Johannesburg, 25 Apr 2006
Softline Enterprise has launched Sage Line 500 v6 - a new version of its flagship ERP solution. This new version was developed through close consultation with customers and is based around five main themes: customer-led enhancements, improving visibility, increasing the depth of core functionality, enhancing integration capability and making upgrades easier.
"Throughout the system, we've made enhancements to existing areas of functionality as a direct response to customer feedback. In addition, performance enhancements result in faster, more productive reporting," says Ashley Ellington, managing director, Softline Enterprise. "An example," says Ellington, "is the enhanced performance of the finance modules, in addition to providing added functionality to the distribution, manufacturing and project ledger modules."
Ellington says one of the strengths of the Sage Line 500 range has been that enhancement releases have been designed to work on earlier systems, avoiding the need to undertake a total, and costly, upgrade. Sage Line 500 v6 is no different and provides the tools - or upgrade wizards - needed to upgrade from v3.1. The whole process has also been made far easier.
"Some of the wizards are new, while other existing ones have been refined," says Ellington. "The whole process is far quicker than it was before."
Experienced Sage Line 500 users will find the system is more intuitive, thanks to a Microsoft Windows-inspired redesign. The size of the screen that users view has been expanded and navigation has been made easier thanks to a Windows Outlook-style navigation panel, plus the addition of icons to denote the various options available.
"We've improved the integration between the universal client and a number of Windows Office applications," says Ellington. "We used Outlook as a template as many of our users said their staff's familiarity with the system would reduce the amount of training they would need."
Enhanced integration is central to Sage Line 500 v6 and is delivered through a number of enhanced application programming interfaces (APIs) that improve functionality in the following areas: general ledger, sales orders, purchase orders, stock/inventory, customers and suppliers.
Improving usability is not just down to changing Sage Line 500's look, however, as a lot of work has gone into simplifying the actual application, an example of which can be seen in the requisition process. "If, say, a manager wanted to requisition a flight, it would previously have taken them nine clicks before they completed the process," says Ellington. "With the new version of Sage Line 500, we've reduced that to just three clicks - which is a massive saving in time."
For more information, contact Softline Enterprise on (011) 290 2900 or visit www.softlineenterprise.co.za.
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