Insights 2021, Epicor’s yearly customer conference, is always a highly anticipated event to learn about the newest advancements in the software and the direction to be expected by the company in the coming months. With this year’s event attendance limited due to ongoing world events, a quick overview of big-ticket items in Epicor’s newest software release may help to bring the reader up to speed.

At the end of May, Epicor announced its acquisition of software provider KBMax – a leader in the Configure Price Quote market with its visual configuration tool, software that is often incorporated with ecommerce tools to provide self-serving commerce options to customers. Epicor has slated this to be a stand-alone module called Epicor CPQ, and while not a lot of information is available, it appears to be an option for organizations that are looking for a 3D modelling configurator that provides renderings and dimensioned drawings, allowing customers to clearly see the details surrounding the product they are interested in purchasing. At this point in time Epicor’s built-in product configurator is not going anywhere, especially since it is incorporated into so many different areas of the software, including the Engineering Workbench as well as Inspection Plans in the Quality module. We look forward to learning more about this new module as Epicor continues to roll out its introduction.

Another add-on module receiving a lot of interest in the past few weeks is Spreadsheet Server. Touted as the next generation of XL Connect, Spreadsheet Server is a product from the same ISV Partner – insightsoftware. Having acquired BizNet Software in 2019, insightsoftware has continued to offer XL Connect but will begin its phase out as Spreadsheet Server becomes the new offering. Spreadsheet Server is a completely different product from a technical point of view and has been sold for more than 15 years. With this change in offering, Epicor states that it is an easy conversion for existing XL Connect users and provides many new features including live data for all users, including those in the cloud, faster performance, and easy drilldowns into subledger data. Reporting, including creating or modifying reports, is supposed to be much more user friendly as well, no longer requiring deep technical expertise. If interested in learning more, be sure to search EpicWeb for more information or check out the ISV Partner’s website. 

Along with the release of Epicor’s brand-new Kinetics platform, these two products are the newest additions for the software company.  Luckily for those of us unable to travel to Insights this year, Epicor has their Virtual Summit for Manufacturing coming up this summer as well – August 25th and 26th. With two days of sessions concentrating on enhancements from the latest release of Kinetics, including sessions on both KBMax and Spreadsheet Server, learn where Epicor is heading and how your organization can gain the most out of the software. The full agenda and registration information for this complimentary event can be found here.TeccWeb is Canada’s Premier Epicor Services Partner. For more information on the services we offer, please contact us.