EPICOR
EPICOR XL CONNECT 7.4 RELEASE GUIDE, DECEMBER 2009
EPICOR
Epicor XL Connect 7.4 Release Guide
Copyright © Epicor Software Corporation, 2009. The contents hereof are provided for information purposes only. Epicor makes no representations or warranties with respect to the contents of this document publication and specifically disclaims any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose. The usage of Epicor Software is subject to the terms of the Epicor End User License Agreement. The contents of this document are believed to be current and accurate as of its date of publication, December 2009. Changes to this document between reprinting and other important information about the software product are made or published in release notes, and you are urged to obtain the current release notes for the software product. We welcome user comments and reserve the right to revise this publication and/or make improvements or changes to the products or programs described in this publication at any time, without notice. For a complete description of the product features, please refer to the product’s user guides, reference manuals and release notes. Companies, names and/or data used in screens are fictitious, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the prior written consent of Epicor Software Corporation. Epicor and the Epicor logo are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Epicor Software Corporation. Microsoft, Windows, Excel, and PivotTable are trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
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Epicor XL Connect 7.4 Release Guide
Table of Contents Epicor XL Connect ............................................................................................... 4 Introduction .................................................................................................... 4 Epicor XL Connect ............................................................................................... 5 Overview ......................................................................................................... 5 Features ................................................................................................................ 6 Familiar Functions and Formulas ..................................................................... 6 Direct Link to your Business Data .................................................................... 7 100% Compatible Add-in for Excel ................................................................ 7 Robust Reporting and Analysis........................................................................ 8 Additional Information ...................................................................................... 9 Compatibility................................................................................................... 9 Languages....................................................................................................... 9 Upgrades......................................................................................................... 9 Epicor Consulting .............................................................................................. 10 Overview ....................................................................................................... 10 Epicor Education ............................................................................................... 11 Epicor Support ................................................................................................... 13 Overview ....................................................................................................... 13 Epicor Outsourcing ........................................................................................... 16
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Epicor XL Connect 7.4 Release Guide
Epicor XL Connect Introduction Epicor XL Connect is an add-in for Microsoft® Office Excel® that provides out-of-the-box functions for pulling ERP data directly into Excel. No matter how good a company is at reporting and analytics, there are still hundreds of cases where users need Excel, but they also need data from an ERP system. With Epicor XL Connect, you can say good-bye to copy/paste, complex queries, broken links, and out-ofdate analysis. Pulling in real-time ERP data is as easy as using a function in a cell.
WHAT’S INSIDE This guide covers provides an introduction to the capabilities of Epicor XL Connect. It also provides information on professional services, product support, education and other important topics related to this release.
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Epicor XL Connect 7.4 Release Guide
Epicor XL Connect Overview Epicor XL Connect is a business reporting and analytics solution that provides real-time, secured access to your Epicor Enterprise data from Microsoft Office Excel. It delivers simple, yet powerful capabilities to anyone who uses spreadsheets to gather and arrange business data. Epicor XL Connect makes it easy for users to create and refresh information in Excel, combining Enterprise data with additional lookups and calculations to get the answers you need without the usual challenges of gathering and refreshing the source data Epicor XL Connect fills a need for fast, flexible data access and analysis that can’t be met by traditional reporting and analytic solutions. For both ad hoc reports and regular monthly reports, Excel is often required to provide custom calculations, lookups, PivotTables™, or formatting that is not available from more inflexible tools. Canned reports and full-blown multidimensional analytics solutions have their purpose, but there will always be a need to use Excel for some things. Excel’s strong capabilities with PivotTables and graphing are fully supported with the functions that pull the data from the Epicor Enterprise system. Just as important, data can be pulled into any single cell or range of cells anywhere on a worksheet, providing unlimited flexibility to the users.
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Epicor XL Connect 7.4 Release Guide
Features Familiar Functions and Formulas Epicor XL Connect literally provides functions that understand your Epicor Enterprise data. Dozens of functions combine with drag-and-drop analysis sets that already know your data to make report creation a snap. •
Includes dozens of functions and ready-to-use analysis sets
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Eliminates the need for complex queries
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Eliminates the challenges of pulling huge amounts of data into a workbook just so you can get totals and sub-totals
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Provides for copying data-gathering functions across multiple cells just like you would any formula in Excel
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Epicor XL Connect 7.4 Release Guide
Direct Link to your Business Data Epicor XL Connect directly integrates your business data with Excel, providing end users with the assurance that data in Excel is always current and always accurate. •
Pre-integrated to your business data
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Post entries into your system and have the information reflected in
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Consolidate information from multiple company databases
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User security to data based on your Enterprise security settings
100% Compatible Add-in for Excel Epicor XL Connect makes it easy for end users to produce accurate reports with detailed audit trails all within Excel. Companies can make better use of their existing spreadsheets and no longer have to rely upon a single power report builder to create new reports. •
Leverage existing spreadsheets
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Easy to use—use your Excel skills
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Pick the data you want in each cell
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Epicor XL Connect 7.4 Release Guide
Robust Reporting and Analysis With Epicor XL Connect, you can create reports with drag-and-drop ease, utilize reporting templates, and create fully-integrated reports from existing spreadsheets all within Excel. •
Refresh and reformat reports on the fly
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Multi-dimensional drill-down—automatic creation of PivotTables
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Drag-and-drop report creation
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Epicor XL Connect 7.4 Release Guide
Additional Information Compatibility Epicor XL Connect is compatible with the following products: Products Enterprise Financials 7.3.6 Enterprise Financials 7.4 Client Microsoft Windows Vista Microsoft Windows XP Microsoft Office 2000 Microsoft Office 2003 Microsoft Office 2007 Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 Microsoft Windows Server 2000 SP4 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 32-bit Microsoft Windows Server 2008 32-bit Server Microsoft Windows Server 2000 SP4 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 32-bit or 64-bit Microsoft Windows Server 2008 32-bit or 64-bit Microsoft SQL Server 2005 SP3 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft SQL Server 2008 32-bit and 64-bit
Languages Epicor XL Connect is only available in US English.
Upgrades Epicor XL Connect is a new product; no upgrade is needed.
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Epicor XL Connect 7.4 Release Guide
Epicor Consulting Overview Epicor Consulting provides a variety of services around implementation, training, process improvement, and software customization. Our consulting organization employs 800 highly skilled and tenured consultants whose unmatched experience is backed by a proven track record of successful delivery around the world. Our worldwide teams offer local know-how coupled with a global outlook to ensure tangible results for our customers anywhere in the world—always with a focus on profitable growth and long-term business success. The foundation of our consulting organization is knowledge. Epicor’s consultants have in-depth product knowledge of Epicor’s solutions. In addition, team members have experience in a wide variety of functional areas including accounting, finance, supplychain, customer relationship management (CRM) and business intelligence. Their pooled expertise ensures Epicor’s ability to design and implement systems, troubleshoot issues, and transfer knowledge to your organization. Epicor Consulting provides a variety of services and programs including... •
Implementation Services: Proven methodology for consistent, customer-focused implementations.
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Business Process Consulting: Align customer processes, Epicor’s software and best practices.
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Hardware and Systems Consulting: Optimize network and system performance.
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Performance Workshops: Identify key performance indicators, metrics and objectives.
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Upgrade Services: Expert guidance to smoothly transition to the latest version.
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Integration Services: Seamlessly integrate Epicor with other 3rd party systems.
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Custom Solution Development: Customer-specific, designed and developed software applications.
PROVEN IMPLEMENTATION METHODOLOGY Developed, refined and proven over twenty years and thousands of implementations, Epicor's “Signature Implementation Methodology” enables efficient, consistent and well-managed projects, wherever they are in the world. The methodology has been developed to support the full spectrum of implementations; from small scale to the complex, multisite implementations that span regions, countries, or even continents.
UPGRADE SERVICES Epicor offers comprehensive consulting services to assist your organization in completing a rapid, costeffective upgrade. By enlisting services from the consulting team, you have access to an highly experienced team that has led thousands of implementations. You can choose from a variety of services to plan your strategy and execute your upgrade. The Epicor Consulting can help you understand new features and functionality and assist you in both the technical and business process aspects.
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Epicor XL Connect 7.4 Release Guide
Epicor Education Epicor’s extensive library of training courses, educational materials and user resources provide customers an excellent platform to develop an effective training program. The array of resources enables customers to choose the best options to meet their needs and tailor programs to their individual user preferences.
CLASSROOM TRAINING Epicor offers over 300+ training courses across its brands. Each course is led by a professional instructor and outlines concepts, provides detailed explanations, and incorporates hands-on activities for a blended learning environment. Epicor courses are suitable for employees at all levels of an organization – from top management to “super-users”. Within EPICweb, Epicor publishes an on-going calendar of scheduled courses. For convenience courses are hosted at Epicor training facilities throughout the world. On-Site Training: With on-site training Epicor instructors host the course at the customer’s preferred facility. This option is ideal for customers that want dedicated classes for their employees’ training and/or want to tailor the training to meet their specific or unique requirements. This option is also a cost-effective solution for customers that have large groups to train. Remote Training: An online equivalent to our classroom courses, remote classes provide the same instructor-led experience at an attendee’s desktop. Remote classes provide a flexible and cost saving alternative to the traditional classroom setting. Attendees simply require a phone and internet connection to participate in the real-time interactive training.
eLEARNING Designed as easy-to-use, self paced learning tools, eLearning provides users with an excellent informal learning resource. Along with Epicor’s classroom course, the eLearning solutions provide for a blended learning program which is recommended for adult learners. Online Tutorials: Web-based recordings that walk users through application features and functionality step-by-step at their own pace. Embedded Courses: Training courses integrated within Epicor applications. Users are able to easily navigate between training and the related application. The courses provide a structured resource for initial training, as well as an on-going reference tool.
KNOWLEDGE MENTOR Knowledge Mentor provides the ability to easily create and publish custom training. Through its “show me, try me, test me” approach, Knowledge Mentor provides a unique and interactive approach to learning. The method improves knowledge retention as learning is more effective when performed in the context of actual work. Further, content developed for training can be re-used in job aids, reference guides, product documentation, and context sensitive help. Key features include... •
Easily create user training specific to your processes.
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Link content to the actual application screens.
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Track user progress and performance through training.
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Identify knowledge levels of individuals, groups or departments.
USER RESOURCES Additional resources are available to supplement a company’s educational program. Developed for a wide audience (management, technical, and end-users) the resources provide detailed information on installing, configuring and using Epicor applications. •
User Guides: Illustrated, detailed instructions that walk users through major application functions.
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Epicor XL Connect 7.4 Release Guide
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Feature Summaries: Concise overview of the new functionality within a new product release.
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Online Help/Field Help: Reference tool that documents application feature/functionality, field definitions, calculations, tips and examples.
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Installation Guides: Comprehensive instructions on installing applications.
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Technical Reference Guides: In depth information on the most complex functionality and business logic.
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Epicor XL Connect 7.4 Release Guide
Epicor Support Overview Epicor stands behind all of its products with an award winning support organization, capable of serving our global customer base efficiently and effectively. With over twenty-five years of experience supporting customers, Epicor Support has a proven history in ensuring customer satisfaction and increasing the value that they derive from our software. Epicor Support provides a comprehensive application and technical support, including supporting Epicor and 3rd party software, databases and supporting technology.
APPLICATION SUPPORT •
Assist users with day to day use of the applications.
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Resolve inconsistencies or product deficiencies.
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Offer guidance on system workflow and processes.
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Provide product work-aids and tools that help end-users.
TECHNICAL SUPPORT •
Assist IT staff in resolving technical system issues.
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Perform system diagnostics.
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Provide database support and performance tuning.
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Offer guidance and support on reporting tools.
EXTENDED SUPPORT HOURS With the purchase of Epicor’s Premier Support and Maintenance Plan we provide extended support hours. Extended support covers the hours 6pm Sunday – 6pm Friday (Pacific). Epicor’s 5x24 support policy also includes limited support coverage for the standard U.S. holidays.
EXPANDED WEEKEND COVERAGE With the purchase of Epicor’s Premier Support and Maintenance Plan we provide extended weekend coverage. By appointment, customers that require additional support coverage for planned events, like upgrades, which require support over a weekend, are provided a personal support contact.
SERVICE LEVEL COMMITMENTS Our service level commitments provide service level targets that customers can expect and rely on. This commitment includes an “open door policy” which allows our customers to escalate any issue at any time, to all levels within the support organization. Additionally, we will only close an issue with the customer’s approval.
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Epicor XL Connect 7.4 Release Guide
Service Level Response Time Escalation Status Update Close Process Hold Time Resolution Target Survey Response
Commitment /Goal Immediate or within one hour (phone contact) Any issue at any time Daily updates for all priority issues Only upon customer approval 0-2 minutes Immediate response with continued top priority focus through resolution 9+ (Scale 1-10)
Further, Epicor Support takes customer feedback very seriously. After the close of every incident we follow up with a survey to measure customer satisfaction. The results are one of our key indicators of how well we are doing against our Service Level Commitments.
ADVANCED SUPPORT TOOLS Epicor Support utilizes leading edge technology and tools to ensure that customers can easily connect with the right person, with the right knowledge, to quickly resolve issues. Our automatic call distribution system routes calls to the appropriate support analyst. Via Epicor’s Clientele system, our analysts have instant access to your records and an extensive knowledge base of information. Further, by using tools such as WebEx™ and Identify® AppSight™ BlackBox they can remotely access and diagnose issues in realtime.
ONLINE SUPPORT CENTER Our online support center, EPICweb (epicweb.epicor.com), provides customers 24x7 access to information, resources and services including live chat, customer account information, incident tracking, our support Knowledge Base, product documentation and downloads, online forums and communities, and other helpful information. The portal is the central point of contact between Epicor and our customers and partners. Some key benefits of this portal site include: For a complete list of features and benefits, and to setup your own account, go to http://www.epicor.com/security/passwordmanager.aspx
PRODUCT UPDATES As part of a support agreement, customers have access to product patches, service packs and new versions. The periodically released product updates contain recognized issues identified through customer feedback, requested new or enhanced feature/functionality, government regulatory requirements, and architectural/performance improvements. Access to the latest Epicor software ensures customers stay current with technology and both protect and extend their IT investment.
USER GROUPS Epicor has a formal user group with industry focused regional and international sub-groups that meet regularly. These groups provide an opportunity to network with peers and benefit from their knowledge and experiences with Epicor software. User groups also provide a critical link between Epicor and our user community, providing a format for customers to engage with Epicor in an open, collaborative environment, as we work with them in planning future product releases.
USER GROUP LEADERSHIP COUNCILS There are two Epicor User Group Leadership Councils (EUGLC), one for Enterprise and one for Vantage, along with subcommittees for specific topics or projects. The purpose of the leadership council is to
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Epicor XL Connect 7.4 Release Guide
represent the customer base and assist Epicor in being responsive to its customers’ needs. The council has the opportunity to influence product development plans and customer support procedures to ensure that both our software products and our services meet our customers’ needs.
PRODUCT LIAISONS Each Epicor product line has a product liaison. The product liaisons help administer list servers, work with development on customer surveys, and organize the SIG (Special Interest Groups) for each discipline within their product lines. For a listing of all Product Liaisons and SIG Leaders, please visit www.epicorusers.org.
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Epicor XL Connect 7.4 Release Guide
Epicor Outsourcing Outsourcing the day-to-day management of systems or operations has become a viable option for small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) to reduce costs and improve the efficiency of operations. Epicor Outsourcing provides a set of services that leverage our core competencies, are right sized for SMBs and can be tailored to the specific needs of your business. Services include application hosting, application management, helpdesk outsourcing and business process outsourcing. The services provide our customers with access to knowledgeable experts, specialized resources, and world class facilities.
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