

Watch the video to see how to make use of this functionality which gives you a great control over the information that is important to you.

Image credit: idowns.net

Exact online now offers a selection of advanced cockpits. Next to the improved Financial cockpit, cockpits for Customers, Sales, Purchase, Time & Billing and Payroll are now also available. The one’s you’ll be able to access will depend on the license you have. The help files for each cockpit can give you detailed information on the summaries displayed within them – simply click on ‘?’ in the top right corner of the screen.

A cockpit will give you insight and direction into your day to day work and your most important processes. What needs to be done, what is there to check, what’s happening in your business processes, key financial information and historical overviews.

The new styled cockpits were introduced in the blog New year! A nice moment to give our cockpits a new facelift! by Ilja Udo.

Also available and maybe of great help to you is the ‘My cockpit’ screen. This offers the possibility to create a cockpit according to your own wishes, showing information about the businesses processes most relevant to you.  All webparts available in the defined cockpits can be inserted here and positioned as you see fit.

Try it out and see what advantages it can offer you. And keep in mind that the ‘My cockpit’ has a standard layout that can always be set back using the ‘Default’ button.

How do I customize the My cockpit?

At the right top of the screen click on the ‘customize’ hyperlink.

Webparts can be selected in the webpart catalog. You can open the catalog by clicking the + in the zone you want to add the webpart to. You can change a webpart’s position using drag and drop.

One of the improved webparts is the ‘To Do’. In defined cockpits this To Do webpart shows a shortlist of to-do’s and alerts for specific area of the business. For example, the Financial cockpit shows only financial to-do’s.  In the ‘My cockpit’ this webpart can be customized to show an optimal list for all the areas of the business most relevant to you!

How do I customize the To Do webpart?

If this webpart is not visible in your cockpit you can add it using the Default button to retrieve the updated template, or select it in the webpart catalog.

Go to the ‘To Do’ webpart and in the right top corner click on the edit hyperlink.

Properties will be displayed. Changing these properties changes the list that will be visible to you. If you go to the property ‘Group’, multiple checkboxes are displayed. Mark all the areas of the business that are relevant for you and save the webpart.

Following this the To Do webpart will display the relevant to do’s and alerts that you have chosen to be informed about!

If you work a lot with appointments or have set dates to follow up on your tasks, but you are facing a problem of being buried under your ever increasing workflow, we have a great tip for you to help you organize it!

Would you like to see in your workflow what you have to do today and not be reminded about what you have to do tomorrow till tomorrow? Watch our video to find out how to work with an end date, so you can start completing your to-do list and be able to go home at the end of the day knowing you’ve completed all your scheduled tasks.

Image credits: pmchamp.com

Subscription ‘to do’s’ will become soon available in the cockpit. To do’s in the cockpit remind the user of any tasks that still need to be completed; as an information source it can become a handy starting point for daily work.

The new subscription functionality recognizes two main processes that generate work that needs to be handled – subscriptions that need to be billed and subscriptions that need to be renewed manually.

The “to do’s” show the user the total number of subscriptions that need to be processed. The first ‘To do’ count involves invoices that can be generated, while the second shows subscriptions that are due for renewal. The Date used for counting the subscriptions ready for processing is retrieved from the subscription settings. These are ‘Number of days (Invoicing)’ and ‘Number of days (Renewal)’. The number of days defines the date checked when counting – ‘Invoiced up to and including’ to know those that can be invoiced, and subscription ‘End date’ to know those that can be renewed.  When you click the phrase , it will automatically lead you to the page with the relevant functionality.

Reminding the user of what needs to be done will significantly ease the challenge of keeping up to date with subscriptions requiring attention. With this in mind, imagine if all to do’s in Exact Online were instantly visible when using the cockpits! Well, happily that’s not far away. Besides new to do’s, ‘alerts’ will also signal the user regarding specific cases that need attention. The new styled cockpits were introduced in the blog New year! A nice moment to give our cockpits a new facelift! by Ilja Udo and will be released soon.

To give the user more insight into their numbers, a graph is displayed in the cockpit with all newly started and canceled subscriptions over a specific period defined by the user. Keeping an eye on the in/outflow of subscriptions will give the user a useful indicator of how well the company is doing. It allows action to be taken in time, indicating clearly when more emphasis needs to be placed on generating new subscriptions. 

To learn more about this and the rest of the subscription functionality please be sure to read the recent blog posts A new member for the Exact Online family by Robert Huberts; Subscriptions, a first glance. by Emiel Romein.

If you have further suggestions on information, to do’s or alerts to show in cockpits that make your daily work easier please do let us know!

With the product update 242 of Exact Synergy Enterprise approaching general availability, here are top 5 highlights to whet your appetite.

Route incoming invoices from Exact Globe and follow up on them easily

Customers that use Exact Globe to register incoming invoices can now authorize or reject those invoices directly from Exact Synergy Enterprise.

Once an invoice is created in Globe, a request to approve it, complete with all payment details will arrive into the workflow of a designated employee with a sufficient purchasing limit. A scanned copy of the original invoice will be linked to the request as a regular Synergy Enterprise document.

Employees can use all flexibility of Synergy Enterprise workflow to process the incoming invoices  and resolve any arising questions.

Note, that this functionality was previously available for Exact Synergy only and is now also applied to Exact Synergy Enterprise.

View sales quotations from multiple Globe administrations directly from Synergy Enterprise

Existing Globe customers now get access from one location in Synergy Enterprise to key logistics reports per division. There are two important advantages that are delivered: The reports are available for multiple Globe administrations and the reports are delivered in real time.       

The following Globe reports become available:

• sales invoices;
• sales, service and purchase orders;
• item-balance lists;
• stock positions;
• quotations.

In addition to that, a user can enter hours into a Globe administration directly from Synergy Enterprise. With these reports available directly from Synergy Enterprise, many more users in the organization become updated with accurate back office information.

A colleague that you need to talk to becomes only one click away

Customers that already use Microsoft Office Communication Server can make collaboration between Synergy Enterprise users  easier and more spontaneous. Synergy Enterprise users immediately see which of their colleagues are now logged on, busy or available to talk.

One can start an instant chat, place a call or send an email just by clicking an Office Communicator presence icon next to a colleague’s name. The presence icon is an indication of the colleague’s availability and willingness to communicate and lets the others choose the time and the best means to contact him.

Integration with Office Communication Server allows a Synergy Enterprise user to contact the document editor directly from a document, a member of the project directly from a project card, an account manager directly from a card of a customer and a colleague that has a follow up action pending directly from the request.

Implement Synergy Enterprise faster and with less hassle

Consultants busy with Synergy Enterprise implementations can use a new tool to create best practice templates for typical customer cases.

Using the tool, a consultant can build start pages linked to documents and requests in one Synergy Enterprise environment and
save them into templates. He can import these templates into a customer’s Synergy Enterprise environment during the implementation and update the templates with new configuration data. Templates can also be shared with colleagues.

Additionally, the tool simplifies the job of internal IT staff that needs to migrate changes between separate development, test and production Synergy Enterprise environments.

The configuration tool is the foundation of Exact’s Business Made Easy offering.

Do less manual work when creating requests

To make the day-to-day work of a regular Synergy Enterprise user easier, two improvements have been added to requests:

It is now possible to attach files to a request without creating a document first. If a support desk employee wants to share a screenshot with a colleague, he only needs to create a task and attach an image directly to it.

Secondly, all fields are now duplicated when a copy of a request is created, including remarks and attachments. As a consequences, remarks in a sales cycle are accumulated and retained in each of the stages.

A typical Synergy Enterprise user usually creates a lot of requests. Now he save a few precious minutes every time he does it.

Photo credit: re-ality

Via this post I just like to share with you guys one of the upcoming things for Exact Synergy Enterprise. We have made it possible to direclty attach file(s) to a request. For instance directly attach a scanned receipt to an expense claim.

This addition comes on top of the existing option to directly create a document with attachments, to a request. This option can be very useful when the files you are attaching need specific Synergy links. The new option is there to make it simple to just attach a (set of) image(s) for instance.

Photo credit: TooFarNorth