Increased federal adoption of ERP systems may imply that these have been increasingly offering a government endemic functionality. As an example, leading ERP vendors provide procurement software that works with pertinent laws and regulations, such as Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), DoD Contracting Regulations, General Services Administration (GSA), Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR), Federal Supply Schedules (FSS), etc. Also, they provide human resource (HR) systems that align with military or general schedule pay rates, and financial systems that comply with Joint Financial Management Improvement Program practices for government financial systems. Further, the Tax and Revenue Management module within some ERP suites provides federal, state, and local government agencies tools to automate the tax collection process by enabling constituents to conduct and view financial transactions.
To respond to these requirements, concurrently with the above in-house product enhancements, Relevant connects to many third-party applications which add to its native list of functions, and many of these are carefully selected enhancements with customized links, while, in some cases users can use programs they already have available on their system. All of the third-party functions listed by Relevant can be accessed directly from Relevant ERP via menus and toolbar icons or from records in the database. Some of the most prominent complementary solution providers, would be:
* Interface to Abra Payroll System and FAS Fixed Asset Accounting System from Best Software.
* Interface to Preactor's scheduling and advanced planning system.
* Incorporation of WorkWise (a division of Timeline, Inc.) Business Alerts, so that customers and personnel can be automatically notified of important status events via e-mail. Using WorkWise Business Alerts, Relevant ERP invisibly monitors data fields for preselected activities, as users simply select the events to trigger the e-mail, who should be notified, and the text or data to be sent. The alerts feature tracks events, dates, status of purchase orders, sales orders, work orders, inventory quantities, financial due dates, and aging dates. It flags critical operations, expedites receipts, rates vendor deliveries, notifies buyers when a purchase order is mailed or acknowledged, updates planners when components are allocated or issued, and alerts customers that products are being shipped. Proper personnel are notified of schedule progress, if payments are due, or milestones are met, prompting immediate action.
* Interface to C/S Solutions' wInsight and C/S Glue, the leading applications for creating and exporting reports, charts and graphical analyses of WBS and earned value data, from Relevant WBS. Users can directly export earned value data into wInsight to create reports, charts and graphs of WBS and earned value data. As government contractors working to meet DoD, Department of Energy (DOE), FAA or Defense Contract Management Command (DCMC) requirements often use wInsight to create reports, it is regarded as the de facto government earned value reporting standard. After importing data into wInsight Administrator with the Relevant wInsight Export program in the WBS module, users can view monthly costs and budget data in spreadsheet format or in the cost performance report (CPR) or the cost schedule status report (CSSR).
* Interface to Crystal Reports Professional for other customer-designed reports.
* Interface to RF Gen and Intermec for radio frequency (RF) and barcode data acquisition.
In addition to the above-depicted government-oriented manufacturing and accounting capabilities (i.e., WBS with native EVM), Relevant's differentiation might also be in catering to the companies that require an ability to track every product, each of its subassemblies or parts, and its stage in the production cycle, as a prerequisite to production efficiency and profitability, which is especially true for contracting MRO organizations. Additionally, the ability to store and access quality tests history data on an ongoing basis and the ability to thoroughly analyze that data are crucial in keeping costs low and quality high.
To respond to these requirements, concurrently with the above in-house product enhancements, Relevant connects to many third-party applications which add to its native list of functions, and many of these are carefully selected enhancements with customized links, while, in some cases users can use programs they already have available on their system. All of the third-party functions listed by Relevant can be accessed directly from Relevant ERP via menus and toolbar icons or from records in the database. Some of the most prominent complementary solution providers, would be:
* Interface to Abra Payroll System and FAS Fixed Asset Accounting System from Best Software.
* Interface to Preactor's scheduling and advanced planning system.
* Incorporation of WorkWise (a division of Timeline, Inc.) Business Alerts, so that customers and personnel can be automatically notified of important status events via e-mail. Using WorkWise Business Alerts, Relevant ERP invisibly monitors data fields for preselected activities, as users simply select the events to trigger the e-mail, who should be notified, and the text or data to be sent. The alerts feature tracks events, dates, status of purchase orders, sales orders, work orders, inventory quantities, financial due dates, and aging dates. It flags critical operations, expedites receipts, rates vendor deliveries, notifies buyers when a purchase order is mailed or acknowledged, updates planners when components are allocated or issued, and alerts customers that products are being shipped. Proper personnel are notified of schedule progress, if payments are due, or milestones are met, prompting immediate action.
* Interface to C/S Solutions' wInsight and C/S Glue, the leading applications for creating and exporting reports, charts and graphical analyses of WBS and earned value data, from Relevant WBS. Users can directly export earned value data into wInsight to create reports, charts and graphs of WBS and earned value data. As government contractors working to meet DoD, Department of Energy (DOE), FAA or Defense Contract Management Command (DCMC) requirements often use wInsight to create reports, it is regarded as the de facto government earned value reporting standard. After importing data into wInsight Administrator with the Relevant wInsight Export program in the WBS module, users can view monthly costs and budget data in spreadsheet format or in the cost performance report (CPR) or the cost schedule status report (CSSR).
* Interface to Crystal Reports Professional for other customer-designed reports.
* Interface to RF Gen and Intermec for radio frequency (RF) and barcode data acquisition.
In addition to the above-depicted government-oriented manufacturing and accounting capabilities (i.e., WBS with native EVM), Relevant's differentiation might also be in catering to the companies that require an ability to track every product, each of its subassemblies or parts, and its stage in the production cycle, as a prerequisite to production efficiency and profitability, which is especially true for contracting MRO organizations. Additionally, the ability to store and access quality tests history data on an ongoing basis and the ability to thoroughly analyze that data are crucial in keeping costs low and quality high.
