Sage’s Technology Roadmap

You have a web service (WS) working as expected then you make a minor change and all of the sudden the WS is not working anymore. What do you do? You could try troubleshooting using Sage X3 Classic SOAP web services but in our experience, it is much better to use SOAPUI instead. This is an open source software designed to manage WS calls. It is easy to set up and use and allows you to reuse your test code. Steps to set up and use SOAPUI for X3 subprogram web services Download software from https://www.soapui.org/downloads/latest-release.html Open SOAPUI Select Switch the Workspace from File menu. Enter a name for a file that will contain the entire workspace. The workspace can have multiple projects pointing to different Sage X3 installations and folders. Make sure you add .xml extension to the file name. Click Open. You will get a confirmation message, click Yes. Create a new SOAP project by right clicking on Projects (1) and selecting New SOAP Project. The Initial WSDL URL (2) contains the Sage X3 web server and port. The entire URL is http://YOUR_X3_SERVER:YOUR_X3_PORT/soap-wsdl/syracuse/collaboration/syracuse/CAdxWebServiceXmlCC?wsdl Specify Sage X3 credentials to connect to the folder. Double click on CAdxWebServiceXmlCCSoapBinding (1), then click on Service Endpoints tab (2) and enter your username (3) and password (4). To setup a request that executes the Sage X3 subprogram WS, select run method (1) and click on Request 1 (2). You could change the name to a more meaningful name (3) . Double click on the new Request (1) and set up the authentication as Basic authentication. To do so, click on Auth (2) and select Basic on the Authorization drop down (3). If Basic doesn’t exist already, select Add New Authorization from the drop down (4) and create it by selecting Basic Type (5). Enter the Sage X3 credentials to connect to the folder. They don’t have to be the same as the credentials used to connect to the WS Pool. Make sure Authenticate pre-emptively is selected. Fill in SOAP XML parameters with the appropriate information:
1. codeLang: Sage X3 language
2. poolAlias: Sage X3 Pool name
3. requestConfig: adxwss.trace.on=on&adxwss.beautify=true&adxwss.optreturn=XML
4. publicName: Web service name
5. inputXml: Web service input parameters (make sure the parameters are enclosed on … tags) Submit the request by clicking on the green arrow in the toolbar and get your results. Save your project and reuse it every time you want. Right click on the project (1) and select Save Project. Now you know how to use this program. Give it a try next time you have issues with web services.

Sage 100 (MAS 90) ERP 2015 is expected out mid-year. As we reviewed the list of enhancements included, we found that Sage has done an especially good job of listening to customer requests and incorporating them into the software. The release includes over fifty control, workflow, and usability improvements. Here’s an early look at some of the highlights of this useful release. System-Wide Enhancements
Global enhancements to Sage 100 ERP include security and control features, scripting, and better printing workflow. Security and Control
The System Activity Log will display which options are changed when any of the Setup Options records are updated, and module options have been added to provide control over ALE lookups for both printing and exporting to Excel. Sage Intelligence Viewer will be included in Role Maintenance for security. The country table will now be pre-populated with country codes, including both those found in Sage CRM and additional codes from the ISO standards. You will now also optionally be able to install Canadian Postal Codes. A new User Preference will allow you to default to the current module when switching companies. Printing Improvements
An updated Amyuni driver for Paperless Office will make the conversion of reports to PDF faster, and separate performance improvements are being made for printing checks and extended stubs to PDF through Paperless Office. All reports will provide direct access to the associated Paperless Office Viewer via the Save drop-down menu, and printing tasks have been added for approximately 17 reports and RMA forms not previously available in Paperless Office. Scripting
The Customizer in being enhanced so that you can create additional maintenance space on panels/forms for UDFs, and you will also be able to add UI events to which you can attach user-defined scripts. UDF data sources in AP manual check entry are being added to be consistent with check printing. Sage also plans to regularly add Customizer examples and documentation for scripting to Sage City to make it easier to make minor workflow improvements yourself. General Ledger and Bank Reconciliation
Positive Pay exporting will now be easier with a new sample bank format and the addition of a “remit to” name in check printing. Reconciling the bank statement will be easier with the ability to sort columns in Bank Rec. just as you would in Excel. Reversing journal entries will be simplified with a button in Account Maintenance, Transactions tab, to automatically create the entries in General Journal Entry. When entering an unformatted GL Account Number in report selections, the value will automatically be formatted, and you will be able to Sort and Select by Account on the GL Account Audit Report. Accounts Payable
The Vendor Name field in A/P is being expanded to 50 characters. You will now have access to the “Select Invoices” dialog for all purchase transfer vendors in Manual Check and Payment Entry, and the ability to sort and select by Vendor will be available on the AP Vendor Audit Report. When creating a *PRNT* check, the print button will still be accessible even after the check is initially printed, allowing the check to be re-printed. The ability to sort by columns has been added to many areas in Accounts Payable, including: Select Invoices for Payment in Invoice Payment Selection Select Check and Electronic Payment Maintenance Select Manual Check and Payment Invoices Select Vendor Transfer Invoices
Select Customer Invoices in AP from AR Clearing Entry (Period End Processing) Credit Card Processing
Level III detail is being added to credit card processing so your organization can take advantage of reduced fees. You will also be able to perform a second credit card pre-authorization after the first one has expired. Accounts Receivable
New sorting and selecting options have been added in Select Cash Receipts Invoices and the Customer Audit Report. You will also be able to set a flag to suppress invoice printing for customers you are invoicing using Sage Billing and Payment. Sage has also added Pay Date as one of the selections on the Salesperson Commission Report. Printing multiple forms will be made easier with the option to keep print dialogs open after printing. Purchase Order and Sales Order
Purchase Order History is being added, similar to a previous enhancement for Sales order/Quote History. The Purchase Order History selection screen you will see is shown below. You will be able to easily “copy from” a previous purchase order when creating a new one, and a new option on the Generate tab will allow you to sort by either Item Code or Sales Order Line No. when creating a new PO through generation. Printing multiple forms will be made easier with the option to print dialogs open after printing Sales Order and Purchase Order Forms, and you will have the option to redisplay the source document after doing a Quick Print in Purchase Order. A calculator will be available to you in the Landed cost field, and you will now be able to see allocated freight, landed cost, and sales tax in PO Receipt History Inquiry. Warehouse Code, Sales Tax Schedule, Exemption Info, FOB, and Ship Via will now be displayed on the PO Ship-To Address dialog, and the Vendor Memo button will be available to you on the main panel of Receipt of Goods Entry, Receipt of Invoice Entry, and Return of Goods Entry. Similarly, the Customer Memo button will be available to you on the main panel of Sales Order Entry and Invoice Entry. To mitigate entry errors in Shipping Data Entry, a warning will display when leaving Item Packaging Maintenance if the quantity shipped does not match the quantity packed. A new option in Sales Order Printing will allow you to prevent or allow printing of orders on hold. Inventory and Bill of Materials
For Inventory Transactions, you will now be able to set options for access by each Inventory Transaction Entry type, and separate Role Maintenance security will be available for Item Vendor Maintenance accessed through Item Maintenance. New fields and options include a new field in Item Maintenance, Transactions tab to drill into the GL Source Journal, and the ability to exclude Item Vendors and Alias Items in Copy Item. Product Line maintenance will now include a “copy from” option, and Sort and Selection by item is being added to the IM Item Audit Report. The Last Physical Count Date will now update by Item and Warehouse. Both fields will be viewable in Item Maintenance/inquiry. You will now be able to launch Bill of Materials Maintenance from Item Maintenance, and a new option in Bill of Materials will allow you to synchronize the first line of the item description when both the item description and bill descriptions are the same. We’d love to hear which of these improvements will be most useful to your organization. Please email or call us to discuss them in more detail, or to schedule your Sage 100 ERP upgrade.

What can we expect to see in 2018? An accelerated push towards digital-transformation, as the Internet of Things (IoT) increasingly expands into every layer of business and as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning continues to transform everyday thing. Experts at world leading research firm Gartner coined the phrase “Intelligent Digital Mesh” to describe the entwining of people, devices, content and services enabled by digital models, intelligent services and business platforms. This mesh is broken down into ten strategic technology trends with broad industry impact and significant potential for disruption in the near future. In a recent report, Gartner highlight these 10 trends and how they will transform the way we do business in the coming years: Intelligent There will be increasing ability to use AI to enhance decision making, reinvent business models and ecosystems, and remake the customer experience. AI will be incorporated at some level into every app, application and service. AI and machine learning will increasingly appear in a variety of objects ranging from smart healthcare equipment to autonomous harvesting robots for farms. Digital A digital representation of a real-world entity or system called digital twins will exist for billions of things in the near future. Businesses will begin using cloud and edge capabilities in their infrastructure architectures. Conversational platforms will drive a paradigm shift in which the burden of translating intent will shift from user to computer and will continue to evolve to even more complex actions. Augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality combined with conversational platforms will fundamental shift the user experience to an invisible and immersive experience. Mesh Blockchain, a shared, distributed, decentralized and tokenized ledger that removes business friction by being independent of individual applications or participants, holds the promise to change many industries. With the advent of AI, the IoT, and other technologies, business events which constitutes of situation that calls for some specific business action can be detected more quickly and analyzed in greater detail. Continuous adaptive risk and trust assessment (CARTA) allows for real-time, risk and trust-based decision making with adaptive responses to security-enable digital business. To implement this, businesses should integrate security into their DevOps efforts and explore deception technologies to catch infiltrators. Read the full post here to see the detailed top 10 technology trends for 2018 and how enterprises can adopt these trends across all levels of the organization.