August 2005

Greetings!

Revision 11 Available!

Revision 11 of the SouthWare Excellence Series is available now. This latest version reflects a new milestone. For more than 20 years, SouthWare product development has focused on delivering the most important features required to effectively run a business. SouthWare is fully committed to continuing this effort but with an exciting new perspective. Rather than simply developing software that "a user" can run, we're considering each new enhancement and every existing function from the viewpoint of the most relevant PERSONA and their related PORTALs.

This exciting innovation provides a unique framework to help you better learn and understand how to use your SouthWare system to accomplish your goals in the various roles you perform.

What is a Persona?

What's a Persona? A persona is a fictitious personality intended to represent a "sample" SouthWare user performing a particular role. We recognize that the ultimate goal of business software is to help people achieve their goals. Personas help explain how this happens. These example personas help explain features of the software (including portals designed specifically for each persona) and relate these features to real-life goals and uses.

Each SouthWare persona is described in a series of web pages. The information for each persona includes a brief overview of:

Job responsibilities and Personal Goals
Challenges
The most likely SouthWare portal used (although many users will use multiple portals in their different roles) and a link to access the live portal
Other modules and features used
Questions/Answers typical for this type of user

What is a Portal?

What's a PORTAL? In SouthWare, a PORTAL is a web page that is organized in a way to make a person's role easier to accomplish. Related functions typically handled by that person(a) are easily accessed from that web page. Relevant information for this particular role will also be displayed and more data will be readily available. Status info for appropriate areas of concern will also be displayed or easily accessed.

Here are the portals available as of the release of Revision 11. Others will be added in the future.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
Chief Financial Officer (CFO)
Outside Director (Board member)
Outside Auditor/Accountant
Sales Manager
Service Manager
Warehouse Supervisor
Accounts Payable Administrator
Accounts Receivable Administrator
General Ledger Administrator
Order Entry
Sales Professional
Buyer/Purchaser
Service Dispatcher
Service Technician
Customer Service Representative
Shipping/Receivings
System Administrator
SouthWare Tools Developer

New SouthWare Forms Supplier

SouthWare is pleased to introduce a new SouthWare- approved forms provider, Dynamic Systems. As always, SouthWare looks to provide the highest quality products and services for our clients. Dynamic Systems has an outstanding reputation as a quality provider of forms. Their references are impeccable.

When you contact Dynamic Systems, be sure to ask about their "Buy 250 SouthWare Laser Checks / Get 250 Free" promotion! We know you'll enjoy working with them.

Revision 11 Interactive Release Notice

Beginning with Revision 9, the Excellence Series has provided an interactive release notice that you can use at your workstation. Many of these interactive features are available from the web, too. This tool provides a simple way for you to learn more about the latest features and how they can be of benefit to you!

With Revision 11, you'll appreciate the new design of the release notice. We're using the tools and technology of this release to help you learn more about this edition and how it can help you reach your goals. By clicking on one of the topics in the frame on the left of the release notice screen, you can see more information in the frame on the right. By hovering over the topic list (or buttons) on the left, you may discover that we've provided a number of different capabilites under that one heading. Finally, in some screens, you will also notice that the tabs across the page may have drop-downs to give you access to additional info, too.

Release Notice for Revision 11

Revision 11 of the Excellence Series contains many, many new features. Even though most changes are only available if you choose to use them, it is still challenging to review all of the important benefits in this latest release.

To make it easier for you to see what's new, we've provided more than 130 pages of information about the new features in Revision 11. This document is organized by application. You may also search for key words that might help you answer your most immediate questions.

Product Improvement Index

Since an extensive release notice can be overwhelming, we've created the product improvement index to provide you with a brief description of the many significant changes in a revision. These changes are organized by application.

In addition to previous releases, there is an index which reflects those enhancements now available in Revision 11.