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Greentree Customer Newsletter - August 2006 |
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Welcome to your Greentree Customer Newsletter!
We aim to keep you, our Greentree customers, up-to-date with all the latest product updates, handy hints and current news from here at Greentree International.
In this issue we bring you news of some exciting product development, including news on Linux and manufacturing and an update on the Revealing the Value article from the last issue of Taking the Lead. On the marketing side we have exciting PR coverage in NZ and Australia , a newly found interest in surfing and an update on Greentree's link to local education.
We'd like to keep our information up to date. Please take 30 seconds to click on the tick to the left to either update your contact info or to recommend someone else in the organisation who you feel would enjoy the newsletter.
If you have any questions or requests for items to be covered in this newsletter, please contact us by email to:
newsletters@greentree.com |
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Greentree Product Development News |
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 Greentree on Linux
Greentree on Linux is exciting as it brings the opportunity for a cost effective server platform choice to our mid market customers. Industry analysts indicate that Linux has a growing following and the market is looking for choice. |
We are delighted to announce the successful implementation of Greentree on the Linux operating system at PLAN Australia.
PLAN Australia was established to deliver a comprehensive mortgage broking service and maximise the buying power for a broad range of independent brokers. PLAN Australia is one of a growing number of mid-market businesses that use the Linux operating system as an IT business strategy and Greentree was well positioned to respond to the requirements of this increasingly popular platform.
"PLAN Australia has over 2500 members accessing their system via the internet daily. They chose Linux as a cost effective operating system that will provide them with the security, stability, flexibility and performance they need to provide state-of-the-art technology to their members."
Business Development Manager Ian Dunne, from Star Accounting Solutions, worked with PLAN Australia as they set about selecting and implementing a business solution that was compatible with Linux. Greentree was selected over three other major vendor solutions.
PLAN Australia commenced installation of Greentree Financials, Job Cost, Payroll and Workflow on their SuSE Linux V9 SP2 servers in May 2006. They went live in June 2006 and already the Greentree solution has had a positive impact on their business. With the aim of becoming the major mortgage distributor in the sector, PLAN Australia is geared for substantial growth and with Greentree on Linux they have found a flexible business solution to partner in their success.
Greentree could well be on track to become the major provider of mid market accounting and business software solutions on the Linux platform. |
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Manufacturing |
We continue to add capability to the Greentree Manufacturing suite with the Shop Floor Control module specified and commenced development. We have also begun work on the specification for Quality Control, and this new capability will be able to be applied at a number of points within Greentree, not just manufacturing. For example a Purchase Order receipt may require a quality assurance process before the goods can be passed for sale or use in manufacturing. Manufacturing is a key focus for the Greentree development team. Customers can rest assured that we will be working hard to broaden the function and form of the suite over the next few months. |
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POS
We have worked with our existing POS customers to include numerous enhancements designed to make POS more functional and flexible. These enhancements include POS invoice Print, Customer maintenance and POS transaction entry. Early customer feedback is revealing that these enhancements are translating into happy users.
Read more |
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Recent General Enhancements
Just when you thought that Greentree could not possibly get even more function, the development teams come up with a whole host of more enhancements. These are sure to make life easier and more productive. Here's a few general enhancements worth drawing your attention to.
- New functional and field Help updates including Sales Orders, Approvals & Alerts and Workflow.
- May quarterly release for CRM and HR include many new features and updates. Refer to release notes for details.
- Contacts and Relationships, Add a Job Enquiry button to both Organisations and Contacts that is enabled when the record is linked to a Customer. This will pull up the View Jobs screen with the current Customer in the filter
Read more
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Revealing the Value
(a 360 degree view) |
Greentree has built a huge repository of valuable information gathered through all of the rich functionally it provides. Our goal is to make this information more accessible to customers to effectively reveal its value! |
Outlined below are a number of recently delivered capabilities that deliver to this objective including: Related Information Tab on Customer Form (360 degree view)
This simple but powerful capability builds on the Related view capability provided already within CRM, to allow back office applications such as Accounts Receivable Customers, to see all "transactions" that relate to the customer, e.g. AR, JC, CRM etc … This is now available for the Customer maintenance/enquiry forms, and we will move onto others progressively. Job Maintenance/Enquiry now provides access to related Service Requests
A new Service request tab has been added to the Job maintenance/enquiry forms that allow you to search for all related calls or service requests for the selected job and drill down to these.
Power User Business Intelligence Solutions
Greentree has been working with several Business Intelligence software vendors to deliver connections between Greentree and their products. At this time we have successfully achieved this for Cognos 8 and Qlikview and have entered into distribution agreements so these tools are available to our resellers along with template models that illustrate what is possible with Greentree. A sample view of the Qlikview Greentree template can be seen here |
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New Directions Global Financial requirements Multi Company Consolidation and Currency Translation – Based on emerging market requirements and International Financial Reporting standards, this new suite of software is being designed to allow companies with multiple entities to revalue, translate, consolidate and report in accordance with the International Accounting Standards. |
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New Report Writer Capabilities
The new report writer interface has now been released into Open Beta status, to make it available for all our customers to review and provide feedback. The goal of this extensive redevelopment has been to provide a far easier to use designer for report creation and customisation. New features are many and include full visibility of report sections as well as drag and drop field and property palettes making it faster to create new reports. We have rigorously tested the new report writer with all reports within Greentree and are pleased to report it meets our design goal of providing close to 100% backward compatibility with reports created with the old report writer. There may be situations where potentially illogical query conditions will not translate, however these are reported to the user and these reports can still be maintained in the old report writer which will remain available.
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 The MIS accolade that has the Greentree family buzzing!
Being announced as a 'Buzzy Bee' homegrown hero by the MIS New Zealand Magazine is a real Jewel in the Crown. The announcement as one of the 25 most strategically important ICT vendors in kiwi land puts us in great company. We share this honor with Navman, and Weta Digital among others. Our '25' status means we're making great headway in becoming a recognized brand in the industry.
These 25 New Zealand named companies have been deemed to be 'very important to NZ IT user organisations that value the advantage of working with companies attuned to the needs of the local business community and are flexible and innovative at the same time.' The awards were judged by a panel of ten, hailing from both the public and private sectors holding senior management & IT positions. They based their decisions on those vendors who have experienced exponential growth locally and internationally. |
| For Greentree customers it's empowering to know that you are using a management tool that has been recognized as a leader in its field. |
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CFO & BSG Software Guide advertising |
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The annual CFO and BSG software guides have been issued in Australia for 2006. Once again, Greentree and Greentree partners have a very strong presence in each guide.
The design on this occasion leveraged off the Global Rising Star accolade and featured the Green Dog on top of the world.
Whilst Greentree has a fabulous reputation amongst users and a growing word-of-mouth popularity it is important to also spread the word. Advertising in the CFO and BSG guides will certainly help us further raise the profile of the product across Australasia.
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Green Dog seen off-road in Australia |
The Greentree Green Dog has adorned the side of Norman Hall's off-road vehicle that has traversed rugged rocky trails, sheer hills, mammoth sand dunes, deep rivers, thorny shrubs and lots and lots of mud. Norman Hall from Star Denver has completed Australia's, and one of the world's, toughest four wheel drive events. The Challenge saw over 60 starters but only 32 finishers. Norman was clearly delighted by the sponsorship. |
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"Without the support of Richard Downing and Star Accounting just getting there would have been difficult. Everyone kept asking what the Green Dog was for on the side on my vehicle. I became quite adept at explaining who Greentree were and what they did. I am now going home to sleep for a week!" said Norman.
The tightly contested trophy was eventually taken out by Rohan Canavan and Wayne Smith in a fight to the finish line but Norman 's the real winner in our eyes. And our audacious adventurer is now heading back to the US whilst his Land Rover Discovery complete with Green Dog decals are to remain in Australia awaiting their next outback escapade.
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| Any Greentree customers that would like to similarly drive their vehicle around with a large green dog decal on the side can do so with our full endorsement. |
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New Partner - Global Tech We are delighted to announce GlobalTech Solutions Ltd as the most recent addition to the Greentree partner channel. The expansion will prove mutually beneficial as it strengthens Greentree's New Zealand market proposition with even more diversity and experience. GlobalTech Solutions Ltd provides software solutions and technology strategies for small, medium and large enterprises and has offices in Christchurch and Auckland. GlobalTech have a wide portfolio of clients across a variety of industries from Agriculture and Education to Not-for-Profit and Manufacturing. Tim Ryley of GlobalTech (pictured) says "we kept hearing good things about Greentree so decided to pursue becoming a partner. We have been impressed with the product and we are looking forward to our first Greentree customer." See news clipping 'The Channel' magazine also m-net news |
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New Partner activity in Sydney
We are very pleased to announce and support a surge of new Greentree partners into Sydney. A 'get to know the local media' event was recently held which saw several partners' representatives facing the Sydney press. Those involved in meeting the press included Jason Du Preez from Verde, Ken Dodds from Star, Mark Foxton from Addax and Peter Dickinson from Greentree. Obviously impressed by the show of momentum the press immediately responded with articles to represent the action. You can see some of the press clippings here: CRN , ARN, M-net.
Here's a little bit of background on each of the partners:
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Jason Du Preez |
Verde 'heading west'
Named NZ Partner of the Year in February 2006, Verde Ltd have a roster of big name clients such as BBQ factory, Hanover Finance and MetLifecare already on board. Now the team have added local representation in the shape of a well known industry name, to meet the challenge of the Sydney market. Jason Du Preez was formerly MD of Epicor Asia Pacific, a leading competitor of Greentree. We're delighted Jason has seen the light and crossed over from the dark-side.
 Clearly looking to leverage off Verde's achievements with Greentree in NZ Jason said "We have a proven services model for delivering tailored end-to-end solutions for SMEs."
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Star 'heading north'
Star Accounting Solutions have been operating in NSW and have long been one of Greentree's strongest partners, both in Australia and the Asia Pacific region. Star has expanded its Sydney office to support its focus on the local market. Ken Dodds has joined Star from PA People to lead the Sydney assault. Compellingly, PA People are a Greentree customer, so having had first hand Greentree experience has obviously convinced Ken he should be part of the –Greentree family.
 Ken said "We are further establishing our commitment to providing our customers with solutions that facilitate end-to-end business management."
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Ken Dodds |
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Mark Foxton |
Addax 'heading east'
Previously based solely in Perth , Addax Business Solutions has now extended its operations to Sydney. They have an excellent track record in developing industry specific business solutions based on Greentree's applications. Mark Foxton heads up the new Sydney office. Mark may be known to some of you as a result of his time as a Greentree Channel Sales Director. Once again, exploiting the momentum of Greentree popularity is an obvious driver for jumping the fence.
 Mark said, "Addax has an excellent track record in developing industry specific business solutions based on Greentree's applicationS".
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The expansion strengthens Greentree's representation in the Sydney area. Partners already operating in the area include Kinetic Information Systems of Newcastle, McLoughlin Pty Ltd of Sydney and GT Business Solutions of Sydney.
GT Business Solutions – 'heading together'
 GT Business Solutions actually represents the recent coming together of 2 existing Greentree partners. MNAS and Second Millennium merged their resources on 1 July, the new entity will base themselves in the MNAS offices, which are well positioned to service the South Sydney region. With merging the two organizations, GT Business Solutions offers a wider range of skills to their customers. The two Directors (John Trisley and Mark Gould) are both very experienced software practitioners and will be making a big focus on business development.
We wish all Greentree partners operating in the Sydney area, all the very best success for the future. |
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Greentree development centre opening doors in Tasmania A big local event has taken place in Tasmania for Greentree partner Synateq's launch of their Tasmanian Greentree Software Development Centre (pictured left to right, Chris Rasmussen of Synateq, Bryan Green Deputy Premier of Tasmania and Peter Dickinson of Greentree). Chris Rasmussen, Managing Director of Synateq, said "the centre is a real win for Tasmania and will help drive our technology sector well into the future." "We've found the Greentree product to be a great fit for Tasmanian business and this development centre will, amongst other things, enable us to deliver a more tailored service to the Tasmanian market," he said. Peter Dickinson added "Chris and the Synateq team have created some fantastic business since becoming a Greentree Partner and have a rapidly growing Tasmanian customer base." |
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Strategic 100 NZ 25 – NZ MIS
Greentree technology partner, Jade Software Corporation is one of 25 companies announced in the MIS New Zealand 2006 list. Greentree was also named on the list. The NZ25 forms part of the MIS Strategic 100. The companies on the NZ25 list are those described as the 25 most strategically important IT vendors, as voted by a panel of judges made up of respected names in the industry. Both Jade and Greentree were named on the MIS Australia Strategic 100. Jade software CEO Rod Carr says 2006 will be "the year for accelerating sustainable growth". Jade overseas clients include those with operations in the United Kingdom , United States and Australia. |
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New Greentree Customer sites |
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 Greentree helps get global rail operator on the right local track
Veolia Transport is one of the world's leading private operators in the passenger transport sector, providing passenger services on buses, trains, trams and ferries. Their New Zealand division felt they required a locally supported yet highly capable financial product with the ability to tailor to their needs. The whole management team saw Greentree as the ideal system for their requirements and future plans. "We liked what we saw - Greentree is very user friendly and flexible, and the reporting tools really stood out for us," says the Financial Controller Albert Giorgini. The implementation went very well. He says "The staff is very proactive and the outcome has been a great success. They understood our goals and met the timeframe and budget." A Fare Revenue ticketing inventory system was custom built from the Inventory module. "Despite the significant volume of transactions Greentree has never fallen over, the system has proved to be very robust and stable." Veolia are clearly very happy customers, during their time using Greentree local patronage has doubled, with more growth expected. Giorgini believes Veolia Transport has chosen the right software for the task ahead. The management is positive that "Greentree will scale as we need it and the benefits will continue as our business grows." |
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That's all for this issue of Taking the Lead, hope you all enjoyed the reading, we'll be back with more exciting Greentree developments and stories in the next edition.
Kind regards,
The Greentree Communications Team
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