Activant Portal Designer increases employee productivity
New program helps distributors keep on top of the daily changes that can affect key performance indicators.
Activant knows that the data within wholesale distributors' Prophet 21 system can tell distributors a lot about the health of their businesses. For a long-term prognosis, in-depth reports can show where a business has been and trends for the future. But equally important to the health of any business are the quick check-ups that help to keep the business running smoothly.
"Activant developed the Activant Portal Designer product to help distributors keep on top of the daily changes that can affect key performance indicators," said Kevin Roach, executive vice president and general manager of Activant's wholesale distribution business. "The Activant Portal Designer software gives Prophet 21 system users the extensibility to design the specific, real-time views of data that the user considers most relevant to his or her role within the business.
"Beyond access to the data within the system, the Activant Portal Designer software also allows users to incorporate third party applications, further expanding their portal views and system capability," added Roach. "All of this gives users actionable information, readily viewed on their computer screen for quicker business responses and more streamlined processes."
Portals for access to business information can be assigned to users and inserted into the existing Prophet 21 infrastructure. For example, wholesale distributors can provide sales managers with insight into the opportunities set to close in the next 60 days or purchasing agents with a view into all open purchase orders where they are the buyer. The options are as numerous as the data and tables within the Prophet 21 database.
"The Activant Portal Designer software adds a new level of flexibility to our processes," said Tom Silva, sales manager at EA Buschmann, Inc., a distributor in Lewiston, ME. "We created views for our users that give them access to data that allows them to be more efficient and productive."
With our Activant Portal Designer solution, users can do such things as: drill down through portal views into individual transactions, gain quick access to ancillary documents, applications, and Web sites, select an option to obtain tracking information for shipments, and much more. Users can set up as many portal views as needed to constantly monitor important elements of their business and measure key performance indicators (KPIs).
In addition to immediate access to key data, the Activant Portal Designer solution allows users to augment portal reports and views by adding options that are not typically standard using a report writer. Among its many extended capabilities, the Activant Portal Designer solution can also provide access to external applications from within the Prophet 21 system. Additionally, users can access information to do such things as allowing a sales manager to indicate that a sales rep is out sick for the day in order to view and reassign his required daily tasks to another rep for follow up. Users can also conditionally set buttons to appear next to their production orders if a drawing or document is attached to the transaction so they can quickly access that pertinent detail.
"Our Activant Portal Designer solution is part of Activant's continuing effort to offer extensibility to distributors," concluded Roach. "The more access distributors have to the data that's most important to them, the more effective they can be in today's economy where every competitive advantage puts that that much closer to success."
For more information, please visit distribution.activant.com.
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