Roadshow underscores Shuttleworth's progress

The MIS supplier has been demonstrating its latest version and finding that the dashboard displays innovation is highly popular.

SHUTTLEWORTH CUSTOMERS HAVE WELCOMED THE LAUNCH of V5.01 of the MIS application, and particularly its ability to provide dashboard displays of standard and bespoke reports.

These provide a visual representation of the business in graphic form so that a printer can quickly grasp the indicators he has selected for his business. The concept is not entirely new, but it is new to Shuttleworth and the Kettering business is keen to exploit the full potential of the reports.

IT IS TAKING THE NEW VERSION OF THE SOFTWARE ON A series of roadshow events which conclude this week and feedback towards the innovation of the Business Intelligence Suite options has been overwhelmingly positive. So the reports from beta users Fine Print in Oxford and Northend Creative Print Solutions in Sheffield.

There MIS manager Andrew Yate says: “The dashboards we have are really impressive; they update quickly, we can export the data and they do exactly what we wanted.” This aspect is being covered by the introduction of Shuttleworth Plus as a separate software development house able to create the sort of bespoke dashboard view of a business that a printer might want quickly and cost effectively/ Previously a printer might need to commission its own software team or supplier, with varying results, a sometimes lengthy wait and uncertain costing.

EXAMPLES TO DATE INCLUDE DEVELOPING a labelling tool from the Shuttleworth Business System to create a bar code for a label to attach to work in progress for a customer with a specific need to integrate to an SAP system. The job was described, written and delivered for testing within a week and was in full use a few days later.

“We took the information from Shuttleworth that was needed, used it to create a bar code to print out on a self adhesive label to be stuck to boxes and which could be recognised by the SAP system,” says joint managing director Andy King. The company had previously commissioned outside contractors to write this specialist code, finding it complicated and expensive.

BY CONTRAST SHUTTLEWORTH IS PROMISING TO BE BOTH fast and cost effective, turning around dashboards or other apps in 24-48 hours. It has created an app for iOS for its own staff to use to watch Events in the Shuttleworth MIS to ensure that assigned tasks are carried out. It plans to offer this kind of remote access on iOS for o an iPhone or iPad towards the end of this year and for Android in Q3.

The Events facility in Shuttleworth is improved in the latest version to make then easier to set up and manage. Events track estimates, prospects and actions that are associated with a job and alert users when stages have been completed. There are also improvements to the estimating wizard to enable non expert users to rapidly create accurate estimates and to the alternative price list system of costing.

USER FEEDBACK FROM THE SESSIONS HAS ALSOwelcomed drag and drop functionality of capturing data from emails by moving it within the monitor to the appropriate place.