In this post, we have provided a round-up of major enhancements announced by Microsoft Dynamics ERP product lines in 2014. Improvements have been made across the board. New features and functionality, streamlined workflows and integrations with Office 365 focus on increasing productivity and collaboration for end users, while a wide range of user experience enhancements simplify screens and improve ease of use. A number of important industry specific features have been updated or added as well. On the technical side, improvements have been made throughout the application lifecycle, from new tools to expedite the implementation and upgrade processes to protecting data and disaster recovery with Windows Azure Cloud Storage.
We’ve highlighted some of the more significant changes by product for you here and provided links to deeper dive information as well.
Microsoft AX 2012 R3 enhancements have been grouped around three main themes – engaging customers, efficient operations and expanding businesses. Highlights include:
- Several enhancements related to improving the consumer experience, including new e-commerce enhancements, assisted sales & customer purchase intelligence, mobile POS for multiple platforms, OOB integration with Facebook and Twitter & SDK for Amazon and eBay, customer specific pricing, customer management, omni-channel wish list and multi-language storefront
- New functionality for the warehouse including flexible, advanced picking rules and workflow for outbound shipping; and flexible, advanced put-away rules, workflow and location directives for inbound receiving.
- Analysis tasks around transportation planning including inbound/outbound planning, multi-shipment loads, shipment consolidation, optimization of loads based on capacity, and ASN have also been upgraded in the new release.
- New inventory management features include RF support, license plates, cycle counting, inventory blocking, and QMS integration.
- A number of new forecasting tools are available for statistical baseline forecast generation based on historical data, baseline forecast visualization and editing, and forecast accuracy KPIs.
- Enterprise management updates allow companies to scale their systems and operations to changing marketing needs through AX on Azure, global supply chain execution, 36 markets support, life-cycle services and Business Analyzer and reporting improvements
- Visit our Dynamics AX Product Page to learn more.
Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2015 includes several enhancements to make the solution quick to implement, easy to use and able to support important functionality for SMBs, including:
- Rapid Start Implementation and Rapid Start Upgrade provide new features and tools to help streamline the initial implementation of Microsoft Dynamics NAV as well as the upgrade process from one version to another or from one update to another.
- Microsoft Dynamics NAV for tablets allows users in small and midsized business to access the data they need from the device they prefer. A fresh and modern interface designed exclusively for touch provides the same RoleTailored experience users are already familiar with.
- Several new user experience enhancements make Microsoft Dynamics NAV more intuitive for the end-user by making data entry on pages faster. Improvements such as showing mandatory input fields, auto-fill fields, and the ability to show only relevant fields to the user through user permission sets are some examples.
- More than 60+ pages and ~100 objects have been simplified and localized for each supported market to provide a more streamlined user experience focused on basic sales and purchase scenarios.
- Enhanced interoperability with Office 365 including simplified email messaging and sign in to Microsoft Dynamics NAV using your Office 365 account is now available.
- Microsoft Word is now a layout editing option for document reports and report scheduling has been added.
- Several enhancements to cash management have been made including conversion of electronic bank statement files into data that can be imported into Microsoft Dynamics NAV and improvements in the payment journal and credit transfer registers to better manage payment creation and tracking of payment history.
- Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2015 includes a control add-in that enables you to embed hosted service in Microsoft Dynamics NAV pages. This includes solutions like Microsoft Social Listening, which collects data from social media websites and presents it in easy to consume charts and graphs with drill down capabilities to more detailed data.
- Visit our Dynamics NAV Product Page to learn more.
Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 R2 includes some system-wide feature enhancements as well as new functionality in financials and distribution.
- Workflow is being completely redesigned and rebuilt with five new workload types and several methods for workflow approval.
- The user log in experience will be improved through enhancements to the identity management features. Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 R2 is simplifying the web client login, reducing identity maintenance between apps and supporting service based architecture scenarios.
- Several new modules around added value for self-service users are included in this release, including new pages for time management, requisitions and project time & expense.
- Improved disaster recovery options with Microsoft Azure backup options are now available.
- A new one step process for emailing and printing batches or statements has been enabled.
- A number of enhancements to the email capabilities have been included, including allowing users to email or print reports in word format and use word tools to modify reports. In addition, emails can be sent to different contacts based on document type, for instance users can specify different recipients for a sales quote report and an order report, rather than having to make the change in the sending process. Doc attach has been added to the payables transaction.
- Financial features include the ability to reverse the GL year end close process, more quickly set up asset records, integration of multicurrency revaluation with analytical accounting, copy and paste to general ledger, reprint of outstanding transactions report from bank reconciliation, and the ability to sort checks by option.
- Distribution enhancements include the ability to assign items to multiple sites, payables prepayment additions, and suggested items functionality that allows users to analyze and suggest items based on historical data and create sales scripts for service reps to use when looking at suggested items in the sales transaction entry.
- Visit our Dynamics GP Product Page to learn more.
Microsoft Dynamics SL 2015 enhancements center around three themes – work productivity, delivering insights across the organization, and more flexible integration of a host of applications and platforms. Highlights include:
- New web apps allow access to screens from your desktop as you currently have, as well as access via tablets & smartphones. Built in HTML5, these apps adjust to the size of the screen. Supported devices include Windows Phone, Surface Tablet RT/Pro, Android 4.0+, iOS release 6 & 7, Windows or Macintosh desktop and any browser that supports HTML5.
- Current web services include project, customer, project time entry, and project expense entry and project time and expense approval. Future releases will continue to add web services such as project budget & invoice approvals, project delegations, project resource assignment, and project timesheets.
- Usability improvements for all users have been included in Microsoft Dynamics SL 2015, including more flexible time entry options and the ability to attach receipts in project expense reports for project employees. Project managers now have access to view all of their projects with filters available to locate a specific project. Project financial summaries, AR billings, and unbilled amounts are available along with drill downs to details such as project and task net profit.
- System wide upgrades include color themes that provide out of the box customized visual experiences, allowing companies to create their own custom theme.
- In addition, Microsoft Dynamics SL 2011 Business Portal now offers support for SharePoint 2013.
- Visit our Dynamics SL Product Page to learn more.
Contact your SBS Group Account Manager today to learn more about what’s new in the Microsoft Dynamics ERP product line or start a discussion with a business technology expert at 888.725.2555.
