Welcome to 2024! What better way to kick-off the New Year than to offer a preview of System Integrator (SI) v21. For us longtime users of the SI platform, nothing is perhaps more anticipated than the enhancements and feature set improvements of each new release.
While the improvements certainly vary from release to release, we closely monitor and solicit needs, “tweaks”, mechanisms, and multiple assessments for functional utilizations from our users via “Feature Requests” and other channels of interaction.
Highlights of What’s in Store for v21!
- Dark Mode
- Submittals
- Hours for Labor values changed to HH:MM:SS format
- A new option to Include Accessories as pre-set to Do Not Order
- Bulk Wire labor can now be set per drop vs. per foot/meter
- Find Usages for Labor Items
- Increased Long Description (and Package description) fields from 1000 to 2000 characters
- Multiple projects can be locked at one time, and/or have their reporting locked
- Prompt for Maintain Installation Price when replacing products on an internal Change Order
- Prompt if items added to Internal CO are not marked as non-billable
- CSV export/import for Check Lists
- Ability to merge Clients and Vendors
- And more!
While all of these (and the ones not listed) are worthy of extensive evaluation, here we will touch on just a few, keeping mind of course, future entries of this blog and our other media releases will focus on these in greater depth.
Dark Mode
For those of you who have been endlessly clamoring for this feature for years now, we are happy to announce, it is here! (Project Explorer shown below here)
You will now be able to enjoy the defused colorless presentation and perhaps lessen the strain for your eyes while utilizing this display.
It will require a session restart but after that, you are free to experience the wonderment that is Dark Mode! (Project Editor shown below here)
Submittals
A long sought and much requested feature enhancement has finally arrived for usage!
While unique of course to each bid and compliance need, submittals represent a new style of reporting within an SI Project. These submittal reports are able to include not only other SI Reports but also values from outside of SI such as external PDF’s, PDF’s of engineer design drawings, hyperlinks, and other necessary documentation such as spec sheets.
Above here, we see the Files icon in the top right corner from a Product item in a Project where we can now see a spec sheet that has been added and hyperlinks that can be included with the submittal report.
These could also be set-up as Templates in the SI Control Panel in case you need multiple versions of your submittals for various market sectors or trade partners:
Much more on this aspect of v21 to be featured here in the future.
Option to Include Accessories as pre-set to “Do Not Order”
So this one is a nice little wrinkle if you will on how Accessories can function within an SI Project. Beyond the notion, that another item can be included with the Parent one, this feature saves some clicks and presets the chosen item(s) to a very specific pricing and PO status.
This designation that is seen below here in the Project Setting portion of your SI Control Panel
will be of great benefit to your design, bid, and procurement team as it will apply to assembly and combination values that are grouped by your team or even by the manufacturer. Many of our users will experience this with products like video transmit and receive baluns that are often packaged together despite being deployed separately.
More on this one down the road as well so check back for future updates.
Find Usages now active for Labor Items
We have heard the requests and have added this enhancement for your Labor Item usage assessment. Much like the Find Usages for Products in your Product Explorer, you will now be able to see the same evaluation for your Labor Items in your Labor Explorer.
This will be very beneficial for our teams that really need to understand the extent to which their unique Labor Items are being utilized in their SI Projects especially for our users that track sub-contractor labor separately from their in-house efforts.
Increased character count for the “Long Description” (and Package Description) text field
While some may not see the extent to which this is helpful, prior heavy users of SI (like myself) will get it immediately. Having maxed this field out multiple times over the years attempting to include helpful details regarding features, specifications, dimensions, etc. for my clients in the Product Details report, this increase should allow most users to get the data included that they require.
This is to say nothing of the ability to include translated text here for your international clients via a custom report.
Many options here for your team to consider and leverage accordingly!
Internal Change Orders
There are two interesting enhancements on this feature:
First - The addition of the ability to now Maintain your Installation Price for items added to an Internal Change Order via the Replace function:
Second – The ability (via a prompt) to be notified that items on the Internal Change Order are in fact non-billable.
Both of these options help our users by ensuring compliance with desired standards for the use of internal Change Orders as much of the time, these types of Change Orders serve as product swap evaluations where incompatibility and/or areas of incongruence are found.
Thus the ability to keep prior installation prices in place, even though a product has changed, along with being aware that other items on the internal Change Order have been designated as non-billable are essential to this process and utilization in SI.
All of these forthcoming tools and features are yours to explore and leverage to your maximum benefit and I strongly recommend that you do so along with signing up for our soon to be announced v21 webinar. Be on the lookout for that update from our Product and Marketing teams.
A Perspective
Our team is continually evaluating ways to improve and enhance your team’s usage of and experience with our SI platform. Therefore, it behooves you and your team to explore these (and other features) as well by securing time with our Professional Services Group of SI/industry veterans in order to maximize your team’s ability to succeed with the software.
In Summation…
-Update to v21 when you can.
-Review, utilize, and deploy these enhanced features in your daily executions with SI.
-Sign-up for webinars, training, or visit our online documentation wiki for tutorial assistance.
-Leverage these new utilization scenarios for your team’s maximum benefit.
And, as always…
-Get focused, get serious, and make money.
Enjoy!
With all of that said, there’s still plenty more in store for you with SI and forthcoming product releases so keep an eye out for future updates.
We are always reviewing your Feature Requests to determine our best step forward and next course of action with future SI product releases so…“keep’em coming”!
In closing…
For more information on these and other features of SI, please see this link: D-Tools v20 (SI v21 link coming soon). You can also review our other videos and our usual support documentation.
You can also get more detailed information about v21 via our upcoming webinars and by enrolling in SI training with our PSG team. Please attend our “What’s new in v21” webinar, click here to register!
Don’t forget, that’s why we are here…to ensure your success with our product! Be sure to check back here next time for more on v21!!!
