A new release of Great Plains, one of Microsoft's four accounting and business management packages for mid-sized companies, includes improved manufacturing and distribution features and two new modules geared toward the public sector. These moves continue Microsoft's goal of positioning Great Plains as an enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform capable of supporting a spectrum of vertical markets. Great Plains 8.0 also offers better integration with Word and Excel and a revamped user interface (UI) modeled on Outlook, which could help pull Office 2003 into Great Plains accounts and improve Great Plains' usability.

Refining Features, Extending Reach

Originally geared to professional services companies, such as consulting or accounting firms, the Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) Great Plains product line has steadily grown to support other businesses such as manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers. Great Plains consists of dozens of software modules that address specific functions, such as managing a general ledger or processing sales orders. Modules are grouped in "Series" of like functionality, such as the Financial Series and Manufacturing Series, and are licensed independently.

Released in June 2004, Great Plains 8.0 contains many incremental feature improvements across the product's existing modules and adds several new modules to the lineup. Although it lacks the sweeping architectural and functional changes common in traditional Microsoft product releases, Great Plains 8.0 is consistent with Great Plains' approach to product development: releases offer steady and consistent refinement of the product's core feature set, which improves the product for existing customers while expanding its reach into new markets.

Existing Modules Steadily Improved

Almost half of Great Plains 8.0's enhancements focus on the manufacturing and distribution modules. This continues a trend started with Great Plains 7.5, released in Apr. 2003, which added several key features and modules geared toward manufacturers and distributors.

Most notably among the dozens of changes to these modules, the release includes several new features to help manufacturers manage bills of materials (BOMs), including a graphical tool for editing and updating BOMs. In addition, Great Plains 8.0 provides better visibility and tracking of items (such as component parts) as they flow through manufacturing or distribution processes, which will help manufacturers and distributors manage inventory.

Great Plains 8.0 also contains improvements in the product's historical area of greatest strength: financial management. Customers will see a number of features targeted at improving the efficiency and accuracy of common accounting tasks. For example, users will be able to create new general ledger transactions by copying existing transactions, which should reduce the amount of data that needs to be keyed manually, saving time and improving accuracy. In addition, Great Plains 8.0 includes a number of refinements that help users correct or delete general ledger transactions while maintaining an audit trail of those changes.

New Modules Added

The new release also includes two new modules, gained in the May 2004 acquisition of Encore Business Solutions, that provide accounting features required by many North American public-sector entities. The Grant Management module supports management and tracking of grant funds, and the Encumbrance Management module supports the process of tracking committed funds prior to the receipt and payment of vendor invoices. The new modules will allow Great Plains 8.0 to better meet the accounting requirements of the not-for-profit sector without the need to rely on third-party products.

In addition, Great Plains 8.0 makes generally available the Analytical Accounting module, which was previously available only in Europe, South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia. This module offers a more flexible way for analysts to track and analyze financial transactions, and it could help Great Plains serve businesses with complex accounting procedures. For example, the module allows users to define and assign their own dimensions (such as region or cost center) to transactions, rather than being limited to the predefined codes provided by Great Plains.

New UI

Great Plains 8.0 includes a new UI modeled on Outlook. Although some of the UI changes are superficial (replacement of icon graphics, for instance), others are more substantive.

For example, certain operations are now list-driven instead of process-driven. Performing an operation (such as issuing an invoice) in previous versions required users to decide in advance what operation to perform, select the process (for example, sales) supporting that operation, and then search for the specific customer record on which to apply the operation. Great Plains 8.0 instead allows users to select a customer record from a list and then choose operations from a menu of actions appropriate to the selected customer record.

Such UI changes could prove more intuitive and hence result in productivity boosts for users once they've familiarized themselves with the new interface. However, because the new UI changes the way users perform common operations, it will require some training time, especially for experienced users very familiar and comfortable with the old interface.

Office 2003 Integration

Two new integration points strengthen ties between Great Plains and Office 2003.

Letter-writing assistant. A new Word-based letter-writing assistant will make it easier for Great Plains users to populate Word letter templates with Great Plains data, such as customer names and addresses. This will simplify processes such as identifying and selecting specific customers for targeted mailings.

Excel integration. Users will also see better integration with Excel via FRx 6.7, a separate Microsoft financial reporting application that was released in Mar. 2004, and that customers can purchase as a module for Great Plains 8.0. For example, FRx 6.7 can automatically generate Excel pivot tables based on FRx reports, providing a convenient means of summarizing large, complex data sets such as multiregion sales data or corporate expenditures.

More Portal Features Coming

Great Plains 8.0 will offer a number of employee self-service features via the Microsoft Business Portal (MBP) 2.5, which is scheduled to ship in Aug. 2004. For example, MBP 2.5 will offer new modules for online requisition management and project time and expense entry and approval.

MBP 2.5 will also allow Great Plains 8.0 to integrate with Microsoft's Office Accelerator for Sarbanes-Oxley. For example, customers will be able to attach data from Great Plains queries directly to Sarbanes-Oxley documentation via the Accelerator. This should help speed the preparation of compliance documentation and reporting required of publicly held companies.

Availability, Editions, and Resources

Great Plains 8.0 became generally available in the United States and Canada in June 2004; Microsoft plans to make the release available in other geographies later in 2004.

As with Great Plains 7.5, Great Plains 8.0 is available in two editions: a professional edition designed for larger organizations and a standard edition for smaller companies. Previously, Great Plains Standard was limited to MSDE (the desktop version of Microsoft's SQL database); the new release of the standard edition can run on either MSDE or SQL Server 2000. The professional edition of Great Plains 8.0 requires SQL Server 2000.

Basic pricing for Great Plains 8.0 is unchanged from the previous version. Customers who have purchased the product's maintenance plan (called the "Enhancement Plan") receive Great Plains 8.0 free.

For more information on Great Plains editions, see "Great Plains 7.5 Combines Products" on page 14 of the June 2003 Update.

More information about Great Plains 8.0 is available at www.microsoft.com/BusinessSolutions/Default.mspx.

For background on the Encore acquisition, see "Encore Acquired for Public Sector Accounting" on page 25 of the June 2004 Update.

FRx 6.7 is covered in "FRx 6.7 Adds a Report Manager" on page 18 of the May 2004 Update.

For more information about MBP, see "Business Portal Moves to WSS" on page 18 of the Mar. 2004 Update and "Portal for Business Solutions Applications" on page 13 of the July 2003 Update.

For more information about the Office Accelerator for Sarbanes-Oxley, see "Accelerator Aims at Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance" on page 21 of the May 2004 Update.