April 2010 Update for Software Assurance

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During the intervening period since our last Software Assurance Update newsletter, we are pleased to say that we been working on a number of beneficial enhancements to axis diplomat.

These latest developments are aimed at saving time and money for everyone, by making the system quicker to use and by extending yet further the ability to use email to reduce document printing, postage and preparation costs.

This work has been done in readiness for the launch of the next major release; however, these enhancements have been made available immediately to axis diplomat 2008 customers with Software Assurance. The remaining axis diplomat 2008 customers will only have access to these developments should they purchase the next version after its release (currently scheduled for Q3 2010)

Remittance Advices

With the latest developments, you can now create your own Remittance Advice document layout using the Document Designer. More importantly, you can use the Document Delivery technology introduced with axis diplomat 2008 to allow bulk sending of your Remittance Advices via email. Not only does this reduce the printing and postage costs but, for those with large numbers of suppliers in particular, it can represent a significant time-saving in this regular activity.

Quotation Order Forms

Another new development in the area of documentation is the introduction of an all-new document type - Quotation Order Forms.

In addition to being able to design Quotations and Quotation Pro Formas, this new document type allows you to produce a third document from your quotations. Typically, a Quotation Order Form will have a similar layout to a Quotation or Pro Forma but with an added signature box at the bottom.

The aim is to allow you to present this to your customer for their signature in lieu of an official Purchase Order. This can prove a valuable aid to closing business since the sales person can "strike while the iron is hot" by asking the customer to sign the document there and then, without waiting for them to arrange for a Purchase Order to be raised.

Quotation & Sales Order Entry Improvements

A significant new development within the Quotation and Sales Order Entry functions is aimed at those users that frequently deal with repeat business from regular customers.

Now, in addition to browsing the Archive History, you can select Recent Sales when adding item(s) to your Sales Order or Quotation. This shows all the items that the customer has purchased recently - by default, it will show the previous 4 weeks but a system parameter allows you to change this to show any number of weeks, depending on your typical business cycle.

For example, if you call your customers on a 4-weekly basis, you might find it convenient to show the last 8 weeks of sales to catch anything that they didn't order last month.

Not only does this show the quantities of the various items this customer has purchased over recent weeks, it also allows you to enter quantities against each line at the same time, in a similar manner to filling in a column in a spreadsheet.

This ability is a significant new development that will feature in other areas of the system when the full release is launched later this year.

Managing Email Contacts for Marketing

An increasing number of customers are seeing the benefits of regular email marketing campaigns to both their existing and prospective customers. An inevitable part of email marketing is that some emails are returned as undeliverable and some recipients will send back unsubscribe requests.

Two new developments help manage these situations a little more efficiently.

Firstly, you can now define a default Unsubscribe status against a customer account - any new contacts will then pick up that status. This is designed to cover the scenario in which a customer asks that you do not send emails to any of their staff - in the past, you would have to remember (perhaps with the aid of an Urgent Customer Note) to tick the box "Declines eMailshots" when creating a new contact. Now, by setting the default, you do not have to worry about future contacts that may be added to that account. Simply click the Defaults button on the Contacts tab within Customer Account Maintenance.

The second new development is a Data Import function to allow you to import a CSV file containing a list of unsubscribed or undeliverable email addresses. The file can be of any format as long as the first column contains the email addresses.

In a further development for those involved in email marketing and using the Campaign Management module, the software has also been enhanced to be able to resume an emailshot from the point it left off.

Interruptions to emailshots can legitimately occur if, for example, an overnight backup process starts during the email transmission, as well as in cases of email server or internet connection failure and can be more likely to affect sending emailshots because of the length of time a send can take (particularly if sending to tens or hundreds of thousands of recipients).

If you do not currently have Software Assurance and would like to discuss it further, please speak to your Account Manager or complete a Software Assurance Enquiry Form.

Please click here to view details on the previous September 2009 Update for Software Assurance