MISys Manufacturing Ready to Roll-out Version 6.4

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With more than 6,000 users in over 40 countries, MISys is one of the leading manufacturing programs designed for small to medium size manufacturers who want to continue using their QuickBooks or Sage products as their general ledger.  MISys handles their needs related to make-to-order (MTO), make-to-stock (MTS), repetitive, mixed-mode, discrete, and job shop environments.

MISys also provides functionality includes inventory management, bills of manufacturing (combining materials, resources, personnel, locations, and tools), product revision control, integrated purchasing, materials resource planning (MRP), master production scheduling (MPS), bar-coding, serial and lot tracking, shop floor control with integrated time-keeping, rules-based custom product configurator, CAD design integration and job management. 

Insightful Accountant has 'gotten the scoop' on the soon to be rolled-out Version 6.4 of the software which features an across-the-product refresh of the User Interface. Josh Reed, MISys Vice President of Sales and Marketing told us, "...we've worked to refresh most areas while embracing a simplified view of what you do most often. In addition to sprucing up the look of each element, we’ve also implemented the ability to hide any function that users are not licensed or permitted (through permissions) to use."

Josh also told us about MISys migrating 'My Menu' to 'Favorites' within the new user interface, he went on to say, "...the functionality has been greatly enhanced by establishment of a central place to perform users' daily activities. Almost any area of MISys can be specified as a Favorite by selecting the new star on the top-right of the desktop. This can include reports, alerts and even higher-level nodes that include all of the lower level functions."

The above illustration shows a lengthy list of features have been configured for this user's 'Favorites', including the main Production flow-chart shown in the right panel. Unlike the prior 'My Menu' option which didn't always give you a working path to the specific feature you needed, the new 'Favorites' allows you to quickly move directly to the feature or steps in your workflow.

Some of the other User Interface related makeovers within this new release including the ability to 'Customize Columns of Grid Views'.  Josh told Insightful Accountant, "...users can now customize the columns on almost all of our grid views! This includes displaying additional columns as well as hiding existing columns; although there are certain key fields which must be displayed within the grid."

'Easier Row Selection' is another User Interface enhancement, Josh said, "...we couldn’t improve the UI without making it easier to do what users likely do the most often: Select Rows! Now users can click or double-click anywhere on the row to select or open it."

I can only describe this next feature as 'some like it hot'. Not everyone is into the same color scheme, especially when they have to deal with multiple companies.  QuickBooks learned this a long time ago allowing users to change the color scheme for each of their Company files. (In fact when they tried to eliminate that option they had a uproar from their desktop users). Well now MISys allows you to specify different background colors to distinguish your different companies as well.  As you can see, there is quite a difference between the color scheme below (Oklahoma Sooners Red) and the 'baby blue' standard coloration.

Of course, not even in Oklahoma, is everyone a 'Sooners' fan, we have a few Oklahoma State Cowboy fans as well, so for them, how about MISys in OSU Orange!

Along with color scheme changes, the new UI also provides enhanced 'Multi-monitor Support' in which the placements of any window or displayed feature will persist (stick) on the specific monitor where it last appeared.

Speaking of color changes, the various Gantt charts within MISys used for features like the production schedule now have the ability to use multiple (different) color options.

But the User Interface related changes aren't the only enhancements you will find in Version 6.4, a significant change relates to 'User-specific Purchase Order Emails'.  Until now, Purchase Orders were transmitted from MISys using a default configured Email account.  A lot of MISys users needed the ability to have different Emails associated with Purchase Orders they sent.  For example, you might have one purchasing agent dealing with a large group of vendors, and another purchasing agent dealing with an entire different set of suppliers. The new feature allows users to override the default Email and to define user-specific email addresses which will be used on Purchase Orders they issue.

The 'Item Cost History Report' has an optional cost method available.  This report has traditionally relied upon the value of cost buckets used in different MISys cost or inventory tracking configurations (like LIFO, or Lots).  When cost buckets didn't exist within the data the Item Cost History Report wouldn't be displayed.  Version 6.4 now allows the 'Item Cost' of any item to be used if no cost buckets exist for that item.

Since this new method may not be appropriate for everyone, there is a new option of "Only Display Items with Cost History" which causes the report to be similar to the prior configuration.

Version 6.4 has further expanded the ability of .XLXS import/exports, thus extending MISys 'Excel enhancements' (initiated in V6.3) to 'All Company' import/export along with improved handling of extremely large data-sets.

Last, but certainly not least, is 'Enhanced Version Conversion (upgrade)'.  Version 6.4 can convert all earlier versions of MISys, all the way back to version 4.2, using an automated process as part of the install of Version 6.4, along with the Convert/Migrate/Restore functions controlled from the MISys Server Administration utility.

Special thanks to Mike Kaelin, MISys Vice President of Technical Services, for providing many of the technical details of these new release changes.

If you would like more information about either MISys Manufacturing software, or the new Version 6.4 roll-out, visit the MISys website.  And be sure to tell Josh that 'Murph referred you.'