Release Notes for Connected Business 13.0
Release Date: 02-13-2013
If you have not yet read the software upgrade considerations, click here.
New Features and Key Benefits
eCommerce
- New! Added Customer Support Page in Website
Your online customers can now submit a case report in the Customer Support page if they encounter any website-related problems. You can view and edit the submitted cases through the Case form in the CRM module.
- New! Added the Cross-Sell and Up-Sell Feature
Store admin can now sell more products by recommending additional or relevant products when a customer shops for a specific product.
- New! Added Shopping Cart Preview
Customers can easily view and update products added to their cart without having to go to the Shopping Cart page through the Mini Cart.
- New! Added the Large Pop-up Image Option
Create a detailed and stunning product image display by adding zoom effects on your web item images.
- Enhanced Product Attributes
Customers can now compare products based on item specifications and attributes.
- New! Improved Search Results in the Website
Customers can now see all relevant details and items when searching for a specific product.
- New! Added Sitemaps & Data Feeds
You can post your products through supported online marketing feeds such as Google Market Place, Bing, etc.
- Added Shipping Calculator on Shopping Cart
You can get an estimate of shipping rates and fees for your items based from current address, postal code, state or country and business type before making the actual purchase.
- New! Support for Social Media Links
You can now share and post your products through popular networking/social sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Digg etc. and even email a product to a friend.
- New! Product Sorting on Entity Pages
Web items can now be classified or grouped according to a number of sort options such as the best seller products, new arrivals, alphabetical order and more! Product Sorting can be viewed on entity pages such as Category, Department and Manufacturer.
- New Look on the Create Account Page on the Website.
Enhance new customer experience with the New Create Account page’ simple and elegant design. Not to mention, the system automatically validates all information entered and flags any invalid information for correction. You can also add your own topics through the side notes.
- Enhanced Image Resizing
Resize web images easily with the Image Editor.
- New XMLPackage Design for Matrix
Customers can now see all available related matrix items in one page using different xml packages.
- New! Web Session Review for Call Center
Customers can get website assistance easily by coordinating with your store’s customer service representative.
- New! Support for Gift Registry
Customers can now set and view wish lists of items they want to have or purchase from your website for any upcoming events.
- New! Template Switching on Aspx Pages
Customize your website skins based on category, manufactures, department, etc.
- New! Store Locator Map
The Store/Location Map, which uses Google’s innovative map service application embedded in Connected Business, allows you to navigate to your desired destination by searching for the address and gives you map directions on how to get there.
- Added the Content Management Style (CMS) Edit Mode
Ability to edit website contents directly through the Content Management Style.
- Mobile Connected Business eCommerce
A whole new application of eCommerce designed for mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets etc.
CRM
- New! Added Predefined Notes
A tool that allows you to automatically include preset comments or instructions that can be added publicly or internally on major transaction forms as well as reports.
- New! Scan Lead Option
Scan business cards and create lead automatically to avoid hassle in typing the details or information of an incoming or new lead.
Customer
- New! Ability to Void Posted Sales Invoice
A posted invoice can now be voided in the Customer module so you can easily reverse accounts posted on the general ledger. All void invoices are kept on file which lets you track customers with the most number of invoice cancellations.
- New! Direct Payment within Order and Invoice Forms
The most straightforward customer payment processing aside from the Receipts and the Apply Credit form. You can go ahead and make payments directly in the Sales Order and Invoice forms.
- Improved Drop Shipment Functionality
Sales Order stock reservation are automatically updated when the system detects any adjustments on the linked Purchase Order.
- New! Support for Solid Commerce Integration
Sell more products and connect your business with third party marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, Overstock and more integrated within the Connected Business. Note: This is still in BETA version.
- New! Support for Negative Quantity Entries on Transaction Forms
Enter negative quantities restricted only for non-stock and service item types on sales orders or invoices for reversing sales transactions.
- Ability to notify user for changes in allocation on the Sales Order
Sales order stock allocation automatically notifies the user viewed in a highlighted inventory line item when there is a shortage in quantity of the linked purchase order. Orders can be fulfilled once stock allocation is completely done.
- New! Dynamic Kit Weight option
Use the actual combined weight of your selected kit items in calculating your shipping cost instead of the default kit weight. When you select kit items in the kit configurator within the Sales order or invoice forms, the system will automatically calculate the freight charge for the kit based on the weight of the items selected.
- New! Added Will Call Option
Your customers can now have the option to pick up their ordered products at your warehouse indicated in the sales order form.
- New! Support for Multiple Barcode Per Item
The Product identifier option allows more than one barcode per inventory item which applies for a retailer that has different suppliers of the same inventory item. Added support for EAN, ISBN and NPH per Google's requirements.
- New! Simplified Payment through the Apply Credit form
One of the customer payment options where if a customer has an existing open credit notes or payments, it can be applied directly to invoices or opening balances for transaction with remaining balances.
- New! Direct Refund in Interprise Gateway 2.0
You may now be able to process customer credit card refunds using Interprise Gateway 2.0. Blind functionality should be enabled in merchant account to be able to use this feature. Contact Transnational to enable Blind Credit.
- New! Support for Zip+4 Taxation
Together with the Address validation feature, you can determine the most accurate and applicable tax rates for a customer’s postal code address using Plus 4.
Shipping
- New! Re-credit Account for Endicia Carrier
You can now be able to buy more postage stamps through the Endicia Buy Postage Wizard using your Endicia account and password.
- New! Added the Address Type Function
Give your customers more accurate information on shipping rates by specifying their address type whether it’s residential or commercial.
- New! Address Verification Feature
If an incorrect address is entered when creating a new customer in Connected Business, the Address Verification form will pop up showing the Current Address (the address you entered for the customer) and the Best Match Address (the address from the shipping carriers database). You can select the correct address by clicking the Select Address in the Best Match Address section and this will automatically update the customer's address, city and postal code.
- New! Added Blind Ship Functionality
You may now indicate the Customer's Ship from Address to the Active Customer listed in Connected Business and the Ship to Address of the consignee which is the person whom the customer wants to deliver the goods. This shipping service hides the point of origin (usually the manufacturer or wholesaler) to the consignee.
- New! Added the ability to Force Void Shipping Transactions
When a shipment transaction or label has been voided on the carrier website, your Connected Business database record does not automatically adjust. In order for your records within Connected Business to sync with the carrier website and avoid errors while updating an already voided shipment (whether active or completed), you need to force void a shipment tracking number.
- New! Added the Multi Package Pop-up.
For multi-package shipments, a pop-up form will display which requires information details such as the weight, length, height and the insured value for each boxes or package lines.
- Enhancements on Prepacked Shipments
For shipments with prepacked items, a pop up form will display and confirm if the user wants to generate the shipping label for the prepacked items before generating the label for regular and oversized items.
- New! Real-time Freight Calculation in Sales Order and Invoice Form
Inquire shipping rates directly from the Sales Order or Invoice by clicking on the Freight Quote button.
- New! Weight Threshold Option
You can now specify the maximum weight per shipping method to accurately calculate the real-time total freight charge in the Sales Order and Sales Invoice form.
- New! Support for FedEx Saturday Pickup
You may now include a special service option where your customers can pick up their orders on a Saturday. However, rates apply differently for Saturdays compared to weekdays.
- New! Support for FedEx Home Delivery
You may now include a special service option where you can deliver shipments directly to your customers’ residential address. Enable the FedEx.HomeDeliveryPremium in the shipping configuration to be able to use this service.
Supplier
- New! Allow Back Order Transactions
Supplier Purchase Orders (PO) have always allowed to be partially received. When all items were not received on the Goods received (GRN) and the user choose not to update the PO quantity, the PO will be set to Partial status upon posting the GRN. The partially received Purchase Orders can now be overridden by the “Allow Back Order” option available on both Supplier form and the PO form.
- New! Landed Cost Option in Bill Transactions
Capability to add an amount value to the confirmed cost across the item lines in a Bill transaction. This amount can be distributed either by item cost or item weight.
- Enhanced Purchase Order Stock Reservation
You can now manually changed the allocated value based on quantity ordered.
- Enhanced Purchase Order Reservation Ship Date
Whenever there are changes as to when you will received the items on the linked Purchase Order allocated for a Sales Order, the system will automatically adjust the ship date on the sales order.
Inventory
- New! Special Order Pop-up and Designer
When creating an order for an item that you don’t have physical inventory for all the permutations available, a form will be displayed that lists all the custom choices for the item. The choices will be added to both the product description of the order and the special order purchase order sent to your supplier.
- New! Maximum Discount at Item Price Level
Allows you to override maximum discount and set the maximum discount a sales rep can limit to customer order.
- New! Customer Pricing for Kit Components
Allows users to define kit components with custom prices that are specific only on the definition of the items on the kit. If changes are made on the kit components, the system will adapt to the defined customer pricing involving all kit components.
Banking
- New! Gateway Response Log Viewer
Ability to view the data returned by the credit card gateway such as the date, document code, references, masked credit card number and the transaction type for every credit card payments made.
Accounting
- New! Ignore Negative Stock on Revaluation
This option, if enabled, will allow you to ignore negative stocks when revaluating inventory items.
- New! Auto Post Transaction to Ledger
Allows you to automatically post all transactions to the current period and directly to the General Ledger.
- Enhanced Financial Statement Views
You can now perform variance analysis on your financial statements based from percent variance on any fiscal period. You can also print expanded views on financial reports such as account codes included.
- New! Journal into Control Account Option
This option restricts users from creating manual entry to GL accounts being used by the system to generate journal.
- New! Journal into Control Account Option
This option restricts users from creating manual entry to GL accounts being used by the system to generate journal.
- New! Stock Revaluation by Location
Sales can now be analyzed based from the location. You can set this up through the Accounting Preferences.
System Manager
- New! Import Manager
A whole new way to import your data files with Excel, CSV or XML compatible formats into Connected Business. This includes mapping properties for source fields, validate fields before importing or even import data directly.
- New! Report Center
Report Center was completely built from the ground up! A much faster, more flexible report writer to easily create reports of your own!
- Search Form/Dashboard Designer
Allows the user to configure predefined filters that can be used as dashboards or search screens in most of the modules or even apply as content on a new menu item.
- New! Job Service Engine
The Job Calendar allows you to create job plans, preview all the scheduled job plans / job items or even cancel the execution of the job plans / job items. You can even view the actual status, execution and the dependencies of each job plans / job items.
- Enhancement on Class Template Rule
Class Template Rule is a list of rules to determine which class templates to be assigned on a certain postal code. Every time a user edit or create a postal code the system will automatically checks the rule if it has an assigned template depending on the country, state code and county of the created/edited postal code.
- New Company Enhancements
In the New Company Wizard, a color–coded notification is added on the Company checklist to easily identify and to notify the user when a specific category or sub category has been completed or not. You may want to complete the creation of the new company category or sub category depending on the notification.
- New! Bubble Help Designer
Allows you to add a description known as tooltips to every fields of the Connected Business forms.
- Audit Trail Enhancement
The Audit Trail tab is enhanced in most transactional forms such as Sales Quote, Sales Order, Sales Invoice, RMA and Credit Memo where all changes made by a specific user are recorded in detail. Clicking on the linked document will display the Audit trail form which lists all the most specific changes made on the document.
- Added the Popup Filter type option in Business Intelligence Manager
An enhancement in the Business Intelligence where you can filter data and limit results by excluding or including a certain data to be viewed on the chart for further analysis.
Report Center
- New! Report Engine
Connected Business has an entirely new report facade with improved performance for creating simple to advanced reports completely built from the ground up!
- New! Report Wizard
Create reports easily through the report wizard.
- New! Report Search Engine
Allows you to search reports from simple to advanced searches.
- New! Added Stored Procedure and SQL Query as Data Sources
You may now add Stored Procedures and SQL Query as data sources for your reports.
- New! Support for Label Reports
Easily create and design label reports such as the page size, margins and the type of paper through the report template chooser.
- New! Dynamic Form Binding
Ability to link a report to a form, specify the visibility of the report on the form based on the criteria and Filter the report data based on the form data.
- New! Import and Export Reports
Download and upload files through the export and import manager.
- New! Added Calculated Fields Option
Add a customized filter expression such as fields, operators, constants and parameters in your reports through the expression editor.
- New! Report Template
Make use of the built-in templates provided by Connected Business to help you create templates for future reports.
- New! Report Default Template
Ability to assign a default report template.
- New! Support for SubReports
An advanced report technology where you can add a report within a report.
- New! Multi-Report Designer
Ability to handle multiple reports at once viewed in separate tabs. This will also allow you to easily hover from one report to another. You can open as much as 10 reports simultaneously which is also great for creating subreports.
- New! Report Preview
Lets you view reports easily with a number of menu options to control how you would like to view your report for printing.
- New! Report Migration Tool
Migrate old reports to the new report engine through the report migration tool.
- New! Conditional Data Formatting Designer
You may specify the format by adding formatting rules on the bounded fields of your report.
- New! System Currency Formatting
Define currency formats through the currency formatting editor.
- New! Simplified User Role for Reports
Manage users’ visibility on your reports and allows you to edit functions of each report per role code.
- New! Support for Multi-Lingual
Ability to create reports for multi-lingual.
- New! Support for Silent Printing
Print directly to printer without the print dialog.
- Improved Printing of Reports Through Email/Fax
Send to specific or dynamic recipients, dynamically split report into individual emails or fax, attach reports individually into each email or fax, configure the report's document code as the email or fax subject and setup default email body per report.
- New! Added Favorites Section
Ability to create shortcuts so you can quickly access your favorite reports
- Improved Data Filtering
Support for date function on report filters such as Today, Tomorrow, Next Week, etc.
- New! Report Explorer
View and organize your reports in one place.
- New! Report Post Action
Ability to update certain data after every print.
- New! Ability to Copy System Reports and Reset the Copied Report Back to Original
Database
- New! Added the Data Verifier Option in DBMC
The system automatically isolates Sales Order and Invoice transactions that are for drop shipment. This option can be accessed through the Database Management Console.
- New! Audit Trail Cleanup Option in DBMC
Allows you to perform clean up records for all audit trail forms in Connected Business.
Connected Business POS Desktop and POS Mobile
Connected Business POS Desktop is the Connected Business Point-of-Sale Desktop Application. The Connected Business POS Mobile is the Connected Business Point of Sale application for iPad. These are fully integrated point of sale solution that allows you to process Sales, Returns, Exchanges, Orders, Quotes, On Account payments and more.
The following are the new features on Connected Business’ Point of Sale application for desktop and iPad. Note however that there are some features that are only available for a certain device but is not available for the other.
- New! Dynamic and Fully Configurable Reports
Ability to customize receipts by editing receipt formats for every workstation.
- Integration of POS Reports to Connected Business Report Engine
This gives users ability to customize the POS reports to suit their business needs
- New! Support for EPSON Printer and Cash Drawer
Uses EPSON printer for printing sale receipts and supports cash drawer as cash compartment from sale transactions.
- New! Added Full 8.5x11 Receipt for Transactions
Transaction types such as sale, order, quote and return can now be able to print 8.5x11 receipts.
- New! More POS Configuration Options
Added configurations in the preference to let the user specify what receipt file to use and for default transactions on both Connected Business POS and Kiosk.
- New! Exchange Receipts Show All Items
Exchange receipts will not only show the item sold but will show all the inventory items.
- New! Support for Suspend Transaction
Ability to suspend transactions without posting it and can be resumed at anytime from any workstation.
- New! Ability to change Location and Unit of Measure
Change inventory location for a particular item as well as the unit of measure right on your workstation.
- New! Added Postal Code or Country Lookup in Customer Creation
When creating new or new ship to customer, you may now make use of searching up for your postal code or the country.
- Prohibit Processing of Existing Transaction with Freight Tax
You can no longer load or process existing transaction with freight tax on Connected Business POS.
- Added Required Location Tax Option
If tax by location is enabled, Connected Business POS requires that the location has tax setup.
- New! Support for Blind Close
Only the administrators can view the Z-tape report when closing the workstation.
- New! Requires User Validation When Exiting Kiosk
Only valid staff (CB user accounts) can exit the Kiosk mode.
- Implement Default POS Shopper Customer
The default customer is named 'Default POS Shopper'.
- Renamed Web Services
These are the web services that are renamed: Customer web service is now Contacts, SOP web service is now Transactions, Products web service is now Products, POS web service is now System.
- Added New Web Services (Web Service Only)
New webservices are added for Purchase Order Processing, receiving Items against a PO, Inventory Adjustment, Inventory Stock Take and Inventory Transfer.
- New! Support for Voice Credit Card Authorization*
You may now be able to process customer credit card payments through voice credit card authorization.
- New! Support for Multicurrency*
POS would always use the home currency of company database regardless of customer.
- New! Added a Configuration to Use Item Images of Connected Business eCommerce*
User has an option whether to use image of an item stored on the general tab of item form or on the web option tab.
- New! Support for Item Tax Override*
User roles with an administrative right can now override item taxes for a transaction.
- New! Support for Serial and Lot Numbers*
You may now be able to enter serial and lot numbers for your inventory items.
- New! Support for IDTech Shuttle Mobile MagStripe Reader**
The only supported credit card swiper for Connected Sale application.
- New! Show Wholesale Price Option**
A setting is added whether or not to show the wholesale price in the item detail.
- New! Support for Air-print Enabled Printers**
Print Connected Sale receipts using Air-Print enabled printers, no need to install printer drivers.
- New! Signature Capture**
Allows your customer to add signature when making credit card payments on Connected Sale.
- Added Summary Report***
New reports such as Sales by workstation, sales by clerk, sales by location, sales by payment method and reason report are now added in the Connected Business Report.
* This is only applicable for Connected Business POS.
** This is only applicable for Connected Sale.
*** This is applicable for Connected Business (back-end).
Known Issues and Limitations
- Inventory
- An error will display if you want to print a new and unsaved stock take transaction.
Workaround: Create a new stock transaction by going to the Inventory module > Stock > Stock Take > New Stock Take.
- An error will occur in the following scenario:
- Go to Inventory module > Pricing > Item Pricing > Item, the Item Pricing Wizard will display.
- Select any location and then click on the refresh button. Notice that the Location is deleted and the grid is populated with an “All“ value in the Comparison column.
- If you click on the grid below the “All” value, a Table Name will display above the “All” value. DO NOT click Next as this will create an error.
Workaround: To avoid this error, skip steps #2 and 3 to continue setting up pricing for both wholesale and retail items.
- Bundle item type is not yet supported in the solid commerce integration but the product upload doesn't exclude it in the upload process.
- Report
- Print setting is not saved properly. When you preview a report from print dialog, the next time you load the print dialog, it should default to print preview.
- Creating a lowest cost is not yet working.
- Number of copies is not yet working.
- Print range is not yet working.
- Collate is not yet working.
- Finding printer on print dialog is not yet working.
- Label preview on Report Template Chooser form is blank.
- Connected Business POS
- Unable to print credit card receipt using silent printing. This exists only for credit card payments and when automatically printing receipt.
Workaround: For those who have installed the first copy of Connected Business 13, please re-download and re-install the latest installer of Connected Business.
- Connected Sale
- Cannot complete a return transaction when using credit card payment. This issue only exists when the payment type of the customer is not set to Credit Card.
Workaround: Set up the payment type of the customer's payment term to Credit Card.