Sage X3 – Expanding Features, Roadmaps and Everything You Need to Know
Sage X3 is one of the leading Enterprise Resource Management (ERP) solutions for small to medium sized business, providing tools and processes that facilitate growth and drive businesses to success. At Sage Summit 2016 in Chicago, Sage continued its commitment to X3, announcing the upcoming release of Version 11, as well as multiple new features and partnerships.
Sage X3 Version 11 is slated for release in February 2017 and Sage states it will be the first annual update that on premise clients will receive, with all of the new features at being released once each year from now on. Some distinct functionality announcements were made in Chicago, so let’s explore what the latest update means for current and new users:
Distribution Updates
This latest version of Sage X3 brings a number of improvements for distribution including logistics workflow improvements (shipments & carriers), traceability on subcontract orders, multiple counts on product inventory, and a customer service calendar widget.
Through Sage’s new partnership with mobile commerce provider XM Developments, a long-time partner with The Answer Company, Sage now also offers an X3 e-commerce solution for online shopping and services. The solution is accessible from any device, and ensures accuracy of webstore data, boosting online sales, accelerates the creation of new stores and integrates with payment processing platforms such as Sage Pay.
Manufacturing Updates
The most notable changes relevant to manufacturing in Sage X3 Version 11 is version control over routes and improvements in shop floor tracking. Additionally, Sage renewed its successful relationships with two other Answer Company partners: Lascom a product lifecycle management tool, and Provenio, a Sage X3 add-on that aids with compliance, formulas/recipes and quality control.
Mobility
This latest version will also bring a landslide of improved mobile features to not only increase usability & easier adoption with new users, but increase efficiency across the board. The mobile user interface will use Windows 10 features, meaning that notifications, live tiles, sharing, Cortana integration, support for pencil, barcode scan, image resizing, geo-location in objects and camera will all be available to mobile users.
Additional important mobile features that will improve the experience for all users include management of drafts (creation, offline edits and sync), auto-fill templates, drill-down/up on queries, memos, data aging tracking, and data representation improvements. The fact that it’s a bit overwhelming to list all of the new mobility features clearly shows Sage’s commitment to this area!
People Management
In Chicago, Sage also announced a new partnership with Fairsail, a global Cloud HR and people management system for organizations built on the Salesforce App Cloud. This complete global Cloud HRMS solution for people management allows businesses to manage the entire employment journey from talent acquisition to workforce communications and employee analytics, and it will be integrated into Sage X3 platform in Version 11. Fairsail also uniquely scales up & down market, like Sage X3 does, allowing for flexibility and growth so is a great partnership.
Data Management and Business Intelligence
Sage and ZAP, have entered into an OEM partnership to embed the ZAP Data Management and modelling platform with Sage X3. While this won’t add great benefits to current users, it offers a lot to potential new users that are considering moving to Sage X3. During the process of migration, the ZAP Data Management solution enables customers to keep extensive insight into data from their previous system as they switch to Sage X3, without needing to manually map their data to a new database model or transfer all of their historical data into the Sage X3 live database. This solution simplifies a kick off, minimizing the headache of migrating and allowing businesses to maintain historical data without a large scale data migration.
Sage is committed to building products that add value to their customers and Sage X3 has been proof of this as the software company continues to deliver business management solutions that are flexible, fast, and easy to use.