FABTECH Canada 2018 was my first international trade show and my first time visiting Canada. Joining me at the xTuple booth was our VP Sales Wally Tonra, as well as a couple of our Canadian partners. Experts in the industries of metalforming, fabricating, welding, and finishing visited the Toronto Congress Centre in June looking for opportunities to think, learn, and network...
xTuple's Collective Brainpower Blog
In this article, we explore the process of xTuple ERP (enterprise resource planning) internal bug tracking procedures to help answer questions regarding bug fixes and patches. xTuple has a specific, documented process for managing our bug list using CRM (customer relationship management) incidents for bugs, feature requests, support requests, and other internal work. Let's dive into the what and how of bug reports...
xTuple 4.11 delivers expanded real-time APIs along with xTupleCommerce Web Portal: xTuple open source ERP (enterprise resource planning) has released its latest version 4.11 which includes xTupleCommerce 1.0, the B2B (business-to-business) sales and customer service Web Portal. xTuple Commerce empowers small and mid-sized manufacturers and distributors with new digital technology to better compete and grow their business exponentially.
In this article, we explore the differences — and similarities — between MPS (Master Production Scheduling), MRP (Material Requirements Planning), and the business cases that warrant the use of each, in other words... When to use MPS versus MRP. Demand is a key driver for any inventory planning system, so let’s first start with a few definitions...
The fact that you’re considering an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) purchase is likely due to one of two scenarios: (1) your business has outgrown the scope that your current software can accommodate or (2) your organization is already quite large but has been making do with cobbled-together IT solutions. In both of these situations, you are probably dealing with several separate software systems that don’t talk to each other and limit holistic visibility into the organization’s business needs.
Material Resource Planning (MRP) buyers highlighted essential areas businesses hope to address in 2018, including: more than 70% of buyers are looking for purchase planning, demand forecasting, and master production scheduling; more than 65% of MRP software buyers are actually looking for a full blown ERP system; MRP buyers are more flexible with deployment options, only 14% require on-site installation; 29% of MRP software buyers are replacing QuickBooks.
With apologies to fans of the movie "Jerry Maguire"... there were some really interesting findings in a new study from the Harvard Business Review about what helps business attract and retain top employees. Yes, you need to show them the money... but what I found fascinating was how much people are coming to expect good technology support inside the company. One thing in particular jumped out at me in the article: Over 60% of respondants in this study wanted better access to business data.
Your privacy — and transparency — is important to us. If you're like us, you've been getting a lot of email in recent days about people making updates to their privacy policies to comply with the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Here at xTuple, we're doing the same.
Free accounting software for small businesses? There’s an obvious value to anything free—it’s free. The “best” free software of any kind is easy to learn, easy to use, and doesn’t create an unending series of hurdles to overcome. Clearly, there are tradeoffs to be made. For example, open source software has value in being flexible, extendible, and malleable. It requires time and effort to take advantage of those things, but the time you spend balances with the value you get when you’re done.
The stakes are high, the competition is nimble, and budgets are tight. IN THIS ISSUE: Product News — New xTupleCommerce B2B Web Portal Demo; B2B Webinar — What's New in ERP? Business Happens on the Web; Meet the Customers — Instrument Meter Specialties Interview; Where's Wally? Making an IMPACT at the invitation-only IMPACT Manufacturing Summit; Winner Announced — HR & Payroll Survey; Partners — Why Working with Smaller Vendors Yields Big ROI; Staff Feature; xTupleU — upcoming Training; Need In-House xTuple Expertise? Post Your Job Openings (free!)
"We have had good success bringing people form California, Boston, New York. About a third of our people have moved to Norfolk," says xTuple's president and CEO Ned Lilly. "A guy moved here from California from Oracle. He moved his family to Chesapeake... he moved here because he liked the cost of living, and he liked our business, of course."
It's really, really, really here! I know, it seems as if you've heard us talking about this thing called xTupleCommerce forever, and you could easily think that it was a released product. The truth of the matter is, we've been working with a number of our fantastic customers for over four years to get to where we are today — proud to officially release xTupleCommerce 1.0. And yes, we've got special promotions for existing commercial customers who are ready to move on this exciting opportunity!
This is the story of the marketing journey of the Briscoe Manufacturing Company. Walt’s iPhone alarm rang at 5:45am as it always did, but he was already awake. And even though he was wide awake, he wanted to stay in bed. He didn’t want to go to work. Again. There was a time when he looked forward to going to work. But he was starting to dread it. Things were not going well there. He was beginning to wish he could run away from it all. He was feeling like a colossal failure.
Businesses with more than a handful of employees have a lot to balance including pricing, product planning, accounting and finance, managing payroll, dealing with inventory, and more. Stitching together a set of disparate tools to handle those jobs is a quick, cheap, and dirty way to get things done. That approach isn't scalable. It's difficult to efficiently move data between the various pieces of such an ad-hoc system. As well, it can be difficult to maintain. Instead, most growing businesses turn to an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.
xTuple open source ERP+CRM 4.11.3 final release is now available for download from xTuple's GitHub repository as well as the xTuple PostBooks® project page on SourceForge. Thanks to all who contributed to make this release possible, including Cordeck Building Solutions, Larry Cartee, Bernard Le Jour, Alfredo Martinez and Scott Zuke. Note: You must upgrade to xTuple ERP 4.11.3 to use the soon-to-be-released xTupleCommerce v1.0.0.
If you've ever used software (and who hasn't?), you've encountered a bug. You may not have noticed it, but it was there. Sometimes bugs look like features. Sometimes they look like momentary glitches, like a screen flash or an unexpected pause. And on occasion they can make life so miserable that you yell at the software, the computer, and the darned guy or gal who wrote that ... that ... [ there's no nice way to end that thought]. As the software developer who may have written that piece of... uh ... program, I hear your cries of pain. I suspect that's what woke me up the other night. That was you yelling, wasn't it?
Open source Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) remains among the most active in Business category: xTuple again has the honor of being named SourceForge "Project of the Week," placing its free and open source version of PostBooks® tops among the over 500,000 applications available for download from the largest, most trusted online resource for Open Source Software (OSS) discovery and development.
Here are the featured projects for the week, which appear on the front page of SourceForge.net: PostBooks ERP, accounting, CRM by xTuple. Additionally Programming Without Coding Technology (PWCT), Free Manga Downloader (FMD), Cyberfox, Bluestar Linux, FlightGear Flight Simulator, VoIP monitor, and more.
Great photos sell more products! Product photography is crucial to your success when selling products online using your own eCommerce site. Customers expect to find high quality, high resolution images of your products from varying angles and perspectives, highlighting details and features. Images are powerful; we remember what we see more than what we read. Here are my top nine (9) insights — and TWO bonus pro tips — for shooting great product photography.
Third compilation of community enhancements from global leader in open source ERP — xTuple customers love our way, every day — major enhancements to a business software package designed and contributed by the actual users. Just released! Representing the company’s latest lustrum from 2013 to 2018, xTuple's third "greatest hits" album (GHV3) is a best-of collection of the most well-regarded and highest-rated features — developed in partnership with an engaged global customer and community base.