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Upcoming Release of Version 6.81

The next release of Opera II (Version 6.81) is based on customer feedback and sees the functionality of Executive Dashboards extended to meet users’ needs. The release also includes enhancements to the core Opera II product, a new release of Document Management, support for Internet Explorer version 8 and support for SQL server 2008.

What's new in Executive Dashboards (2.60)

To make informed decisions, management needs easy access to key performance indicators in real time to be able to respond quickly and accurately. This can be achieved through Executive Dashboards, giving you an up to date picture of the business in an easy to understand, visually attractive format.
Using customer feedback, significant improvements ha been made to the Executive Dashboards Manager module. You can now:

• Create custom dashboards to display charts for a certain user or group of users. Customer dashboards look like the standard dashboards but display only the charts you would like. For example, you may want each sales manager to have their own personal dashboard that includes a chart only for their sales region.
• Configure the main chart to link to another chart allowing you to drill down more information. Typically, drilldown charts display the underlying details of the information in a main chart. For example, each segment in a pie chart displaying sales values by region can link to a drilldown chart that displays the details information behind the values.
• Configure the main chart to link to a website. You could link a customer’s postcode in a grid chart to a website like Multimap.com or you could link a customers name in a grid chart to their corporate website.
• Configure the main chart to link to a separate dashboard. You may have a dashboard that displays all the key performance indicators including a chart displaying employee turnover. You could link that chart to a different dashboard that perhaps displays only payroll and personnel related charts. Only users who have the necessary security permissions will be able to view the dashboard.
• Configure a main chart to display information that is relevant for a user
• Create charts that group information together to display consolidated values, such as in a list chart where you may want to present a total of sales values by geographical region or sales territory
• Improved user experience with a new menu structure that reflects the new enhancements and makes it easier to understand the purpose of each menu item

Further Opera II Enhancements

Fixed Assets
An import routine has been added to allow users to easily import assets into the Fixed Assets modules from an Excel spreadsheet. In addition, users can now use the Fixed Assets module without the Nominal Ledger. Previously the Nominal Ledger had to be included in the activation. The System module is still required. This provides an opportunity for new business aimed at businesses looking for a Fixed Asset module whilst continuing to use another accounting solution.
CRM
In order to improve the performance of customer relationship management, a change has been made to alleviate the large database tables at customer sites. The storage of email body text will be controlled by a parameter within the SPM Set Options form, so that size of the SPM history file will not grow as quickly as before, if the parameter is set to on.

The performance of SPM Remote downloads in particular should be aided by this improvement but all CRM users should reap the benefits of this change.

Document Management (2.11)

The new release of Document Management contains an enhancement which gives users an additional option when retrieving information. The new sorting option defaults from ‘Newest to Oldest’ alternatively users can select ‘Oldest to Newest’ or ‘Document Version’.