SAP Business One 8.82 - Preview
SAP Business One 8.82 Preview
What's new in SAP Business One 8.82? There is actually quite a bit of new functionality with the 8.82 version of SAP Business One.
Ever since the release of SAP Business One 8.8, SAP has been focused on enhancing & expanding functionality. The days of "pre-2007 SAP Business One," when upgrades fixed functionility rather than providing functionality enhancements, are over. SAP has used this stable platform to innovate and develop functionality that exceeds the competition.
In this blog we will take a look at some of the new functionality that will be released with the SAP Business One 8.82 version.
SAP Business One Roadmap
The SAP Business One roadmap includes both major releases (i.e. 8.8) and minor releases (i.e. 8.82). The major releases contain major new functionality or architectural changes while minor releases provide improved business functions and corrections. You can see the SAP Business One Roadmap to 2014 in the image above.
Release families are made up of 1 major release and 2 minor releases. Each release family is supported for 3 years, however when a new minor release is released, the maintenance of the previous version is discontinued.
Patch levels are also made available between releases in frequencies of 4 to 12 weeks. The patch levels are mainly used to correct any unforeseen issues with the release, however they may include functionality enhancements as well.
SAP Business One 8.82 - Campaign Management
The campaign management functionality is a great extension to the existing CRM functionality of SAP Business One. This functionality allows you to have a more powerful CRM process which incorporates marketing activities. Through the easy to use Campaign Generation Wizard, you can:
- Create campaigns
- Create target groups
- Maintain target groups using external lists
- Execute campaigns through fax, email, lists, and URL's
- Create summary reports
- Assign Business Partners to campaigns via the Business Partner Master Data record
Furthermore, you can link campaigns to a sales opportunity in order to track opportunities by campaign. This will give you the ability to capture certain campaign measurements. You also have the ability to "Drag and Drop" emails onto a Campaign Widget to record follow-ups to the campaign.
SAP Business One 8.82 - Make to Order
With the new "Make to Order" functionality, you are able to support demand driven production to meet the demands of dynamic operation. You are now able to automatically create production orders or purchase orders directly from the sales order. The easy to use "Procurement Confirmation Wizard" also allows you to consolidate multiple sales orders for a single procurement run. You also have the ability to create production orders for individual line items of the sales order.
SAP Business One 8.82 -Pick & Pack Enhancement
You can now have an easier time streamlining your order fulfillment process and deliver inventory faster than ever before. The Pick and Pack Manger has been enhanced to allow for a more robust order fulfillment function.
Some of these enhancements include:
- Visibility of serial & batch allocation
- Support of back order functionality
- Automatic creation of delivery
- Ability to manually create invoices from the Pick and Pack process
- Ability to consolidate deliveries by ship-to address
- Ability to select additional criteria's in the Pick and Pack Manager
SAP Business One 8.82 -Activities Enhancement
You can now have more flexibility with managing activities and leverage the tool for the entire organization. The Activities functionality has been enhanced to allow for better activities management. Now activities can be assigned to employees (both users and non-users). You now also have additional flexibility with Activities such as:
- Ability to duplicate Activities
- Drag and Drop Microsoft Outlook emails to automatically attach to an Activity
- Select any BP address as an Activity address
- Ability to create monthly recurring Activities
- Ability to create annually recurring Activities
SAP Business One 8.82 - Dunning Interest Posting
You can now increase transparency and efficiency of the Dunning process. In addition to the ability to have service invoices with interest and Dunning fees, you can automatically create these service invoices with the easy to use Dunning Wizard. Furthermore you can adjust tax codes separately for Dunning fee and interest in the service invoice.
SAP Business One 8.82 -MRP Enhancements
With the new MRP enhancements you can have greater control and accuracy with your MRP function in order to better plan for inventory and production. The new enhancements include:
- Ability to capture future data and pegging information
- MRP run for selected warehouse
- Inventory level fulfillment
- Past due and historical planning.
This enhancement has made the MRP functionality much more powerful and flexible than ever before.
SAP Business One 8.82 - (MRP) Generate Forecast
With the new forecasting functionality you can have more intelligent forecasting in order to ensure that demands are always met. The Generate Forecast functionality allows you to auto generate forecasts based on sales history and recurring transactions. Use this function to have more accuracy with production and purchase planning.
SAP Business One 8.82 - Cash Flow Dashboard
In SAP Business One 8.82, you will also have a couple new cockpits and dashboards. The Cash Flow Analysis dashboard is probably the most impressive dashboard which allows you to better manage and plan your cash flow in order to ensure liquidity. This Cash Flow Analysis dashboard allows you to view incoming and outgoing payments, liquidity trends, and view payment distributions.
SAP Business One 8.82 - Conclusion
Overall, the functionality enhancements seem to be greater than expected for a minor release. These functionality enhancements move SAP Business One one step closer to being the superior product in its category. We are now eager to see what SAP will release with its next major release, SAP Business One 9.0, in Q4/2012.
SAP Business One 8.82 is now available for ramp-up and will be available for general availability in Q1-Q2/2012.
