Oracle has announced a major new release of JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, an integrated applications suite of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. Enhancements in the 9.1 release focus on three main areas - usability and productivity, deeper industry-specific functionality, and greater support for global operations and compliance, Bob Monahan, senior director of product strategy and product management of JD Edwards, Oracle, tells 5 Minute Briefing.
The enhancements, Monahan points out, build on earlier announcements, including that of JD EdwardsOne being certified to run on the Apple iPad in September, the JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Tools release 9.1 in December, and the release of new mobile smartphone applications earlier this year.
Productivity and Usability
A key addition is in the area of enhanced productivity is a new series of applications called JD Edwards EnterpriseOne One View Reporting which is targeted at the end user and provides simple, interactive, and intuitive reporting, says Monahan. "It is not BI, it is running over transactional data; it not batch, it is interactive and it displays graphically for the end user using Oracle's BI Publisher tool," Monahan explains.
JD Edwards EnterpriseOne One View Reporting spans the JD Edwards ERP footprint and is intended to enable end users to quickly gain business insight while delivering 178 pre-defined reports providing answers to some of the most commonly asked business questions across the enterprise.
"Customers need to get more information out of the system easily for end users so IT does not have to be involved in writing every single report," notes Monahan. In addition, he adds, users can also personalize and change reports, and build new reports if they choose.
"We think this is going to be a huge hit with our customers," says Monahan. "This makes the ERP System much more valuable in terms of the information that they can now withdraw from it."
In addition, the new release provides voucher matching capabilities to help improve productivity and efficiency by automatically matching supplier invoices with purchase order receipts through rules-driven automation; and requisition self service capabilities that increase flexibility by allowing managers or end users to delegate the entry and receipt of requisitions to other employees.
Industry-Specific Support and Improvements for Global Compliance
New functionality to meet industry and global business requirements include a project manufacturing enhancement that provides visibility and demand tracking throughout the manufacturing process; and electronic batch record and device history record enhancement which provides life science customers with support for FDA-validated manufacturing processes by providing an audit trail over incident capture and resolution.
There are also new industry-specific business processes and capabilities for organizations in the food and beverage, agribusiness, real estate and professional services industries that support compliance requirements and enhance business productivity, support for Global Locator Number (GLN) which helps organizations in consumer goods and other industries facilitate legislative compliance to seamlessly manage regulations; and country of origin tracking at the individual lot and serial number level that enables streamlined reporting by supporting import and export documentation requirements.
Available as part of standard maintenance, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.1 supports upgrades from Xe and higher releases of JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, and migrations from Oracle's JD Edwards World A7.3 and higher.
More information is available about Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne; Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne One View Reporting; Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Tools release 9.1; and Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Mobile Applications
Separately, Oracle also announced a new release of Oracle JD Edwards World - A9.3.