Upgraded version of SAP Business One 9.3: what has changed
Hi, Habr!
We continue a series of publications about SAP Business One - ERP for small and medium businesses. This time we will consider a new version of the product.
According to the roadmap , along with quarterly updates of the current version, every 1.5 years, SAP releases a new version of SAP Business One.
Before launching SAP Business One 9.3, SAP Business One partners launched pilot projects for a limited client base. As part of the pilots, customers had the opportunity to use the new functionality and share feedback on the quality of the product. At that time, more than 240 clients around the world managed to take part in this program, 108 of them were put into productive operation. One of the first customers in the world was a company from Russia - Telecom-Exchange. A video with the comments of the Managing Director can be viewed here .
')
In March 2018, the first public release was released . Today, any of the existing and potential customers of SAP Business One can migrate and use this version.
Let's see what has changed. The new version of the product focuses on ease of use and the addition of existing functionality. Due to the expansion of the kernel, new business processes have been implemented: simple production routing and management of returns of materials. Noticeable changes have been made to the project management functional, customer relationship management (CRM) processes have been simplified and streamlined, new features have been added to regulate access privileges, etc.
Using the capabilities of the SAP HANA platform and semantic layers, new templates for the control panel (user desktop) have been implemented. Using the new analytic portal, end users can plan and use reports without logging into SAP Business One using real-time ERP data.
It's not a secret that add-ons play a key role for customers. Therefore, the development of add-ons for partners has been simplified in the new version and support for XML tables for user tables and Visual Studio 2017 has been added. For extreme applications (Extreme Applications or SAP HANA XS applications) uses the SSO login algorithm, which eliminates the need to re-authenticate the user.
To simplify the deployment and management of the landscape, SAP Business One has implemented a centralized approach using a single console for local and cloud options.
In order to comply with the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), SAP Business One 9.3 implements the personal data protection management functionality.
The data protection tools are located in the new menu along the path “Administration” - “Utilities”. Access to personal data is governed by user permissions, and changes in personal data are recorded in the change log.
To define and classify personal data, the “Personal Data Management” window is used.
The new "Personal Data Management Assistant" allows you to define users, employees, business partners and contact persons as individuals. With the help of this assistant, you can create a report on personal data that companies must provide at the request of an individual. The assistant is also used for the purpose of blocking, cleaning (at the request of an individual or upon the expiration of the data retention), unlocking of personal data.
A CRM item has been added to the main menu to quickly switch to all business objects related to customer relationship management: a directory of business partners, campaign generation assistant, Sales Opportunity documents, CRM Reports, etc.
When working with a centralized CRM module, the usability of the program is increased and the productivity of employees is increased.
Now the activity can be assigned to multiple users or employees by adding a list of recipients. On the activity overview screen, recipients will be indicated (one or more).
The Project Management module has been significantly enhanced in SAP Business One 9.3 in order to increase transparency, work efficiency and product usability.
Contract management has been expanded. Now you can define a fixed exchange rate in the contract if the business partner uses foreign currency. This fixed exchange rate overrides the exchange rate used in the document on a specific date.
Now it is possible to update the contract parameters (amounts, quantities, prices) after assigning the contract in a marketing document. Added the ability to update the initial date of the contract in the absence of attached documents.
To enhance contract control, you can now track all deviations from the planned amount and the planned amount specified in the contract in the document settings. Additionally, you can configure blocking of the operation or warning when the quantity / amount exceeds the planned value of these parameters in the documents. Also for contracts it became available to set up the approval procedure.
SAP Business One 9.3 now supports the ability to record return intentions.
Before the actual return of the material, the user can agree on the conditions of return (quantity, price, reason).
For this purpose, two new options have been added: “Request for refund” to the “Sale” business process and “Request for refund” in the “Purchase” business process. The “request for refund” is also available in the “Service” business process.
The following options are available for new documents:
New documents provide more flexible return control and additional control.
In practice, depending on industry specifics, both pricing methods are used: the gross price (including VAT) and the net price (without VAT).
As a rule, wholesalers use the net price because they interact with large customers. At the same time, retail companies use the gross price because interact with individuals and they need to specify prices more precisely (especially decimal values).
SAP Business One 9.3 introduces a completely new gross pricing mechanism. Revised processing of gross price values ​​in marketing documents to solve existing problems:
The application of a gross price or a net price also affects the calculation of the discount in the marketing document:
A new routing feature simplifies the processing of a production order using a definable sequence of assembly steps. It also improves the usability of managing items requiring assembly and resource components. The ability to define several stages of assembly has been added to the "Specification" and "Production Order" documents. To determine the date of demand for components and resources, the function of managing the start and end dates of the stage is implemented.
Using the “Calculate Routing Date” field, you can control the start and end dates of the stage by setting the values ​​to “Start date”, “End date”, “From start date ahead” or “From end date back”. In this case, you can automatically calculate the dependencies on the dates between the stages of the route in the production order.
The “Build Time”, “Extra Time” and “Run Time” fields in the “Route Stage” line indicate the longest execution time of all the resources belonging to this stage. The resource that is used for the longest time determines the duration of the route leg.
A new column “Status” has been added to the “Production Order”, which allows you to set the values ​​for the route stage, position or resource to “Scheduled”, “In Process” or “Complete”. The “Status” column is available for editing in all lines of the production order. In this case, the status for all components of the stage is updated in accordance with the status of the “Route Stage”. When the status changes to the “Complete” value, a check is performed on all positions and a system message appears with a proposal to reduce the planned quantity to match the released one. The answer will be valid for all components.
Assistant picking, packaging and assembly
Assistant picking and packaging renamed to "Assistant picking, packaging and assembly." New fields in the sections “Open”, “Released”, “Completed” allow using the assistant as a simple production manager console with control of such parameters as “Route stage”, “Route sequence”, “Product number” and “Assembly priority”. You can set the criteria for selecting a production order for a number of attributes, such as: start date, route step, route sequence, and assembly priority.
Improvements in the assembly management process will be useful to all companies with a simple production process. In the standard functionality of SAP Business One 9.3, planning and executing production with simple routing, estimating the possible time of the need for a component are available. These changes provide opportunities for management and enhanced control over production-related components and resources.
The control panel or the user's desktop allows you to organize access to the necessary information by placing links to documents, dashboards, key performance indicators (KPIs) on the SAP Business One main screen.
In version 9.3, new pre-configured templates for finance, sales, procurement and inventory are available in the control panel. With the appropriate authority, users can create their own control panel templates and publish them for use, including by other company employees. For example, you can create user desktops on topics: finance, procurement, sales, warehouse, and others. Control panel templates can be assigned to a user group.
You can switch between templates in the interface using the “Template selection” button.
With the release of the new version, the ability to publish and share MS Excel and Crystal Reports reports using an analytical portal has become available. Reports can be downloaded from the portal in different formats or customized to generate and send reports on a schedule by e-mail. PDF, Excel or HTML options are available for MS Excel, and PDF reports for Crystal Reports.
The portal does not need to install the SAP Business One client or MS Excel on the user's computer; reports can be opened on various devices, for example, in the web client or on a mobile device. The analytical portal is available for both local and cloud installations of SAP Business One version 9.3 for SAP HANA.
The MS Excel data import assistant has been improved and can now import into SAP Business One the documents from the “Accounting operation”, “Incoming balance series” and “Parts” sections.
The workflow service in SAP Business One allows you to automate the process of moving documents and assigning responsible users and tasks.
In addition to improving the stability and capabilities of the workflow service, support for the 64-bit DI API is implemented, and the configuration of the workflow service and the management of workflow templates are now implemented in the “Administration” web console.
You can now install the SAP Business One components through the SLD Control Center on remote computers.
A new “Logical Machines” tab has been added to register remote computers and install SAP Business One components. SLD automatically installs the components of the SLD agent to remote computers. The SLD agent can perform installation and upgrade tasks for the SAP Business One version and the DI API.
An overview of all installed SAP Business One components in the SAP Business One landscape (the component must support SLD registration) is available on the Components tab.
This new feature allows you to instantly register a problem in the SAP Business One client, document all steps using screenshots with a description, system information, and report a problem that has occurred (a single ZIP file) to a colleague or partner.
SAP continues to develop information access capabilities for mobile workers. In June 2018, a new mobile app on iOS was released. SAP Business One. Service app simplifies the processing of service requests for service department employees working out of the office.
The functionality of the mobile application includes access to customer information, a barcode scanner, voice-to-text translation and allows you to process the assigned service requests. From the application, the service employee can place a purchase order, close the service request with the customer's signature, and print a confirmation document on a Bluetooth printer.
The application allows you to work with data both in real time and in the absence of a connection to the company's server.
In this article, not all innovations in SAP Business One 9.3 are considered. The company's plans for this version include the implementation of very interesting scenarios for the use of the Internet of things and machine learning. Well, while you are reading the article, the developers are already testing the new version of SAP Business One 9.4 ... Or maybe not 9.4 Next year will show!
Videos with SAP Business One 9.3 feature reviews are available on YouTube .
You can get acquainted with examples of SAP Business One implementations at www.sapb1repository.com
Comment, share your impressions and ask questions.
Thank you all for reading and feedback!
We continue a series of publications about SAP Business One - ERP for small and medium businesses. This time we will consider a new version of the product.
According to the roadmap , along with quarterly updates of the current version, every 1.5 years, SAP releases a new version of SAP Business One.
Before launching SAP Business One 9.3, SAP Business One partners launched pilot projects for a limited client base. As part of the pilots, customers had the opportunity to use the new functionality and share feedback on the quality of the product. At that time, more than 240 clients around the world managed to take part in this program, 108 of them were put into productive operation. One of the first customers in the world was a company from Russia - Telecom-Exchange. A video with the comments of the Managing Director can be viewed here .
')
In March 2018, the first public release was released . Today, any of the existing and potential customers of SAP Business One can migrate and use this version.
Let's see what has changed. The new version of the product focuses on ease of use and the addition of existing functionality. Due to the expansion of the kernel, new business processes have been implemented: simple production routing and management of returns of materials. Noticeable changes have been made to the project management functional, customer relationship management (CRM) processes have been simplified and streamlined, new features have been added to regulate access privileges, etc.
Using the capabilities of the SAP HANA platform and semantic layers, new templates for the control panel (user desktop) have been implemented. Using the new analytic portal, end users can plan and use reports without logging into SAP Business One using real-time ERP data.
It's not a secret that add-ons play a key role for customers. Therefore, the development of add-ons for partners has been simplified in the new version and support for XML tables for user tables and Visual Studio 2017 has been added. For extreme applications (Extreme Applications or SAP HANA XS applications) uses the SSO login algorithm, which eliminates the need to re-authenticate the user.
To simplify the deployment and management of the landscape, SAP Business One has implemented a centralized approach using a single console for local and cloud options.
Personal Data Protection Management (GDPR)
In order to comply with the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), SAP Business One 9.3 implements the personal data protection management functionality.
The data protection tools are located in the new menu along the path “Administration” - “Utilities”. Access to personal data is governed by user permissions, and changes in personal data are recorded in the change log.
To define and classify personal data, the “Personal Data Management” window is used.
The new "Personal Data Management Assistant" allows you to define users, employees, business partners and contact persons as individuals. With the help of this assistant, you can create a report on personal data that companies must provide at the request of an individual. The assistant is also used for the purpose of blocking, cleaning (at the request of an individual or upon the expiration of the data retention), unlocking of personal data.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
CRM menu
A CRM item has been added to the main menu to quickly switch to all business objects related to customer relationship management: a directory of business partners, campaign generation assistant, Sales Opportunity documents, CRM Reports, etc.
When working with a centralized CRM module, the usability of the program is increased and the productivity of employees is increased.
Assignment of activities
Now the activity can be assigned to multiple users or employees by adding a list of recipients. On the activity overview screen, recipients will be indicated (one or more).
Project management
The Project Management module has been significantly enhanced in SAP Business One 9.3 in order to increase transparency, work efficiency and product usability.
- A new project overview functionality has been added to filter and view all project or subproject data and a hierarchical structure on one screen.
- Developed a new project visualization functionality in the form of a Gantt chart.
- Added the “stage ID” field to optimize communication of projects with marketing documents and employee time sheets.
- On the “Stages” tab, a new column, “Date of Completion,” is available, in which users can determine the actual date of completion of each stage for comparison with the planned date.
- In the "Documents" and production orders section a new checkbox "Paid" indicates whether the associated document item is paid for the client.
- Additional information related to the project has been added to the “Activity” form. Users can also specify project activity relevant to the Invoicing Assistant.
- The new "Invoicing Assistant" collects data from open documents related to the project and generates sales documents.
- 8. A new time sheet report shows the relationship between the project and the time spent by the employee on the project work.
Sales and Procurement Management
Contract
Contract management has been expanded. Now you can define a fixed exchange rate in the contract if the business partner uses foreign currency. This fixed exchange rate overrides the exchange rate used in the document on a specific date.
Now it is possible to update the contract parameters (amounts, quantities, prices) after assigning the contract in a marketing document. Added the ability to update the initial date of the contract in the absence of attached documents.
To enhance contract control, you can now track all deviations from the planned amount and the planned amount specified in the contract in the document settings. Additionally, you can configure blocking of the operation or warning when the quantity / amount exceeds the planned value of these parameters in the documents. Also for contracts it became available to set up the approval procedure.
Application for refund
SAP Business One 9.3 now supports the ability to record return intentions.
Before the actual return of the material, the user can agree on the conditions of return (quantity, price, reason).
For this purpose, two new options have been added: “Request for refund” to the “Sale” business process and “Request for refund” in the “Purchase” business process. The “request for refund” is also available in the “Service” business process.
The following options are available for new documents:
- Create a return request based on the original operation of the sales business process (“Shipment” or “Sale”) or the business process of the purchase (“Arrival” or “Purchase”)
- Specifying the reason for the return and the return operation
- Change of ordered (sale) and confirmed (purchase) quantities of goods in stock before actual return of goods
- Creating a return request from the service request
- Management of serial numbers and batch numbers in documents
- Additional reporting and analytics features
New documents provide more flexible return control and additional control.
Price with VAT
In practice, depending on industry specifics, both pricing methods are used: the gross price (including VAT) and the net price (without VAT).
As a rule, wholesalers use the net price because they interact with large customers. At the same time, retail companies use the gross price because interact with individuals and they need to specify prices more precisely (especially decimal values).
SAP Business One 9.3 introduces a completely new gross pricing mechanism. Revised processing of gross price values ​​in marketing documents to solve existing problems:
- no separation between net and gross price regimes
- simulation of gross pricing for certain scenarios
The application of a gross price or a net price also affects the calculation of the discount in the marketing document:
Manage the build process
Assembly routing
A new routing feature simplifies the processing of a production order using a definable sequence of assembly steps. It also improves the usability of managing items requiring assembly and resource components. The ability to define several stages of assembly has been added to the "Specification" and "Production Order" documents. To determine the date of demand for components and resources, the function of managing the start and end dates of the stage is implemented.
Using the “Calculate Routing Date” field, you can control the start and end dates of the stage by setting the values ​​to “Start date”, “End date”, “From start date ahead” or “From end date back”. In this case, you can automatically calculate the dependencies on the dates between the stages of the route in the production order.
The “Build Time”, “Extra Time” and “Run Time” fields in the “Route Stage” line indicate the longest execution time of all the resources belonging to this stage. The resource that is used for the longest time determines the duration of the route leg.
A new column “Status” has been added to the “Production Order”, which allows you to set the values ​​for the route stage, position or resource to “Scheduled”, “In Process” or “Complete”. The “Status” column is available for editing in all lines of the production order. In this case, the status for all components of the stage is updated in accordance with the status of the “Route Stage”. When the status changes to the “Complete” value, a check is performed on all positions and a system message appears with a proposal to reduce the planned quantity to match the released one. The answer will be valid for all components.
Assistant picking, packaging and assembly
Assistant picking and packaging renamed to "Assistant picking, packaging and assembly." New fields in the sections “Open”, “Released”, “Completed” allow using the assistant as a simple production manager console with control of such parameters as “Route stage”, “Route sequence”, “Product number” and “Assembly priority”. You can set the criteria for selecting a production order for a number of attributes, such as: start date, route step, route sequence, and assembly priority.Improvements in the assembly management process will be useful to all companies with a simple production process. In the standard functionality of SAP Business One 9.3, planning and executing production with simple routing, estimating the possible time of the need for a component are available. These changes provide opportunities for management and enhanced control over production-related components and resources.
Business Intelligence (version for SAP HANA)
Control panel template
The control panel or the user's desktop allows you to organize access to the necessary information by placing links to documents, dashboards, key performance indicators (KPIs) on the SAP Business One main screen.
In version 9.3, new pre-configured templates for finance, sales, procurement and inventory are available in the control panel. With the appropriate authority, users can create their own control panel templates and publish them for use, including by other company employees. For example, you can create user desktops on topics: finance, procurement, sales, warehouse, and others. Control panel templates can be assigned to a user group.
You can switch between templates in the interface using the “Template selection” button.
Analytical portal
With the release of the new version, the ability to publish and share MS Excel and Crystal Reports reports using an analytical portal has become available. Reports can be downloaded from the portal in different formats or customized to generate and send reports on a schedule by e-mail. PDF, Excel or HTML options are available for MS Excel, and PDF reports for Crystal Reports.
The portal does not need to install the SAP Business One client or MS Excel on the user's computer; reports can be opened on various devices, for example, in the web client or on a mobile device. The analytical portal is available for both local and cloud installations of SAP Business One version 9.3 for SAP HANA.
Platform, system administration and life cycle management
Data download from MS Excel
The MS Excel data import assistant has been improved and can now import into SAP Business One the documents from the “Accounting operation”, “Incoming balance series” and “Parts” sections.
Workflow
The workflow service in SAP Business One allows you to automate the process of moving documents and assigning responsible users and tasks.
In addition to improving the stability and capabilities of the workflow service, support for the 64-bit DI API is implemented, and the configuration of the workflow service and the management of workflow templates are now implemented in the “Administration” web console.
System Landscape Directory (SLD) Management Center
You can now install the SAP Business One components through the SLD Control Center on remote computers.
A new “Logical Machines” tab has been added to register remote computers and install SAP Business One components. SLD automatically installs the components of the SLD agent to remote computers. The SLD agent can perform installation and upgrade tasks for the SAP Business One version and the DI API.
An overview of all installed SAP Business One components in the SAP Business One landscape (the component must support SLD registration) is available on the Components tab.
Integrated incident reporting
This new feature allows you to instantly register a problem in the SAP Business One client, document all steps using screenshots with a description, system information, and report a problem that has occurred (a single ZIP file) to a colleague or partner.
SAP Business One Service app mobile app (version for SAP HANA)
SAP continues to develop information access capabilities for mobile workers. In June 2018, a new mobile app on iOS was released. SAP Business One. Service app simplifies the processing of service requests for service department employees working out of the office.
The functionality of the mobile application includes access to customer information, a barcode scanner, voice-to-text translation and allows you to process the assigned service requests. From the application, the service employee can place a purchase order, close the service request with the customer's signature, and print a confirmation document on a Bluetooth printer.
The application allows you to work with data both in real time and in the absence of a connection to the company's server.
Conclusion
In this article, not all innovations in SAP Business One 9.3 are considered. The company's plans for this version include the implementation of very interesting scenarios for the use of the Internet of things and machine learning. Well, while you are reading the article, the developers are already testing the new version of SAP Business One 9.4 ... Or maybe not 9.4 Next year will show!
Videos with SAP Business One 9.3 feature reviews are available on YouTube .
You can get acquainted with examples of SAP Business One implementations at www.sapb1repository.com
Comment, share your impressions and ask questions.
Thank you all for reading and feedback!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/460111/
All Articles