Hi all,

As you may have heard we are waiting for the last finishing touches in order to release the Exact Configurator.

The Exact Configurator is a tool in Exact Synergy Enterprise which allows consultants to more personalize Exact Synergy Enterprise for every customer by giving them the availability to create any entity they want and have interaction with the existing entities in Exact Synergy Enterprise (p.e. workflow, accounts).

Using the Exact Configurator requires some additional skills from consultants because instead of thinking out a solution based on the software available in Exact Synergy Enterprise they now have the option to work out a solution concept more tailored to the customers needs and therefore they need to have a certain level of desigining / analyzing skills.

In order for Exact to release the Configurator to consultants to use, we will require our resellers to have followed a (currently being developed) training before we give them the keys to enable the tool.

The training will not only go into the use of the Configurator tools, but will also go into the thought process that preceeds configuring a solution.

As you may have guessed this can create pressure for our support department. We are working on a solution for this as well and I will come back to that process in a later blog.

From the controlled release phase we see that there is a need for consultants (across resellers and also Exact consultants) to have a way of communicating with eachother on how to implement solutions or how to tackle more complex configurations. And because Exact will support the tool, but not the configured solutions we have created a group on LinkedIn that certified consultants can subscribe to and share their experiences. (Exact Certified Configurator Consultants (E-3C))

Once the training is completed and the keys have been assigned to the reseller, the Exact Configurator tool is free of charge and shipped as standard software.

So, when you are a reseller, and  you are interested in using the Exact Configurator tool, you can contact your partner manager for more information on how to enlist for the training.

Should you have any questions about this solution, do not hesitate to contact me at ruud.aalders@exact.com or add comments to this post.

Now that we have covered deliverables and work breakdown structures as the means to manage scope and define the work in Exact PSA, there are a few additional small features that a project manager will benefit from.

First, all project managers need to see the progress of deliverables and specific activities from work breakdown structure as the project is getting done.

To address this need, Exact PSA retains a link from a WBS line to an hour planning or material allocation request. This allows it to display f all estimated, planned and approved (actual) hours or each activity line so that the project manager can see what the current status is.

Moreover, such linking opens the road to creating of all of new reports (for example project schedules via Gantt charts).

Second, our interviews with the customers confirmed that project managers often run projects very similar to the those that have been completed already in their organization. In such cases, recreating a full set of same deliverables and defining almost the same activities is a tedious job.

To save the project manager’s time, Exact PSA allows him to copy deliverables and WBS from an existing project to a new one.

Third, on fixed price projects managers often want to invoice per deliverable, and filling out all details of a new invoicing term request each time can quickly become unhandy.

To save the project manager’s time, Exact PSA allows him to create an invoice for a deliverable directly from the list of all deliverables on the project.

All these small enhancements are a part of the release 249/404 that will become generally available in the 2nd quarter of 2012.

In the previous article we discussed the basics of managing scope using deliverables and looked at the simple project scenario. In that scenario a project manager used Exact PSA to create a set of deliverables to define the scope of his project to implement Synergy Enterprise at a customer site.

This allowed the project manager to see what needs to be delivered on the project; however, he is also interested in how much time and money it will take to deliver it. In Exact PSA he can define tasks (or, in other words, activities) that need to be carried out in order to build a certain deliverable.

Let’s take another look at our example. The project manager wants to add more implementation details to the deliverable Requirements analysis. He conjures the following list of activities, and enters them one by one:

What does he see after completing this exercise?

• that he has estimated that 36 hours (32 hours of consultancy and 4 hours of project management) are needed to complete Requirements analysis;
• that the cost and the sales price per hour for each activity are calculated according to the rate rules in Exact PSA;
• the total cost and the total sales price of the whole deliverable are clear to him.

After having done exactly the same for every deliverable in the project, he will arrive at a complete work breakdown structure (or simply WBS) for the project, that will:

• give him confidence that every single activity that needs to be done on the project is captured in the system and is linked to a correct deliverable (based on the scope that he has defined);
• provide him with the project schedule, where each deliverable and each activity is plotted against a time range;
• let him see the total cost and total sales price of the whole project (based on the applicable rates, but not including any personal rates);
• allow him to share this calculation with the sales in order to create a final calculation for the customer, or to validate the original quotation.

In essence, that means a firm grasp of all estimated work on the project and its financials — something that a project manager is responsible for.

There are two additional features of Exact PSA that make work breakdown structures particularly convenient:

1. It is possible to list not only activities for each deliverable, but also material, in case goods are procured and shipped to the customer. In our example (as shown in the previous article), a deliverable Hardware installation might include some equipment that will be billed to the customer together with installation hours.
2. It is possible to plan hours directly from a WBS line, and, starting from release 249/404 it is possible to allocate material in the same way.

And last, in the release 249/404 the project manager will be able to see directly from a WBS line what hour planning or material & expenses requests are linked to it, that will give him insight into progress of the project. We will review these grand possibilities in the next article of the series.

Managing project scope remains one of the most important responsibilities of  any project manager who works on a project of larger than trivial size. A successful project is a project that is completed on time and within budget; and completed means that the scope of the project is delivered to its stakeholders as expected.

To be sure that this goal is indeed achievable, a project manager needs to have absolute clarity on what is in the scope of the project, and especially, what is not. Failing to see the difference often results in projects falling prey to scope creep, that is, when requirements get added to the scope without modifications to schedule or budget.

There are multiple tools and techniques to define and manage scope; almost all of them are based on the divide and conquer principle. That is, the scope should be broken into individual, smaller deliverables. PRINCE2, for example, calls them products and specifies a dedicated product breakdown structure tool that is a part of overall project planning.

We have reviewed such scope management tools with our existing customers, and after adding a few modifications to make them easier to use, we introduced this project management best practice to Exact PSA.

In an nutshell, the sequence of steps that a project manager will take looks like this:

1) Once a project is created in Synergy Enterprise, the project manager will define the scope by entering one by one deliverables that will be built. Sometimes they are very easy to spot, like reports, or installations of equipment and software, or agreed milestones.

2) Sometimes deliverables are less tangible, like testing or integration, and need to be broken down further – into smaller deliverables. The rule of the thumb is that a project manager should stop when he can comfortably estimate the amount of work and material it will take to deliver the deliverable.

A resulting parent-child structure in Exact PSA will similar to this:

In this example, in a project to implement Synergy Enterprise, there is a main project deliverable — the overall outcome of the project. It is called Complete implementation and it’s lifespan is the same as the lifespan of the project.

This main deliverable is broken down into three other deliverables: Requirements analysis, Onsite implementation and Final testing & acceptance. Each of these deliverables has its own start time and start date, that will define the schedule of the project.

The project manager considered Onsite implementation to be still quite large, and split it into two more deliverables: Hardware installation and Software installation. He also decided to that work on this large deliverable should be managed via a child project, since different team members will be writing hours on it.

All this information is displayed in a single screen, so that the project manager to see the complete scope of the project in one glance. (Special columns like Item, WBS cost and revenue, and Margin we shall discuss in the next articles).

In release 248, to allow project managers to using deliverables to scope the project, the administrator should enable a central switch in the settings of Exact PSA. However, based on customer feedback, in release 249 we delegated this choice to project managers, since they know best when to use deliverables to manage scope and when not to.

Often, in small projects centered around realizing, approving and invoicing a few billable activities, there is little incentive for a project manager to actively manage scope. However, interviews with customers showed that many disciplined project managers use deliverables on all their projects, regardless of size, so that they have the scope very clearly defined and managed.

In the next article we will discuss how the project manager can define individual activities and tasks that are needed to build an actual deliverable., and how he can track their progress. Stay tuned!

Pivot analysis provides a powerful tool to analyze information. With pivot analysis, you can filter out the data you are interested in and sort it by different criteria. In Exact Synergy Enterprise product update 248 we have introduced the possibility to save templates for opportunity pivot analysis.

Are you a sales manager who needs to see up-to-date information on opportunity management?
A sales professional who is looking for an overview of all open opportunities? Or a sales professional who wants to compare his/her results with other sales professionals?

The below video will show you how for example a sales manager can create templates for opportunity pivot analysis, use them and share with other colleagues.

Take a look at the video, and let us know how you use pivot templates in your everyday work with Exact Synergy Enterprise. Share your tips in the comments!

Photo credit: Bill Frymire

In Exact Synergy Enterprise product update 248 (general available) we have improved the ease of use and speed of Exact Synergy Office Integration. We have also took a direct customer feedback into consideration which resulted in the following improvements. As of now Synergy Office Integration allows you to automatically save emails from certain folders directly to Exact Synergy Enterprise, based on a template set for those folders. You also have a possibility to deactivate option of automatic mapping of a contact person when saving an email. Moreover, Synergy Office Integration has been enhanced with numerous features, such as option to save multiple emails at once and pop-up notification to ask user to save an outgoing email.

Please watch the video below, to see how the new enhancements work.

Please let us know if you have any feedback.

As of today, Exact Synergy Enterprise product update 248 is generally available, which marks the end of the controlled release period which started in the mid of December 2011.

Please see below what the main highlights of this product update are:

• Realigning features for users with the CRM role, that offers now full functionality in the CRM module. Please watch this video to learn about other improvements to this role.
• Numerous enhancements to Exact Synergy Office Integration based on direct customer feedback. For a complete overview of enhancements, please click here and choose tab ‘General’; you can also watch this video to find out more.
• Improvements to the Exact PSA solution, among others by enhancing the project planning board that offers a more interactive way of planning with a drag-and-drop interface. The Work Breakdown Structure is now merged with budgets to simplify work of a project controller and project managers. Please watch this series of videos to find out more.
• With Central Master Data Management you can now easily centrally manage people, in follow-up of the earlier introduction of supporting accounts, items and general ledger accounts (video)
• The possibility to save pivot analysis for opportunities as templates based on a direct customer feedback (video)

Moreover, the new Exact Service Management solution that helps wholesale and manufacturing companies who service the products they sell to optimize their service activities is currently in extended controlled release. Please watch our introduction video to find out more about this solution.

The Exact Synergy Enterprise Configurator will remain in controlled release with this product update until the end of January. Please read more about Exact Synergy Enterprise Configurator in the previous announcement.

For a full overview of all new functionalities, please refer to the release notes for product update 248 and the Product Update News page.

Should you have any questions regarding this announcement, please do not hesitate to comment on this blog post.

Service Activities explained

The service activity is used to register the whole process from entering the request until the invoicing. The service activity is an Exact Synergy Enterprise request with extra options. You can view the configurations of a customer, and choose the service that is required. In addition, you can create one service activity or multiple service activities.

In the service activity, you can register what needs to be done, including linking standard problems and standard solutions to help in the process. The service activity can be created automatically from the Exact Globe sales order screen, or by the preventive maintenance generator. It can also be created manually.

You have the option to select one engineer or more who will do the job, and when they will do it. However, it is more efficient to leave this blank, and use the dispatch board for the planning. On the dispatch board, you will have a bucket with all the to-be-planned service activities, and you can use the drag-and-drop feature to plan which engineer(s) will be working on that date. You will be able to view the relevant information, which you can customize, so planning for the right engineer at the right time will be faster and easier.

You can also plan for the items that are required for the service activity, which can be pre-filled from the contract. Discounts can be used for the contracts. When planning the items required, stock information from Exact Globe is visible, and the stock is automatically planned in Exact Globe so the purchase orders can be generated or available stock can be allocated.

The engineer can realize the hours and used items based on the planned activities. After authorization, the invoice can be created. When the invoice is sent from Exact Globe, the detailed documents from Exact Synergy Enterprise will be automatically printed or emailed. This will all be in the Exact Synergy Enterprise software, and integrated in all the relevant master data and menu paths.

Okay, enough talk, you can watch the video and see for yourself by clicking the image below:

Feedback is highly appreciated!

Happy New Year and best wishes to you in 2012! Localizations team has reached another milestone to deliver Product Update 403 which is general available, as you could read in the previous announcement.   

In product update 403, we have extended functionalities that support legal requirements and business standards, have built localization improvements for a vast variety of legislations and focused on developing electronic banking features. We have also delivered changes based on customer feedbacks  and addressed a number of enhancements related to roles & rights and fixed assets functionalities. These improvements are based on requests we receive globally and which are important to our customers’ daily operation and business needs.

Legal changes

Electronic data exchange submission between government and companies becomes a common process in more and more countries. Therefore, in this product update we implemented VAT related reporting electronically like:

• New VAT return layout for 2012 introduced (German legislation)
• Online submissions for EU sales list supported (Irish legislation)
• New version of audit file implemented (Dutch legislation)
• SPESOMETRO reports supported (Italian legislation)

Localization changes

In order to comply with the countries requirements, we have enhanced the current:

• Belcotax reporting functionality enhanced (Belgian legislation)
• Postcodes for United States and Canada supported
• VAT reporting functionality enhanced (Thai legislation), etc.

To find out more about the deliverables from the localizations team in Exact Globe product update 403, please refer to the Exact Globe 403: Localization & Cross-border Product update news.

As of today, Exact Globe product update 403 is generally available, which marks the end of the controlled release period which started in the mid of December 2011.

In Exact Globe product update 403 we have built localization improvements for a vast variety of legislations including: Germany, Belgium, Italy, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Russian Federation and Thailand. We also continued to develop features for electronic banking, please check this document under tab ‘banking’. Moreover, we have extended functionalities that support your legal requirements and business standards with a number of new features, among others:

• Electronic submission of VAT return, EU sales list (VIES) as well as Intrastat return for Irish legislation
• Support of audit file, version 3.1 for Dutch legislation
• Postal codes for United States and Canada supported

Exact’s Warehouse Management Solution has been enhanced with a recount functionality that comes in handy when stock differences are too big, and auto fill picking queue and fulfillment that enable companies to pick sales orders without having to use the control center.

In addition, with Central Master Data Management (in extended controlled release) you can now easily centrally manage people, in follow-up of the earlier introduction of supporting accounts, items and general ledger accounts. Please watch this video to learn how to centrally manage people, you can also watch there series of videos about our CMDM solution.

In this product update we have also addressed a number of enhancements related to roles and rights as well as cash flow functionality in Exact Globe. Please check this document for more information.

We have also developed numerous features that are based on a direct feedback and suggestions from our customers:

• Enhancements for the (interactive) Balance Sheet
• Matching outstanding items in bank or cash journals using accurate offset general ledger accounts
• Enhanced matching of receipts and payments enhanced 
• Process sales journal entries automatically upon printing the final invoices 
• Copy item functionality includes all suppliers and warehouse details 

For a full overview of all new functionalities, please refer to the release notes for product update 403 and the Product Update News page.

Should you have any questions regarding this announcement, please do not hesitate to comment on this blog post.