July 15, 2019 at 18:24Updated version of SAP Business One 9.3: what has changed
Hello, Habr!
We continue the series of publications about SAP Business One - ERP for small and medium-sized businesses. This time we will consider the 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.
Prior to launching SAP Business One 9.3, SAP Business One partners launched pilot versions for a limited number of customers. As part of the pilots, customers had the opportunity to use the new functionality and share feedback on product quality. 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 seen 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. In the new version of the product, special attention is paid to ease of use and the addition of existing functionality. By expanding the core, new business processes have been implemented: simple production routing and material return management. Notable changes have affected the project management functionality, CRM processes have been simplified and optimized, new features have been added to regulate access permissions, etc.
Using the capabilities of the SAP HANA platform and semantic layers, new templates for the control panel (user desktop) are implemented. With the new analytic portal, end users can plan and use reports without logging in to SAP Business One using real-time ERP data.
It's no secret that add-ons play a key role for customers. Therefore, the new version simplified the development of add-ons for partners and added support for XML methods for custom tables and Visual Studio 2017. For extreme applications (Extreme Applications or SAP HANA XS applications) uses the SSO login algorithm, which eliminates the need for user authentication again.
To simplify deployment and landscape management, SAP Business One has a centralized approach with a single console for on-premises and cloud options.
In order to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), SAP Business One 9.3 implements the personal data protection management functionality.
Data protection tools are located in the new menu along the path “Administration” - “Utilities”. Access to personal data is governed by the authority of users, and a change in personal data is 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, which companies are required to provide at the request of an individual. The assistant is also used to block, clear (at the request of an individual or upon expiration of the data storage period), unlock personal data.
The item “CRM” has been added to the main menu for quick transition to all business objects related to customer relationship management: a directory of business partners, an assistant for generating campaigns, documents “Sales Opportunity”, “CRM Reports”, etc.
When working with a centralized CRM module, the usability of the program is increased and employee productivity is increased.
You can now assign activity to multiple users or employees by adding a recipient list. Recipients (one or more) will be indicated on the activity overview screen.
The “Project Management” module has been significantly improved in SAP Business One 9.3 in order to increase transparency, operational efficiency and usability of the product.
Contract management capabilities have 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 at a specific date.
Now you can update the parameters of the contract (amount, quantity, price) after assigning the contract in the marketing document. Added the ability to update the start date of the contract in the absence of attached documents.
To strengthen control under the contract, you can now track all deviations from the planned amount and planned amount specified in the contract in the document settings. Additionally, you can configure the blocking of the operation or the output of a warning when the quantity / amount exceeds the planned value of these parameters in the documents. Also, setting up the approval procedure has become available for contracts.
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 return conditions (quantity, price, reason).
For these purposes, two new options have been added: “Request for return” in the business process “Sale” and “Request for return” in the business process “Purchase”. A “Return Request” is also available in the Service business process.
The following options are available for new documents:
New documents provide more flexible control of the return process and additional control.
In practice, depending on the industry, both methods of calculating the price are used: the gross price (including VAT) and the net price (excluding VAT).
As a rule, wholesale companies use the net price because They interact with large customers. At the same time, retailers use the gross price because interact with individuals and they need to more accurately indicate prices (especially decimal values).
SAP Business One 9.3 introduces a completely new gross price calculation mechanism. The processing of gross price values in marketing documents has been revised to solve existing problems:
The application of the gross price or net price also affects the calculation of discounts in the marketing document:
A new routing function simplifies the processing of a production order with a defined sequence of assembly steps. It also enhances the convenience of managing items that require assembly and resource components. In the documents “Specification” and “Production Order” the ability to define several stages of assembly is added. To determine the date of the need for components and resources, the function of managing the start and end dates of the stage is implemented.
Using the new field “Calculation of routing dates”, you can control the start and end dates of a stage by specifying the values “To start date”, “To end date”, “From start date forward” or “From end date back”. In this case, you can automatically calculate the dependencies on dates between the stages of the route in the production order.
The fields “Build time”, “Extra time” and “Lead time” in the line “Route stage” show the longest run time from all resources belonging to this stage. The resource that is used for the longest time determines the duration of the route leg.
A new “Status” column has been added to the “Production Order”, which allows you to set the value for the route, position or resource to be “Planned”, “In Processing” or “Completely”. The Status column is editable on all lines of the production order. At the same time, the status for all components of the stage is updated in accordance with the status of the “Route Stage”. When the status changes to “Full”, a check is performed for all items and a system message appears with a proposal to reduce the planned quantity so that it corresponds to the dispensed. The answer will be valid for all components.
Assistant picking, packaging and assembly
The Acquisition and Packaging Assistant has been renamed the Acquisition, Packaging and Assembly Assistant. New fields in the sections “Open”, “Released”, “Completed” allow you to use the assistant as a simple console for the production manager with control of such parameters as “Route Stage”, “Route Sequence”, “Product Number” and “Assembly Priority”. You can set selection criteria for a production order for a number of attributes, such as: start date, route stage, route sequence, and assembly priority.
Improvements in the assembly management process will be useful to all companies with a simple manufacturing process. In the standard functionality of SAP Business One 9.3, planning and execution of production with simple routing are available, as well as an assessment of the possible time of the need for a component. These changes provide 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 main screen of SAP Business One.
In version 9.3, new pre-configured templates are available in the control panel for finance, sales, purchasing and stocks. If you have the appropriate permissions, users can create their own control panel templates and publish them for use, including by other employees of the company. For example, you can create user desktops by topics: finance, procurement, sales, warehouse and others. Remote control templates can be assigned to a group of users.
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 the analytical portal has become available. Reports can be downloaded from the portal in various formats or configured to generate and send scheduled reports by e-mail. Options for PDF, Excel or HTML are available for MS Excel, PDF for Crystal Reports.
For the portal to work, there is no 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 a web client or on a mobile device. The analytic portal is available for both on-premises and cloud-based installations of SAP Business One 9.3 version for SAP HANA.
The assistant for importing data from MS Excel has been improved and can now import documents from the sections “Accounting operation”, “Incoming balance numbers” and “Lots” into SAP Business One.
The workflow service in SAP Business One allows you to automate the process of document movement and the appointment of 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.
SAP Business One components can now be installed 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 on remote computers. The SLD agent can perform the tasks of installing and updating the version of SAP Business One and the DI API.
An overview of all installed SAP Business One components in the SAP Business One landscape (the component must support registration in SLD) 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, information about the system and report the problem (in a single ZIP file) to colleagues or a partner.
SAP continues to develop information access capabilities for mobile employees. In June 2018, a new mobile application for iOS was released. SAP Business One. The service app simplifies the processing of service requests for service employees working outside the office.
The functionality of the mobile application includes access to information about the customer, a barcode scanner, translation of voice into text 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 signature of the customer and print the 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.
This article does not cover all the innovations in SAP Business One 9.3. The company plans in the framework of this version to implement very interesting scenarios for using the Internet of things and machine learning. In the meantime, as you read the article, developers are already testing a new version of SAP Business One 9.4 ... Or maybe not 9.4. Next year will show!
SAP Business One 9.3 feature overview videos are available on the YouTube channel .
For examples of SAP Business One implementations, go to www.sapb1repository.com
Comment, share your impressions, and ask questions.
Thank you all for reading and feedback!
We continue the series of publications about SAP Business One - ERP for small and medium-sized businesses. This time we will consider the 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.
Prior to launching SAP Business One 9.3, SAP Business One partners launched pilot versions for a limited number of customers. As part of the pilots, customers had the opportunity to use the new functionality and share feedback on product quality. 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 seen 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. In the new version of the product, special attention is paid to ease of use and the addition of existing functionality. By expanding the core, new business processes have been implemented: simple production routing and material return management. Notable changes have affected the project management functionality, CRM processes have been simplified and optimized, new features have been added to regulate access permissions, etc.
Using the capabilities of the SAP HANA platform and semantic layers, new templates for the control panel (user desktop) are implemented. With the new analytic portal, end users can plan and use reports without logging in to SAP Business One using real-time ERP data.
It's no secret that add-ons play a key role for customers. Therefore, the new version simplified the development of add-ons for partners and added support for XML methods for custom tables and Visual Studio 2017. For extreme applications (Extreme Applications or SAP HANA XS applications) uses the SSO login algorithm, which eliminates the need for user authentication again.
To simplify deployment and landscape management, SAP Business One has a centralized approach with a single console for on-premises and cloud options.
Personal Data Protection Management (GDPR)
In order to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), SAP Business One 9.3 implements the personal data protection management functionality.
Data protection tools are located in the new menu along the path “Administration” - “Utilities”. Access to personal data is governed by the authority of users, and a change in personal data is 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, which companies are required to provide at the request of an individual. The assistant is also used to block, clear (at the request of an individual or upon expiration of the data storage period), unlock personal data.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
CRM menu
The item “CRM” has been added to the main menu for quick transition to all business objects related to customer relationship management: a directory of business partners, an assistant for generating campaigns, documents “Sales Opportunity”, “CRM Reports”, etc.
When working with a centralized CRM module, the usability of the program is increased and employee productivity is increased.
Assigning Activities
You can now assign activity to multiple users or employees by adding a recipient list. Recipients (one or more) will be indicated on the activity overview screen.
Project management
The “Project Management” module has been significantly improved in SAP Business One 9.3 in order to increase transparency, operational efficiency and usability of the product.
- A new “Project Overview” functionality has been added, which allows you to filter and view all project or subproject data and a hierarchical structure on one screen
- A new project visualization functionality in the form of a Gantt chart has been developed.
- Added “Stage ID” field to optimize the connection of projects with marketing documents and employee time sheets
- On the “Stages” tab, a new column “Completion Date” is available, in which users can determine the actual completion date of each stage for comparison with the planned date
- In the “Documents” and production orders section, the new “Paid” checkbox indicates whether the linked document item is paid to the client
- Additional information related to the project has been added to the “Activity” form. Users can also indicate project activity relevant to Billing Assistant.
- The new “Invoicing Assistant” collects data from open documents related to the project and generates sales documents
- 8. A new report on the time sheet displays the relationship between the project and the time spent by the employee on the project
Sales and Purchasing Management
Contract
Contract management capabilities have 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 at a specific date.
Now you can update the parameters of the contract (amount, quantity, price) after assigning the contract in the marketing document. Added the ability to update the start date of the contract in the absence of attached documents.
To strengthen control under the contract, you can now track all deviations from the planned amount and planned amount specified in the contract in the document settings. Additionally, you can configure the blocking of the operation or the output of a warning when the quantity / amount exceeds the planned value of these parameters in the documents. Also, setting up the approval procedure has become available for contracts.
Return Request
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 return conditions (quantity, price, reason).
For these purposes, two new options have been added: “Request for return” in the business process “Sale” and “Request for return” in the business process “Purchase”. A “Return Request” 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 a business sales process (“Shipping” or “Sale”) or a business procurement process (“Receipt” or “Purchase”)
- Indication of return reason and return operation
- Change in ordered (sale) and confirmed (purchase) quantities of goods in stock before the actual return of goods
- Creating a Return Request from a Service Request
- Manage serial and batch numbers in documents
- Additional reporting and analytics features
New documents provide more flexible control of the return process and additional control.
Price with VAT
In practice, depending on the industry, both methods of calculating the price are used: the gross price (including VAT) and the net price (excluding VAT).
As a rule, wholesale companies use the net price because They interact with large customers. At the same time, retailers use the gross price because interact with individuals and they need to more accurately indicate prices (especially decimal values).
SAP Business One 9.3 introduces a completely new gross price calculation mechanism. The processing of gross price values in marketing documents has been revised to solve existing problems:
- lack of separation between net and gross price modes
- simulation of gross price calculation for specific scenarios
The application of the gross price or net price also affects the calculation of discounts in the marketing document:
Build process control
Assembly routing
A new routing function simplifies the processing of a production order with a defined sequence of assembly steps. It also enhances the convenience of managing items that require assembly and resource components. In the documents “Specification” and “Production Order” the ability to define several stages of assembly is added. To determine the date of the need for components and resources, the function of managing the start and end dates of the stage is implemented.
Using the new field “Calculation of routing dates”, you can control the start and end dates of a stage by specifying the values “To start date”, “To end date”, “From start date forward” or “From end date back”. In this case, you can automatically calculate the dependencies on dates between the stages of the route in the production order.
The fields “Build time”, “Extra time” and “Lead time” in the line “Route stage” show the longest run time from all resources belonging to this stage. The resource that is used for the longest time determines the duration of the route leg.
A new “Status” column has been added to the “Production Order”, which allows you to set the value for the route, position or resource to be “Planned”, “In Processing” or “Completely”. The Status column is editable on all lines of the production order. At the same time, the status for all components of the stage is updated in accordance with the status of the “Route Stage”. When the status changes to “Full”, a check is performed for all items and a system message appears with a proposal to reduce the planned quantity so that it corresponds to the dispensed. The answer will be valid for all components.
Assistant picking, packaging and assembly
The Acquisition and Packaging Assistant has been renamed the Acquisition, Packaging and Assembly Assistant. New fields in the sections “Open”, “Released”, “Completed” allow you to use the assistant as a simple console for the production manager with control of such parameters as “Route Stage”, “Route Sequence”, “Product Number” and “Assembly Priority”. You can set selection criteria for a production order for a number of attributes, such as: start date, route stage, route sequence, and assembly priority.Improvements in the assembly management process will be useful to all companies with a simple manufacturing process. In the standard functionality of SAP Business One 9.3, planning and execution of production with simple routing are available, as well as an assessment of the possible time of the need for a component. These changes provide management and enhanced control over production-related components and resources.
Business Intelligence (Version for SAP HANA)
Remote Control 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 main screen of SAP Business One.
In version 9.3, new pre-configured templates are available in the control panel for finance, sales, purchasing and stocks. If you have the appropriate permissions, users can create their own control panel templates and publish them for use, including by other employees of the company. For example, you can create user desktops by topics: finance, procurement, sales, warehouse and others. Remote control templates can be assigned to a group of users.
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 the analytical portal has become available. Reports can be downloaded from the portal in various formats or configured to generate and send scheduled reports by e-mail. Options for PDF, Excel or HTML are available for MS Excel, PDF for Crystal Reports.
For the portal to work, there is no 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 a web client or on a mobile device. The analytic portal is available for both on-premises and cloud-based installations of SAP Business One 9.3 version for SAP HANA.
Platform, System Administration, and Life Cycle Management
Loading data from MS Excel
The assistant for importing data from MS Excel has been improved and can now import documents from the sections “Accounting operation”, “Incoming balance numbers” and “Lots” into SAP Business One.
Workflow
The workflow service in SAP Business One allows you to automate the process of document movement and the appointment of 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 Control Center (SLD)
SAP Business One components can now be installed 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 on remote computers. The SLD agent can perform the tasks of installing and updating the version of SAP Business One and the DI API.
An overview of all installed SAP Business One components in the SAP Business One landscape (the component must support registration in SLD) is available on the Components tab.
Built-in 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, information about the system and report the problem (in a single ZIP file) to colleagues or a partner.
SAP Business One Service app (version for SAP HANA)
SAP continues to develop information access capabilities for mobile employees. In June 2018, a new mobile application for iOS was released. SAP Business One. The service app simplifies the processing of service requests for service employees working outside the office.
The functionality of the mobile application includes access to information about the customer, a barcode scanner, translation of voice into text 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 signature of the customer and print the 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
This article does not cover all the innovations in SAP Business One 9.3. The company plans in the framework of this version to implement very interesting scenarios for using the Internet of things and machine learning. In the meantime, as you read the article, developers are already testing a new version of SAP Business One 9.4 ... Or maybe not 9.4. Next year will show!
SAP Business One 9.3 feature overview videos are available on the YouTube channel .
For examples of SAP Business One implementations, go to www.sapb1repository.com
Comment, share your impressions, and ask questions.
Thank you all for reading and feedback!
