Auckland Level 16, 34 Shortland Street Auckland 1010 PO Box 106 190 Auckland 1143 Phone +64 9 379 0525

Wellington Level 6, Lambton House 160 Lambton Quay PO Box 10 111 Wellington 6143 Phone +64 4 473 4552

ChristchurchUnit 6, 15 Sir Gil Simpson Drive Christchurch 8053 Phone +64 3 943 4369

Dunedin Level 1, 30 London Street Dunedin 9016 Phone +64 3 474 1819

Sydney 1 Castlereagh Street Sydney, NSW 2000 Phone +61 2 8240 3800

PerthLevel 13, 251 Adelaide TerracePerth, WA 6000Phone +61 8 9203 3600

Melbourne Level 16, 60 Albert Road South Melbourne, VIC 3205 Phone +61 3 9922 5519

AdelaideLevel 1, 155 Fullarton RoadRose Park, SA 5067Phone +61 8 8239 5700

BrisbaneLevel 14, 110 Eagle StreetBrisbane, QLD 4000Phone +61 7 3215 3400

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

20

Events Clothing takes on the world of Super Yachts with NetSuite

30

Fusion5 MySport on Dynamics 365 enters the game

44

ZEISS Australasia focus on Service Improvement with Ivanti

GO ABOVE AND BEYOND WITH ERP ANALYTICS FOR JDE

PAGE 12

Issue #23 | 2017

GENERAL PRACTITIONERS STREAMLINE EDUCATION AND TRAINING IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA PAGE 26

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As a result of merging our Australian business with Myriad IT, we now have considerably more capability across application software, innovation and managed services. Myriad IT joined us in April 2017, bringing on board 55 talented people and over 80 customers, so we’ve spent the last 6-8 weeks bringing the two businesses together. The joining up of Myriad IT and Fusion5 has given us great leadership across several new areas of expertise, and will enable us to offer even more value to our customers.

We’ve long recognised that our customers have made significant investments in their application software, and we’re proud to offer large teams of talented consultants to help implement and support a wide range of software solutions across multiple vendors. Increasingly, our customers are asking us to manage their applications and IT infrastructure, and provide hosting. The addition of the Myriad IT team has taken us much further into the arena of IT infrastructure and IT services, and is proving to be a winning combination for our customers.

In addition, and perhaps of even greater excitement, are the conversations we are having with our customers around Innovation and Digital Transformation. We’ve appointed a number of senior people to Chief Technology roles, as well as Shannon Moir as Director Digital Innovation. This team has incredible knowledge and insights to offer customers ready to embark on the digital journey. We know how topical this conversation is. Our unique proposition is to assist from a change management perspective, right through to offering choice of platforms and solutions to deliver business transformation.

One of our favourite conversations is when customers ask us to present ideas on what the market is doing, and what they should be thinking about. The land of big data, social, mobile, cloud, Internet of Things, amongst others, is well and truly here, and there is a plethora of projects customers can undertake to test the waters and measure success.

Our focus today is centred on three conversations: applications, innovation and managed services. Within each area we have many exciting customer projects and product initiatives. Several of these are showcased later in this Magazine.

We hope you find something of interest in this edition of Infusion; if you would like further information then please feel free to contact us anytime.

Welcome to our latest Infusion Magazine. 2017 has a positive feel to it, and we hope your year is going well. Like many of our customers, we’ve had a great start to the year as we continue to transform our business to keep pace with conversations that are important to you.

Welcome to Infusion. . .

HELLO!

Rebecca Tohill Chief Executive Fusion5 Australia / New Zealand

INFUSION | 3

46 STAFF INTERVIEWS

2 INTRO

4 NEWS

CONTENTS

INFUSION | Issue #23 | 2017

ERP 10 NETSUITE 18

12 Go above and beyond with ERP Analytics for JDE

14 JD Edwards – Fresh from Collaborate 2017

16 ApprovalPlus

17 Mobilise your Approvals Process on the go!

19 Fusion5 awarded JAPAC Partner of the Year

20 Events Clothing takes on the world of Super Yachts with NetSuite

21 Optimation opts for NetSuite SRP to unite company data and automate processes

22 Buildsafe constructs a better future with NetSuite

26 General Practitioners streamline education and training in Western Australia

PIVOTAL 24

MICROSOFT 28 HR PAYROLL 38

30 Fusion5 MySport Solution on Dynamics 365 enters the game

32 Maximum force

34 Dairy Goat Co-Operative: Taking a fresh look at SharePoint

36 Global coffee & tea company provides better service with Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Resco Mobile CRM

39 MyWorkplace is going mobile!

40 Technology has become a ‘good virus’

41 Implementing single sign-on in the HCM self service space

44 ZEISS Australasia focus on Service Improvement with Ivanti

ITSM 42

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Heath Ragg, Myriad IT’s Managing Director, echoes Rebecca’s sentiments. “It made sense to combine Fusion5 and Myriad IT to create a powerhouse of business technology skills, offerings and partner relationships. With greater scale, we will be able to commit even more resources and staff to R&D and custom development which are our strengths. This merger provides great opportunities for our staff and ensures we can continue to provide our customers the best the market can offer.”

The merger with Myriad IT is Fusion5’s first major move for 2017, and follows several other strategic acquisitions. In early 2016 we acquired and integrated a major Microsoft Dynamics CRM and SharePoint practice, firmly positioning the company among the leading Dynamics CRM partners in New Zealand. BPR Solutions, one of the first NetSuite Certified Solution Partners in Australasia, was also brought into the business in 2016.

Myriad IT’s four shareholders and 55 staff joined forces with Fusion5’s own. Both companies have successful Microsoft Dynamics CRM practices, so Fusion5’s already award-winning team is now boosted by a further 18 Myriad IT CRM consultants.

The merger pushes Fusion5’s portfolio out to over 750 customers and close to 350 staff across nine offices.

With 55 people across Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide, Myriad IT implement and support a wide range of solutions and services across ERP and CRM applications, IT infrastructure and managed services. Myriad IT has stayed at the forefront of technical innovation with their market leading solutions for public cloud and enterprise mobility, all supported by strong partnerships with Oracle and Microsoft.

Fusion5’s Chief Executive, Rebecca Tohill, says the merger has been a great match for both companies, our staff and customers. “With Myriad IT’s 18 year track record of success in markets similar to ours, we see great benefit in bringing our Australian businesses together. Myriad IT’s skills complement and extend ours, while we offer new solution sets, customers, and partners to theirs.”

Tohill sees momentum building from the outset, with their respective JD Edwards and CRM teams already discussing customer requirements and market opportunities. “Together, Fusion5 and Myriad IT make the most diverse, capable and talented Oracle JD Edwards team in Australia and New Zealand,” says Tohill. “A significant number of customers rely heavily on JD Edwards to run their businesses, and our goal is to be their partner of choice. Myriad IT’s in-depth IT skills readily transfer to our other customers across IT service management, CRM, infrastructure, app development, human resources and payroll.”

In April 2017, Fusion5 and Myriad IT merged their Australian businesses, bringing together two great teams of very capable people, with a wider footprint of solutions and services.

Myriad IT merge with Fusion5

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ABOUT FUSION5

Fusion5 is a business solutions organisation offering digital innovation and consultancy, application software and implementation services, IT and applications management, as well as cloud hosting of infrastructure and software.

We provide consulting and implementation services to help organisations significantly improve business operations. Our large teams of specialist and experienced consultants provide thought leadership and best practice consultancy to drive business value, as well as highly skilled implementation and support services to deliver core business applications and IT infrastructure.

Our expertise covers key functional requirements required across any business including Enterprise Resource Planning, HR / Payroll, Customer Experience, Customer Relationship Management, Digital Enablement, IT Service Management, and IT Infrastructure.

Our highly qualified and experienced solutions architects, project managers and consultants means our track record for delivering on time, on budget projects is second to none. And, our ability to support

a wide range of business applications means our customers can enjoy the benefits of consolidated support through a highly-committed business partnership.

Fusion5 recognise that businesses want experience with a team approach to delivery, responsiveness and flexibility, and a high degree of commitment to a strong relationship. Our diverse portfolio means we offer customers choice of fit-for-purpose solutions, all of which are leaders in the field.

Today our services are utilised by over 750 customers and our success is recognised by our key partners including Oracle and NetSuite, Microsoft, Aptean, Ivanti and AWS. With close to 350 people in nine cities across Australia and New Zealand, we have enjoyed rapid growth in our local markets.

Feel free to contact us if you would like to discuss any of your business’ application or technical needs, software licence contracts, support, or hosting arrangements.

www.fusion5.com.au or www.fusion5.co.nz

WHAT'S HOT...?Customers are asking us about:• Consolidation of software vendors

within our customer base

• Managed Services and 24x7 support

• Self Service real-time reporting

• Next generation IT Asset Management

• Digital Transformation

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» Ivanti merger forms the 3rd largest ITSM vendor in the world, bringing 7 more world class IT and enterprise solutions to our customers in 2017

» Richmond Fellowship Tasmania (RFT) becomes our first CloudNFP (Not-for-Profit) customer, and Mareterram becomes our first Western Australian NetSuite Customer

» Qenos, Jaggards, TSE Leigh and Mortec Industries select Fusion5 and NetSuite

» Anglicare Central Queensland goes ‘all-in’ with CloudNFP

» Homecare Medical joins Fusion5’s NetSuite and ApprovalPlus family

» Wellington Regional Stadium Trust, McRaes Global and IMF Bentham are all wowed by NetSuite

» Waikato and Bay of Plenty Suspended Ceiling Services also selects NetSuite

» ZircoDATA buys NetSuite, Adaptive and EmpowerHR

» Beaurepaires selects Fusion5 for a transformative business solution

» Ports of Auckland selects Fusion5 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online

» OneFortyOne Plantations moves its JD Edwards support contract to Fusion5, noting our people’s reputations and our investment in our Customer Centre

» Gladstone Ports also moves to Fusion5 as a new JD Edwards PartnerPlus customer

» Aspire2 selects Fusion5 to implement our world class Student Management Solution

» EastPack picks Jade Star and MyWorkplace software

» Fuji Xerox selects Ivanti Change Management software

» USQ signs up for a 5 year Ivanti SaaS deal with Fusion5

» Bayside Council also selects Ivanti for a new and modern service desk platform

» Chain & Rigging, Infomedia, Burando Hill, Marque Magnetics, Vend and Gentrack all go live with NetSuite

» Lockheed Martin NZ’s PayGlobal Cloud5 migration project goes live

» Antares Group, InterCity, Mid Central Health, Whanganui DHB, PGG Wrightson, Hirepool and Green Cross Health have all gone live with ApprovalPlus

» MaxiTRANS goes live at Corporate and the NSW branch with JD Edwards and Oracle Sales Cloud

» Toyota New Zealand’s Vehicle Management System, based on JD Edwards and Oracle Service Cloud, is now live

» Energex goes live with RFgen data collection software at their Eagle Farm distribution centre

» Enterprise IT is now live on Dynamics 365 (CRM, SharePoint) with an integration to Workflow Max for job scheduling/tracking

» UCOL has gone live with their Dynamics CRM solution (Pataka Korero)

» Our HCM team has implemented the Jade Star solution for Hyundai Rotem and Transdev

Ross Cooper, HR Manager “I would like to go on record to thank all involved for their efforts in getting us to where we are today, great effort above and beyond what was expected and much appreciated”

» City of Melbourne selects Ivanti Service Management to replace their existing service desk solution

» Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle goes live with Ivanti Service Management for ICT, Communications and HR

» EVGPT (Eastern Victoria General Practice Training) goes live with Pivotal CRM UX solution.

SINCE OUR LAST ISSUE...

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Tell us a bit about yourself

I’m very lucky to have 3 fantastic children between the age of seven and 13 and an awesome wife. I enjoy staying fit, but it’s a constant battle between beer and running, riding and swimming.

What is your role at Fusion5?

As the Director Digital Innovation for Australia and New Zealand, my aim is to develop and apply standardised and cost-effective innovation to help businesses make IT work for them, not the other way around.

What will be your focus over the next 12 months?

Establishing the Digital Innovation team at Fusion5. This isn't a new domain for us as we've been pioneers in Australia, and globally, in solutions for JD Edwards, ERP Analytics, Microsoft and the Cloud. The merger between Myriad IT and Fusion5 allows us to concentrate more on innovation (amongst other things). Part of my role is to understand what is most important to our customers, and how innovation can contribute to their success. I want to help customers embrace innovation, guide them through the journey, and demonstrate value by benchmarking and measuring results.

What does the merger between Fusion5 and Myriad IT mean for existing customers and new customers?

Firstly, I’m impressed by the complementary nature of all of our staff, skills and offerings. Our combined strengths and award winning solutions create a stronger customer value proposition which will have a big impact on the market. The biggest difference new and existing customers will see, is we now have the power to solve more challenges, more quickly.

How would you define ‘innovation’?

I’m not sure that I like to define it, but it MUST have certain qualities. It must be measurable, contribute to a business’ goals and involve a bit of technology. I like to see the best and latest technologies embraced because they can make a real difference in our lives. In my opinion, any plan for innovation must be balanced with a measurable improvement in safety, reliability and/or profitability. When we can actually measure what innovation delivers, then we can innovate with confidence.

What is the most disruptive innovation that’s happened in the last year and why?

Disruptive innovation is innovation that is making the most change. Commercially, I think a combination of Internet of Things (IoT) and mobile, especially with beacon technology. Beacons are small devices that can be used to monitor states such as temperature, light, location, sound, movement, etc. Signals from these beacons are transmitted and can be used in infinite ways.

On another note, I’m having fun with Virtual Reality (VR) technology. The development team and I have been experimenting with the HTC Vive to develop use cases for VR. It’s truly amazing! VR might be the replacement for the computer monitor. You can put yourself anywhere with a large screen in your virtual room. I'm envisioning a time when you no longer need to go to a sports arena to immerse yourself in the game. You can virtually step on the pitch and follow the ball - all live! It's not all fun and games, there are incredible training and commercial applications that we're looking into.

What is the biggest barrier to innovation and how can organisations overcome them?

I believe there is a constant fear of innovation for the sake of innovation, which I avoid. I see customers wanting to fix problems with their existing systems and processes then perhaps consider innovation. This is why I insist on measurable innovation – positive or negative – we know the impact of the change.

The fear of cloud, whether loss of control or security concerns must be addressed. The cloud has dramatically changed the cost of innovation. You don’t need to spend capital to innovate. You can have new servers, integrations, databases and more and only pay for what you use. The cloud removes MANY traditional barriers to innovation – what I like to call 'constraint-less IT'. With the cloud, you can adapt and embrace the latest technologies quickly. There is no doubt that Software as a Service (SaaS) based products are going to be much more common going forward. I think we all need to get a strong cloud-based integration suite ready for our SaaS migration strategies. This is core to ensuring that you have the freedom to make certain choices and rapidly adapt to change.

Businesses also need to look at government incentives for innovation. Tax credits are offered (in Australia at least) with the right business case.

What makes a ‘good day’?

The best start to my day is riding to work followed by a good coffee. I love making new discoveries and working out how it can be applied to businesses. A bonus is when I solve a problem that I can add to my blog. I like to finish the day by riding home and hearing that my family had a good day too.

Interview with Shannon Moir, Fusion5 Director Digital Innovation

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The price you pay to keep your business running

Why do I ask this? Because the majority of the solutions we specialise in at Fusion5 are critical to the day-to-day operation of businesses everywhere. They are the ones that require ongoing configuration and support to continually adapt as your business changes. And, they often have a large footprint in terms of their infrastructure and operational requirements.

Most modern business applications require a number of components to successfully deliver the solution to your employees/customers or partners. These components include the underlying infrastructure, support for that infrastructure (at a hardware and operating system level) as well as support for the application itself.

But it doesn’t stop there.

Depending on your business’ internal knowledge and coverage, some of these elements can be supported in-house. However, in most cases there is a heavy reliance on individuals to support these business critical solutions. When issues do occur there’s inevitably downtime, which results in a huge loss of services across your business. And if the issue can’t be quickly

resolved internally there’s potentially more downtime while you wait for external or offsite support. Of course, none of this is helped if your support service then struggles to gain the remote access necessary to get your application back up and running. That is often the final straw.

Just how much is that all actually costing you?

What it takes for your IT helpdesk, internal application support and external assistance to solve an issue could cost your business thousands in terms of time, effort and lost revenue. And then, of course, it can happen all over again.

The actual hardware and software required to run your applications is another huge ongoing expense. There are licensing and maintenance costs to factor in, and support costs to keep them online and in a healthy state.

So, why move to Cloud5?

Moving to Cloud5, Infrastructure as a Service, makes sense because not only is the underlying Cloud infrastructure fully redundant, scalable, supported, monitored and secure, but your data is consistently backed up and replicated to a secondary location for disaster recovery.

A common (and very important) question I’m asked about Cloud-based solutions is: “What return on investment (ROI) can I expect if we move off our existing on-premise infrastructure?”

My response is to first ask, “how critical is the business application to your organisation?” and then, “how many elements go into supporting that solution while it remains on-premise?”

What’s your business ROI by moving to a Fusion5 cloud-based managed service?Written by Kris Jackson, Fusion5 Consulting Manager

Then there’s the fact that our Cloud-based solutions are usually hosted on shared infrastructure, at a far lower cost than hosting on-premise.

In addition, the Cloud5 team and your Fusion5 business application professionals work together, guaranteeing quick and easy access to support your solutions 24x7x365. The solutions that support your business operations on a daily basis are online and available constantly. Kicking downtime into touch!

Considering each of these factors - the internal support, hardware and software costs versus a Fusion5 Cloud-based Managed Service - you really start to see the benefits of moving to the Cloud and realising an instant, ongoing and permanent return on your investment.

Perhaps the real question you should be asking yourself is: “How much is it costing me to NOT move to Cloud5?”

INFUSION | 9

ERP

Fusion5’s ERP pillar has changed significantly over the past few months. The recent Fusion5 / Myriad IT merger has brought real benefit to our JDE business line, consolidating our position in the Oracle market and establishing the business as a leading JD Edwards provider across Australia and New Zealand. In particular, our combined business has broad and deep capability in business applications, technology, managed services, and innovation. Fusion5 has established our position as the leading quality JD Edwards provider in the market, which is a key point of difference for us.

Our ERP business has had great success on the support front over the past six months. We have signed up six new JDE managed services support contracts over this period, all of which have been customers requesting improved customer service and needing business improvement made to their operations. Our team has been very busy adding value on a number of fronts. Further to this, we have numerous large projects underway across ANZ in all of our solution areas. This includes both JDE projects and complementary solutions that we provide such as ReportsNow and ApprovalPlus. We are finding that our customers are gaining a lot from our solution/technical architecture advice and our strong consulting services expertise.

Fusion5 has been working closely with our JD Edwards customers in recent months to map out their digital roadmaps for the year. We have been building digital strategies for many customers. Our team recently attended the global JD Edwards user group meeting in Las Vegas, Collaborate, where we received strong interest from JD Edwards customers around our ERP Analytics tool. While at the event our team was briefed by Oracle on the latest JDE product developments, including their announcement about a 10 year support roadmap for JD Edwards EnterpriseOne v9.2. This roadmap has major implications to the way that we support our customers through Continuous Innovation; today this is front and centre to the work that we are doing with our customers.

As a follow up to Collaborate, Fusion ran our JD Edwards Innovation Roadshow in June. We received a lot of interest from customers who are looking for Fusion5’s assistance around Continuous Development and Innovation. Areas that we are finding particular interest in include Mobility, Cloud and Internet of Things (IoT). We are really looking forward to working with our customers over the coming year to help them navigate the landscape of the Mega Trends affecting IT leaders today.

On the new product development front, Fusion5 is putting the final touches on to launch a new version of our market-leading Procure to Pay solution, ApprovalPlus. We will be announcing a launch date very soon, so watch this space. This is very exciting for us as it will pave the way to a strong SaaS offering that we can take to market.

Finally, we are starting to pick up the pace of growth of our Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Operations practice which has been in place for the past few months. We are seeing strong customer up-take of Microsoft Dynamics 365 and we expect that this will be a big growth area for our business in years to come.

INFUSION | 11

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When we hear the word analytics, we immediately think of numbers and graphs. If you look beneath the surface, the real value comes from optimising a business' ERP by turning usage data into unique insights. Our ERP Analytics tool was developed by harnessing the engine behind Google Analytics. Utilising the Google Analytics interface, it has all the same slice and dice features, dashboards, triggers, and event handling capability. Anything that can be done in Google Analytics can be done in ERP Analytics. When applied to JD Edwards, it can assist our customers with:

• Identifying application performance issues

•  identifying opportunities to improve operational efficiency

•  Planning application upgrades, testing and training

•  Maintaining your Standard Operating Environment (SOE)

ERP Analytics can provide real-time and retrospective metrics for usage, access and speed by browser version, Operating System (OS), mobile device, server, time, date, user, location and more. We take a look at a few examples to see how this data can be applied to businesses.

Identify application performance issues Custom alerts and reports can be set up to monitor applications performance. How they are set up depends on what is being monitored, and when the manager needs to be informed. For example, alerts and parameters can be set up to monitor the average page

Go above and beyond with ERP Analytics for JDEERP Analytics is like a black box for your ERP. It constantly records data about JD Edwards usage and performance behind the scenes. Insights from the data enables our customers to better manage their systems and importantly, go above and beyond to get more out of their JD Edwards investment.

load time. When the system operates outside those parameters, an alert is immediately sent via email and/or text message. Based on the description of the alert, the manager can assess its severity and troubleshoot the issue.

Custom views and reports can also be applied by a specific date range to see when pages took longer than usual to load. Where there are unexpectedly high load times, managers can drill down to see which pages were the slowest, when (even by the minute), which users were affected and their location. Based on the information provided, the situation may have been an interrupted internet connection at a specific site, or a large number of users are loading object-heavy pages. Whatever the situation, the manager can then take steps to prevent it from happening again.

Identify opportunities to improve operational efficiencyA good starting point is to see where users spend the most time. This can be through Page views, Sessions and Average time on page, then drill down to see who the heaviest users are.

By pinpointing specific users and behaviours, managers can talk to them to understand their needs and where the business can develop productivity enhancements. A simple enhancement such as pre-populating fields could cut down the time users spend on a page, especially if it's a page they use all the time. ERP Analytics can then be used to compare the before and after, to measure the time saved which can be translated into cost savings.

Plan application upgrades, testing and training

In the last two years, ERP Analytics has helped our customers plan over 20 JD Edwards upgrade projects. It has prevented the retro fit of hundreds of unused JD Edwards objects—saving our customers significant time and money.

ERP Analytics data can be used to identify which customisations are used most heavily, or not at all. This information can help businesses decide which customisations to transfer to the new JD Edwards release, when, and how to approach their upgrade project. This saves precious time and costs that would otherwise be spent unnecessarily carrying forward unused JD Edwards objects.

Each customisation can be drilled down to see: when it was used, for how long, by whom and location. Location data is particularly important if performing the upgrade by region.

We have helped customers manage entire upgrade projects and design testing and training programs based on the analysis of information provided by ERP Analytics. Customers know what apps are being used, what to test, which users should be performing the tests, what to include in training programs and who should be trained.

Maintaining a standard operating environmentERP Analytics can be used to identify which technologies and applications such as devices, networks, browsers and OS were used to access the ERP. If anything stands outside of the SOE, the information can reviewed further to find gaps in user, technology, security and performance requirements.

A business, for example, may find users on Windows XP (popular over 10 years ago) are accessing their ERP. If this is outside of the recommended SOE, the data can be drilled down to find who those users are and take steps to update their system.

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INFUSION | 13

To see how ERP Analytics can help your business go above and beyond, contact us for a demonstration.

Contact Glenn Mansfield - Glenn.Mansfield@Fusion5.com.au

FIGURE 4 ERP ACCESS BY OS FIGURE 5 ERP ACCESS

BY BROWSER FIGURE 6 ERP ACCESS BY DEVICE

FIGURE 1 SETTING UP AN ALERT NOTIFICATION WHEN AVERAGE PAGE LOAD TIME IS TOO SLOW

FIGURE 3 SESSIONS BY COUNTRY DRILLED DOWN BY CITY

FIGURE 2 SET UP YOUR OWN VIEWS AND REPORTS FOR AVERAGE PAGE LOAD TIME

INFUSION | 13

JD Edwards – Fresh from Collaborate 2017

Coming into the event, the burning questions were: ‘will Oracle’s roadmap reveal how JDE is going to meet today’s ever-changing business demands and keep current on technology?’ and ‘how will JDE cater for our staff’s usability needs in today’s always-on internet and social world?’

The good news is that we got some definitive answers from Oracle!

JD Edwards support until 2028Arguably, the most important update coming out of Lyle Ekdahl’s keynote was on the change in JD Edwards’ support model.

Oracle now offers customers a 10-year support roadmap for JDE EnterpriseOne v9.2, and you can add another 3 years with extended life support. In Oracle’s view, version 9.2 is a major foundation code line for JD Edwards. Using this baseline release Oracle will drive continuous innovation, on-going usability improvements, industry-specific functionality, improved simplification tools, feature enhancements to functionality and more. Oracle has made a strong commitment to continuously extend the support horizon of the product well into the future.

JD Edwards and continuous digital innovationOracle’s primary focus is to make JD Edwards a digital transformation tool for future businesses. Although this sounds like a bold statement with broad implications, what does it really mean for you and me?

Back in November 2015, Oracle released a broad footprint of new functionality for JD Edwards along with base software improvements around usability and productivity. This ranged from a breakthrough User Interface called UX One, to an improved EnterpriseOne Search facility, Mobile Apps for JDE, an Internet of Things (IoT) Orchestrator and One-Click Provisioning of JDE in the Cloud. New functionality covers advanced project forecasting, global revenue recognition and BI-styled reporting (OneView), for instance.

More recently Oracle has published a planned rollout map for their JDE E1 9.2 code line with extensive features included over the coming years. Built-in Social Collaboration for JD Edwards is being released soon. This will include document collaboration using social networking natively within the ERP application. JDE Enterprise Search 2.0 also brings an enterprise-wide search feature and improvements to the attachment

preview. New functionality due out soon includes revenue recognition for real estate, basket pricing for procurement and lessor accounting.

Why is this such big news for JD Edwards?On the surface Oracle’s new strategy for JD Edwards may not appear that different from previous announcements. There is a clear product development and support roadmap proposed, with enhancements planned for existing functionality and new modules to be released. Oracle has extended their support by a further 5-year term.

While this adds more weight behind the product, what’s all the noise about?

Shannon Moir, Fusion5 Director Digital Innovation, gets to the heart of this question in his recent blog post “JD Edwards 9.2 to live on… and on… and on..”. Is it possible that Oracle’s strategy is to squeeze the last life out of the product? Is there a question over Oracle’s commitment to the product? Shannon’s blog answers these hard questions. Shannon argues that, in fact, this strategy is a necessary move by Oracle for the sustainability of the JD Edwards product going forward. It is now a requirement for

As the sun sets on Collaborate 2017, the consensus is that this year’s global JD Edwards user group conference was one of Oracle’s most significant JDE events to date. It was a week packed full of insights on how Oracle’s long-term plans for JD Edwards will take us into the brave new digital world.

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vendors to standardise long-term on a baseline ERP release and to ensure frequent on-going incremental value is delivered to that release. This is a necessity for customers to remain nimble in the new digital world.

This news is highly relevant to all of usCommitting to and supporting a key baseline release of JD Edwards for an extended period means that Oracle customers can focus their resources on quick innovation through continuous improvement. The need for big and costly upgrade cycles every 5 years has gone away! Customers can peg their future on version 9.2 and add new features, functions and improvements continuously and without any hurdles. This is an exciting time to be a JDE customer – the future is bright.

It is also an exciting time for us as a JD Edwards partner. We are able to support our customers in the Cloud or On Premise, leveraging “As-a-Service models” to add value to their businesses. Hurdles are removed for us too. It’s an innovative time all round.

A brave new digital worldCollaborate 2017 was an opportunity for Oracle to show us how far they have come with JD Edwards, both strategically and operationally. We now understand their digital roadmap for JD Edwards. Oracle’s focus is on the mega trends affecting business today – mobile, big data, IoT, social and cognitive computing. We understand how their research and development is targeting product enhancements that prepare customers for the new digital world. This strategy permeates every discussion around JDE product development.

We look forward to working closely with our JD Edwards customers over the coming months. It is a great opportunity to extend what we currently do for you and add real value to your businesses. We will be running digital innovation workshops with each of our customers over the coming months to align your strategies with these advancements.

INFUSION | 15

Customers looking to streamline their backend business processes continue to choose ApprovalPlus. New customers include large and small organisations across all industry sectors.

Our new version of ApprovalPlus has generated a lot of interest. Version 4 is almost complete, with the final touches being made and testing being carried out. This new version offers a modern user interface with a great new look and feel. It will open up the application to iPads and Tablets and a wider range of browsers.

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• PGG Wrightson has lots of mobile users, so we’ve created a mobile application that allows them to process Credit Card and Expense Claim transactions on their mobile phones

• Trusthouse is a community owned trust responsible for running restaurants, pubs and residential housing in the Wairarapa

• Orana is an organisation providing support and work opportunities in Australia to people with intellectual disabilities

• Spectrum Care provides housing and assistance to people with intellectual disabilities in the Auckland region

• Post Haste Group is a freight and courier company operating across New Zealand

• Homecare Medical runs health related call centres, where we’re implementing both ApprovalPlus and NetSuite

• Nillumbik Shire Council near Melbourne is implementing ApprovalPlus to work with their JD Edwards ERP

• Te Tumu Paeroa manages Māori Land Trusts

The focus for this year is rolling out Version 4 of ApprovalPlus to our customer base and selling to more organisations across Australia and New Zealand. We’ll soon have our first ApprovalPlus customer in the Cloud, something that’s likely to become more common going forward.

Mobilise your Approvals Process on the go!Every few years a new piece of technology comes along that changes the world and how people carry out every day activities. The invention of cars, low cost flights and the internet all changed the way business functions, and who we deal with in a wider market.

The use of mobile phones is no exception. At the beginning, phones were unreliable and only good for making the occasional call at great expense. With the advent of the smart phone and cheaper access to data plans, the business and private uses of phones are changing rapidly. To be competitive, business systems must now be accessible from a mobile device.

A typical business nowadays will have some staff office bound, and others who travel as

part of their role to see their customers or suppliers. If you’re making money by being on the road, then coming in to the office just to fill out forms or approve payments is potentially costing your organisation money. Why even waste time running to a photocopier when you have a powerful mobile device in your pocket waiting to be used?

Fusion5’s ApprovalPlus has been extended to go-mobile. We started by creating a mobile application to cover staff expense claims and credit card spend processing. Your Auckland ‘road warriors’ can claim for their customers’ lattes. The Wairarapa team can take a hot lead for an afterwork Tui. Sydney staff can shout your clients a League game. And all the costs accrued on the go can be processed without having to worry about doing the paperwork later.

Your staff members’ current mobile phones can be used to receive emails, push your users to process their credit card statements, or allow them to initiate an expense claim. They can take a picture using the phone’s camera and submit it to management for approval. Any time, any place.

The mobile application slots into the ApprovalPlus system linked into your ERP or finance system. Use ApprovalPlus to create purchase orders, process supplier invoices and manage the project spending for your organisation. You can also approve claims and card transactions from the mobile workforce.

Our first mobile use of ApprovalPlus is available now, and we will be adding more this year, including the ability for users to do their approvals or raise a Purchase Order while at the shops.

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If you are interested in seeing what ApprovalPlus can do for you, or want to create a specialised mobile application, talk to us now.

NETSUITE

Fusion5 awarded JAPAC Partner of the YearNetSuite is the #1 Cloud ERP in the market right now with more than 40,000 organisations and subsidiaries worldwide managing their businesses with the NetSuite solution. Companies span a wide range of industries, company sizes and business needs. As an all-in-one solution, companies can grow and expand without the worry of outpacing their business systems whether ERP, eCommerce, Not for Profit or Service based. Of course, being a true cloud SaaS business management software, NetSuite provides greater reliability while eliminating the need for on-site hardware and software.

Fusion5 is enjoying record growth with our Australian and New Zealand NetSuite practice and has been recognised for this by NetSuite themselves. Fusion5 has been awarded the following:

•  NetSuite JAPAC Partner of the Year 2017

•  NetSuite ANZ Partner of Excellence for 2016

•  NetSuite 5 Star Award – 2017

Fusion5 is rightly proud of any awards and recognition provided by NetSuite. Nice for us but why should this matter to you, our customer?

Vendors justify awards not only on sales performance but really because partners provide consistently high outcomes for their customers. These outcomes are underpinned with a genuine breadth of additional offering that adds value to customers.

Fusion5, as the No.1 JAPAC partner, guarantees for our customers access to a significant quantum of NetSuite Certified Consultants and Solution Architects, a fully resourced Customer Support Centre, dedicated Customer Success Managers, a Development Centre of Excellence as part of NetSuite’s SDN program, continuing Suite Commerce Advanced enablement programs, Training & Knowledge Transfer Sessions and willing Support for User Groups. In addition,

and because Fusion5 is the JAPAC partner of choice, our symbiotic relationship with NetSuite gives our customers unique access to insights, product release cycles, NetSuite offers and a voice in product direction.

NetSuite product newsFusion5 had a good size team attend the recent SuiteWorld Global Conference in Las Vegas. With so much investment pouring into the product by Oracle it was great to get close to the NetSuite product managers to better understand how we all benefit from an enhanced solution. Some of the highlights:

•  Everyone was delighted to hear that HR will now be available within the product from Sept 2017

•  Visualisation and enhanced reporting is coming soon as a direct result of embedding the Oracle toolset within NetSuite

•  Improved Manufacturing functionality for complex BoMs and Supply Chain

•  Rapid implementation sets for SuiteCommerce so that customers can very quickly publish best in class web offerings

•  Solid roadmap for SRP product enhancements

GrowthThe rapid uptake of NetSuite in the ANZ marketplace means Fusion5 has brought on many new customers this year already and our delivery teams are right amongst many deployments. Growth comes with its own challenges so, to ensure we provide the quality service expected by our customers, we have invested in building our professional services team. This includes practice management capability, more development resource, dedicated customer success managers in Australia and New Zealand and more consulting expertise in both countries.

Together NetSuite and Fusion5 are indelibly partnered to ensure you derive a return from your investment in the NetSuite Product.

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Events Clothing takes on the world of Super Yachts with NetSuite

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The importance of great team matesThe original Events Clothing NetSuite implementation was done by a small local partner.

Fusion5 took over as support partner in 2014. They immediately set about improving the ways NetSuite matched the company’s processes, and delivered advanced training and support. The amount of buy-in and the rate of user adoption among Events Clothing staff increased markedly under the new partnership.

Auckland-based Events Clothing specialises in the design, manufacture and supply of high quality off-the-shelf and made-to-order yachting crew uniforms and corporate apparel.

With a staff of only 18, Events Clothing has a huge reputation internationally and over 500 super yacht and motor yacht customers.

Treading water with standalone systemsEvents Clothing adopted NetSuite as their ERP solution in 2012 because they needed to move away from standalone on-premise financial and CRM solutions, and slow manual processes for inventory management and purchasing.

As well as struggling with the lack of visibility caused by unintegrated systems, it was difficult for Events Clothing staff to access live real-time information while out of the office. This proved a major drawback for a rapidly growing company, heavily dependent on their international sales team to generate and place orders from afar.

Plain sailing with a cloud solutionHoward George, General Manager of Events Clothing says there are only about 10 major players in the high-end yachting apparel space worldwide. “We are part of an exclusive group. The rest are all based in the Mediterranean or in America - or in both. So there is nobody on this side of the world but us.”

While New Zealand’s yachting heritage is a marketing advantage to Events Clothing, their geographical distance from most of their market is not. Being able to access their business systems remotely 24/7 is essential to further growth.

Howard is a veteran of several ERP implementations, but NetSuite is the first true cloud business solution he’s worked with. Now he doubts he’d recommend implementing on-premise ERPs for companies who compete offshore “When you have an international business, being able to access your ERP system anywhere in the world is a very attractive proposition.”

Staying in the raceThe visibility of Events Clothing’s critical business information improved dramatically when they switched to running everything through NetSuite. User dashboards provide customised information, and additional training from Fusion5 means staff can now produce in-depth reporting with minimal effort or time.

Howard can’t imagine Events Clothing competing effectively internationally without NetSuite. “From my perspective, there was no way of running this business in the current climate without changing to a cloud-based system. NetSuite gives our agents in Europe direct access to our ERP system. This is a very real business benefit. Controlling stock, sales order entry and having visibility of the management numbers are critical to our success.”

“Fusion5 has been an excellent partner,” said Howard. “When I want to do something new and want to get feedback they demonstrate very strong NetSuite know-how and expertise.”

“One of the big drivers for our move to NetSuite is that it’s cloud-based,” said Howard. “We can access it from anywhere in the world. As an example, I’ve recently spent three weeks in the UK and did most of my job from there.”

Optimation opts for NetSuite SRP to unite company data and automate processes

Founded in 1992, Optimation is one of New Zealand's longest-standing, and most successful, locally owned IT companies.

Providing a comprehensive range of solutions and services, from IT strategies, to business intelligence and digital transformation, their customers include well-known organisations in both New Zealand and Australia. Optimation has offices in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Sydney, and Canberra, and they employ over 250 people.

Time for a change in systemsIn 2014 Optimation decided it was time to move from the separate, standalone business solutions they were using to a single core system.

With the company’s information spread across a range of databases and on independently maintained spreadsheets, it was difficult and time-consuming to see and manage project profitability as well as many other business operations. And while some systems were accessible via the cloud, others weren’t.

It was clear to Sharon Butler, Optimation’s Business Advisor, that they needed a fit-for-purpose business solution. One with a single source of the truth, and that streamlined their processes through automation. And naturally, it needed to be fully cloud-based to support employees and managers who required real-time access to critical business information.

Finding a fit-for-purpose solutionOptimation issued an RFP, and despite the number of options they had to evaluate, Optimation found that choosing the right solution was easy.

“Fusion5’s proposal to implement NetSuite’s Services Resource Planning solution,” said Butler, “came out on top. It met all our business needs, as well as being affordable.”

NetSuite SRP is specifically designed for companies like Optimation, who sell both

services and products. It provides complete visibility and control over enterprise-wide processes. Its capabilities include revenue recognition for diverse revenue streams, and consolidated billing across multiple service and product delivery models.

As a purpose-designed and built cloud solution, Optimation knew that the ERP and professional services automation functions would meet all their requirements in one, single system.

One version of the truth, at lastA key outcome for Optimation was seeing their data all in one place.

“Previously, both our employee and customer data was basically replicated in every system we were using,” said Butler. “NetSuite definitely delivered on providing us with one source of truth.”

Butler says that NetSuite’s process automation effectively minimised the number of manual tasks. Optimation staff are now more efficient, and business processes are faster.

NetSuite SRP provides Optimation’s on-the-go services professionals with access to real-time business information from anywhere, at any time. And the company’s management gained a whole new level of visibility.

“Managers can now see the up-to-minute status of their teams and our customers,” said Butler. “Before, they had to request the information from the finance team, but now they can check on the status of a customer’s invoice themselves. And the search functionality is great. With the level of visibility that NetSuite provides it’s easy to pull together

the information you need, and then instantly output it in the format you’re after.”

Leading from the topOptimation pioneered NetSuite SRP in New Zealand, and this was the first time Fusion5 implemented this specific solution in either New Zealand or Australia.

To meet the challenge head-on, Fusion5 made certain their most senior personnel were available if Optimation had any concerns.

And as Optimation continues its growth path, Butler is confident that NetSuite SRP will scale with them, and continue to meet their needs.

“NetSuite has proven to be a hugely flexible solution”, said Butler, “and we’re pleased we chose it.”

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“Where we needed more attention, we found the Fusion5 leadership team were very responsive to our needs,” said Butler. “We always had a direct line to the very top, and genuinely appreciated having that level of accessibility.”

BUILDSAFEStarted over 10 years ago, Buildsafe grew from a group of small businesses to its current position as market leader in the provision of safe access solutions to the construction industry. Proudly Australian owned and operated, Buildsafe is made up of seven operating legal entities and has close to 400 staff. The company has head offices in Melbourne and Brisbane, and they operate 13 branches across Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales.

The challengesThe company’s continued success and rapid growth stretched the capabilities of their current financial system. MYOB had been the ideal choice when Buildsafe first commenced operations. However, as the company grew, the small business system was unable to support their growth trajectory, provide the in-depth reporting required for sound financial planning and multiple entities, or provide the convenience of anytime-anywhere access. The burgeoning size of the finance team reflected the legacy system's lack of streamlined processes and its inherent inefficiencies.

Buildsafe’s CFO, David Lowth, joined the business in 2015, to support the founding directors. They focused on their core strengths of sales and operations and ensured that systems were in place to support these functions. Lowth’s focus was on finance. Struggling with multiple databases he had problems consolidating and producing the information the company needed to make decisions. And MYOB’s limited ability to manage increasingly large and complex transactions continued to place pressure on the finance team.

The Directors considered a range of solutions to replace MYOB including Pronto, Sage and Microsoft Dynamics. After watching a NetSuite webinar, the shortlist was quickly reduced to two contenders, and NetSuite was quickly selected as the better option.

Why NetSuite?NetSuite can integrate and streamline their processes, support company growth and provide all the convenience and advantages of a true Cloud solution.

Buildsafe constructs better future with NetSuite

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“Fusion5 is proud to have been entrusted by the Buildsafe team to deploy NetSuite into their expanding business. Fusion5 is all about long term customer relationships and delivering flexible solutions that help businesses grow rapidly and successfully. Fusion5 is confident that whatever future business needs Buildsafe encounter they will have future proofed themselves with the NetSuite Suite of Applications and Fusion5 Professional Services.”Grant Robertson Fusion5 Director, NetSuite

Buildsafe was confident in their choice of NetSuite. “We were impressed with the way it was presented,” said Lowth. “We liked how adaptable the system was, the ease of navigation, the dashboards and the fact that it was solely cloud-based. It ticked all the boxes for our needs. It was clear that NetSuite would future proof Buildsafe.”

considerations in making their decision. “The key things were,” said Lowth, “do we feel comfortable with these people as partners going into the future? And will the system future-proof our business?”

Fusion5, the largest 5 Star NetSuite partner across Australia and New Zealand, demonstrated to Buildsafe that they have a deep knowledge of the NetSuite product, and the capability, resources and ability to support their growing businesses.

Strong foundations for the futureThe full NetSuite solution is being rolled out in 2017.

Lowth says that NetSuite’s automated workflows will save the company’s financial team time, provide a single application platform and free-up staff to focus on other areas of the business. “Rather than just generating financial reports on income and expenses, we’ll be able to work with company-wide information that will enable us to make better decisions for our future.”

Because it’s a true Cloud offering, NetSuite can dramatically reduce Buildsafe’s costs and lower their TCO in several areas. There’s no need for Buildsafe to procure any more hardware, maintain middleware, or pay a large up-front license fee. Buildsafe’s IT department will be freed up from managing, backing up, upgrading, and testing the applications. Another benefit to Buildsafe is NetSuite’s free twice-yearly automated upgrades.

NetSuite is easy to dynamically ‘personalise’ without customisation. Furthermore, as NetSuite is a development platform, Buildsafe is able to extend the solution to meet other non-standard features resulting in a single database application across the business. This means that as Buildsafe grows, the solution scales easily to accommodate any current and future business changes. NetSuite can provide Buildsafe with all the latest technology in one solution, to give a single version of the truth. Buildsafe can enjoy much more reliable financial control, enabling better support of their business structure.

Why Fusion5?It was quickly apparent to Lowth that the selection of their business applications partner would be as critical as the choice of solution. With a shortlist of just NetSuite and Pronto, Buildsafe had two primary

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PIVOTAL

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2017 will bring a new wave of innovation to our Pivotal customers – some of which we unveiled at the May Aptean Pivotal Customer Roadshow (P.A.C.E) held in Melbourne, Sydney and Auckland. The upcoming releases in the second half of 2017 include significant focus on digital enablement and a brand new user experience for all Smart-Client users – something definitely worth watching out for - Connectors to enable organisations to complement the power being offered by Office365 are allowing Pivotal customers to combine two key productivity solutions within the business together.

Pivotal has for a long time been the backbone of many customers’ operations, adapting to meet customers’ unique process, compliance and operational requirements – in a way that other solutions don’t easily accommodate. The agility within the platform has seen significant longevity across the customer with a lifespan exceeding 15 years in some cases, and the 2017 roadmap is going to further extend the capability it provides customers in this digital era.

There’s been lots of focus on our Pivotal industry solutions – with our first Polytech leveraging Fusion5’s Student Management solution, our second customer implementation well underway and engagement with new prospects both in NZ and Australia looking at improving their student engagement, application conversion rates and back office effectiveness with our Student Management capability.

Our Member360 solution is also seeing traction in the marketplace with pending go-lives and new projects mobilising.

Fusion5 awarded Aptean Pivotal Partner of the year, for the second year running

For the second year running, Fusion5 was awarded Aptean Pivotal Partner of the year at the Atlanta annual Kick off conference in February. This is a huge testament to the work our teams across Australia and New Zealand are doing for customers leveraging the Pivotal platform. We are very proud to have received this award.

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General Practitioners streamline education and training in Western Australia

WAGPET is the sole trusted provider of the Australian General Practice Training Program for GP Registrars in Western Australia and one of nine Regional Training Organisations (RTOs). They currently employ 50 staff.

WAGPET has 590 Registrars in training at any one time, and take on a further 180 each year. The turnover time to manage trainees through their studies and into placements is three years.

Time to automateWAGPET engaged Fusion5 in 2012 to develop and implement Specialist360, a GP training management system. WAGPET already had an older CRM platform in place, along with a Learning Management System (LMS), but the solutions weren’t integrated. There was no data sharing, which meant slow and unreliable processes and a lot of work done laboriously by hand. Staff spent days extracting information from the system and moving it into Excel to produce essential business reporting.

Gordon Carr, WAGPET’s Information Systems Manager, says that manual practices are unsustainable once an RTO reaches a certain size and has a critical mass of Registrars. “We knew we needed an automated solution that was reliable and fast. Even with the LMS we had manual processes, because the data from that system wasn’t available in our CRM.”

WAGPET were determined to have a fully integrated system that streamlined the complexities of their medical specialist training processes.

Delivering capability, collaboration and complianceSpecialist360 meets WAGPET’s requirements and more. Not only that, Fusion5 delivered the original fully integrated training management solution within a six-week timeframe. They then followed up with ongoing system enhancements that have significantly boosted WAGPET’s business intelligence (BI) capabilities.

Critically, integration with LMS enables WAGPET to meet their compliance reporting requirements with the department of Health (RIDE).

The solution brings the training and learning management and CRM systems together to create a collaborative environment for Providers, Educators, Supervisors, and Registrars. This ensures that WAGPET achieves its key operational objectives as well as meeting all the requisite compliance regulations.

Specialist360’s automated and integrated systems reduce WAGPET’s administrative overheads, while the Business Analytics and dynamic dashboard capability deliver valuable real-time operational and performance insights into Registrar learning and training progress.

The two-way winAutomating WAGPET’s two-way placement matching process was one of the most significant benefits Specialist360 delivered.

In a successful placement, both parties have to indicate a mutual interest in each other, and know that the Registrar and the practice are a ‘good fit’.

“Our LMS used to do half the job for us,” said Gordon, “but it wasn’t reliable, or even that good. Prior to this we used spreadsheets. I know that even today some of the smaller RTOs use whiteboards and sticky notes to try to manually match people and practices.”

Now, Registrars on the Australian General Practice Training program can match with practices via the Facility Finder on the WAGPET website. The website is integrated with Specialist360 via the in-built integration capabilities.

Once the interview stage is concluded both the registrars and facilities log in to the portal and submit their preferences. This appears on the website for Registrars to browse. Registrars highlight facilities offering training in their area of interest and arrange interviews. Once the interview stage is concluded both the registrars and facilities login to the portal the submit their preferences. Specalist360 then automatically matches facilities and Registrars in preference order, relaying this information back via the portal so interviews can be arranged.

Specialist360 saved WAGPET a considerable amount of administrative time as well as ensuring more accurate registrar and practice matches. A process that once took weeks now only takes seconds.

Western Australian General Practice Education and Training Ltd, (WAGPET) is an independent company established by a consortium of organisations with an interest in General Practice education and training.

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Healthy feedbackGordon says that the feedback from WAGPET staff on their new solution has been amazing. “The changes we’ve made over the last 18 months freed our people up from the old mundane manual processes. They now have time to do more exciting and rewarding work.”

Specialist360’s BI tool lets WAGPET set up dashboards that give staff with minimal technical knowledge the ability to extract and display current data in a meaningful way. And all without relying on the IT department, says Gordon. “For example, they can see data presented in graphs or pie charts, then drill into that data, usually by just clicking on various parts of the graphics.

“Our managers can make decisions in near real-time with near real-time information. It’s at their fingertips whenever they want to access it,” says Gordon. “I know the CEO finds the graphics very valuable in meetings and presentations. It’s very powerful when she can just copy and paste the graphic she wants into one of her presentations. It’s made a big difference in the way she runs the meetings and interacts in the community.”

While WAGPET hasn’t reduced staff numbers, the increase in automation means they haven’t had to hire more either.

Side-by-sideThe new solution provides WAGPET with end-to-end training management and a true hub for all their information.

As well as automating placement preferences, WAGPET has worked with Fusion5 over the last six months to create more online forms and a web portal.

“We’ve moved a lot of processes that didn’t belong in the LMS into Specialist360 and the web portal,” said Gordon. “The next step is implementing the mobile clients for internal users. Some of our internal users are doctors who are only employed part-time, so they aren’t using the application on a daily basis. The plan is to implement the mobile client, a device responsive web-based version of Specialist360, that can be tailored to the requirements of an external user using their tablet, smartphone or any device with a browser and internet connection.”

Fusion5 ran workshops with WAGPET staff to review how they would use the mobile client. They wanted to be sure that the new system is easier to use and more intuitive, while still delivering the right amount of functionality, processes, and data access. The new mobile client went live early 2017.

The project has been a truly collaborative project, says Gordon. “It’s taken work on both sides to get some of these processes in place, but it’s paid dividends for the business. Without the knowledge of Fusion5’s consultants we wouldn’t have gotten to where we are.”

“One of the best things though, has been the BI tool. Our business is very reliant on data and information. It used to be difficult to get consistent data out of our system - we found that the results would vary depending on how someone searched for the data.”

“Our people were frustrated with our old systems and the amount of manual processes involved,” says Gordon. “But now they are really happy, and they take pride in the solution. They see it as a helpful tool, not a hindrance to doing their job. Most of them ask why we didn’t do this years ago!”

MICROSOFT

our SharePoint and Oracle CX Service Cloud teams to one “Portals and Content” business unit. This ensures we continue to evolve our latest portal technologies, document management and service cloud businesses and skillsets, and aligns with the solution landscape changes. We already have some incredibly exciting portal projects being delivered via this unit, and any one of our Sales team will be more than happy to elaborate if you’re looking for a portal-based solution.

We’ve expanded our consultancy capacity significantly throughout the year, adding some 20+ consultants into the mix. This has enabled us to adopt a razor-sharp focus on areas of competency, building on individual capability in a well-supported like-minded environment. 2017 has seen us introduce a new area into the unit, our Chief Technology Office, led by our CRX CTO Daniel Sykes. Dan leads a team of transformation

consultants charged with leading our key customers’ digital transformation strategies and roadmaps, keeping abreast of solution changes to ensure we are geared up to deliver to them, and bringing our industry solutions built off Dynamics 365 to the marketplace.

Fusion5 has signed as the exclusive Australasian reseller for IntraActive, a solution developed by Danish software company ProActive. IntraActive is an “Intranet in a Box” solution powered by Microsoft SharePoint, which allows organisations to rapidly design and rollout professional and highly useable intranets.

Finally, our trans-Tasman domination plans have been put into action! We have merged with an Australian consultancy in April, Myriad IT, who have brought with them a team of outstanding Dynamics 365 Consultants, as well as a purpose-built Management solution ideal for the sporting sector, all built off Dynamics 365. Now we truly can offer local support, no matter which major centre your office is located in, across both Australia and New Zealand.

We are truly excited about the changes happening within our sector, our capability growth into new technologies, and how this translates into incredible, exciting projects for our customers with transformative business outcomes.

Continuing the theme of transformation, one of our leading solutions we implement, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, was replaced with the incredible Dynamics 365 at the latter part of 2016. This change is significant, and one we are unlikely to see again in the lifetime of the product. Microsoft has brought together some of the best parts of its ecosystem into one platform, offering a truly revolutionary end to end solution for our customers, all within the familiar user-friendly Microsoft ecosystem. From Sales and Service applications (the traditional Dynamics CRM), to document management, portals, mobility, financial planning and business insights, just to name some of the modules now available, all built off one common data model, our ability to innovate and deliver is truly second-to-none leveraging this incredible new offering.

Here at Fusion5 we are ensuring we keep abreast of these changes and align ourselves to best deliver them. We have re-defined

Customer Relationship Experience, is about so much more than Customer Relationship Management systems; it’s about leveraging the latest technologies to truly transform businesses and their interface with their most crucial asset, their customer. Fusion5’s relentless focus to ensure we are set up to successfully lead our customers on this digital journey has seen us continue to grow and evolve throughout 2016 and 2017 and deliver many exciting outcomes for our customers accordingly.

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Say goodbye toMicrosoft CRM Online and hello to Dynamics 365

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Fusion5 MySport solution on Dynamics 365 enters the game

From grassroots clubs to national governing bodies, there are many moving parts to managing a sporting club or association.

The state of playOur experience with sporting organisations has been that the current system offerings in the market do not provide a true 360 view of all interactions. The pain these organisations feel goes beyond growing their membership base. They have a lot of different people internally and externally to manage. They are staff, players, parents, coaches, volunteers, members, potential members and other stakeholders.

The needs of each individual involved with a sporting organisation requires the management of unique sets of information. For example: A player will need to have knowledge of, and manage information on competitions (historical and planned), results, venues, their team, uniform size, nutritional requirements, medical history, next of kin, etc.

On the other hand, a coach, team manager and volunteers will have other needs and risk management checks in place including a record of their ‘Working with Children’ check, certifications, qualifications and any educational needs. Improved governance is extremely important as compliance in this area is strict.

A member may like to access an app or web portal to find information on games, results, player profiles, ask questions and subscribe to emails and alerts. While they browse the members’ platform, they could support the club by purchasing merchandise, tickets or renew their membership for themselves, their family or a group.

Each individual connected with a sporting organisation has varying needs and requirements to be managed in a centralised and streamlined way. The issue is, there is no comprehensive system that can solve all the woes of sporting organisations – or is there?

“The solution provided will enable Athletics Victoria to achieve a 60% reduction in its member management costs. A number of processes that were previously handled manually have been automated so now we can spend more time focusing on our members. We are delighted with the results.”

Glenn Turnor, Chief Executive Officer, Athletics Victoria

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Fusion5 MySport solution on Dynamics 365 enters the game In the last few years, we've partnered with some of the largest sporting organisations

in Australasia to develop a solution specifically for sporting organisations.

On the administrative side, the solution allows you to:

Gain information control with centralised data collection

Streamline the membership registration and renewal process, removing the need for paper forms

Improve governance of staff’s educational requirements and compliance checks

Grow memberships, purchases and donations

Communicate and engage with potential and existing members

Listen to public sentiment of the organisation and players on social media with two-way communication

Manage issues and enquiries

Gain insights to improve member experience

Improve decision making with alerts and real-time data fed into dashboards and reports

Manage staff resourcing and the ordering of goods and services

Manage finances or integrate with an existing financial system

It also improves the member/stakeholder experience by:

Making it easy to pay for memberships as an individual, family or group

Providing secure access to a self-service portal - no matter what website platform the organisation currently uses

Members can also make purchases with no transactional cost to the organisation. All money goes straight into your account.

The key to this solution is that it's flexible. And being part of the Microsoft family, it easily integrates with other productivity tools including Microsoft Office or document storage solutions like Microsoft SharePoint, further extending its value and productivity.

Game on!For more information please contact Paul.Griffin@Fusion5.com.au

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Meet our leaders We have recruited Amanda Lowe and Lance Garrett, two highly experienced and respected Microsoft Dynamics consultants, to spearhead our Dynamics AX practice. Amanda joins us as Practice Manager, and Lance as Solution Architect. Their focus will be on building up resources and a strong customer base. Amanda has more than 15 years AX experience, and recently worked on the first Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Operations implementation in New Zealand. Lance has worked on both sides of the fence, with over 10 years as an AX consultant and customer.

New practice ready to deliver.After dedicating the last 14 months to building up an award-winning Microsoft Dynamics 365 practice from ground zero, we’re now ready to deliver a further shake-up to the local Microsoft partner community with the addition of a Microsoft Dynamics AX / Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Operations team.Many of our Dynamics 365 customers have been asking for our assistance, so the move to extend the capabilities of our Microsoft practice to include ERP makes perfect sense. We’ve kicked our Microsoft ERP practice off by recruiting some of the most experienced Dynamics AX practitioners in our local market.

Lance Garrett recently joined Fusion5 as the Solution Architect for our Dynamics AX / Dynamics 365 for Operations team. He’s penned this first of 4 articles aimed at demystifying the process of upgrading from Dynamics AX to Dynamics 365 for Operations. Keep an eye on the blog section of our website for parts 2-4.

MAXIMUM FORCE: MICROSOFT DYNAMICS AX. MICROSOFT DYNAMICS 365.

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What you really need to know about upgrading to Dynamics 365 for Operations from Dynamics AX

PART 1: WHAT ARE YOUR OPTIONS? The days of long product life cycles, where nothing materially changes for 2-3 years, are gone. And as we move into a cloud-based world, Dynamics 365 is a game-changer for Microsoft technology partners and our customers alike. Each passing week brings more information on its roadmap and the options we can choose from.

But time and time again we tend to collate and relay this information on without thinking about who needs it the most. There are many amazing blogs and whitepapers out there, but even I (after a decade of living and breathing Dynamics AX), struggle to decipher them. So how can we expect our customers to work out what’s happening, and more importantly, what path they should take?

My aim is to steer you around the information overload. I’ll present the facts in a way that’s easy to understand, gets you excited, reduces confusion, and at the same time gives you the knowledge you need to start your Dynamics 365 journey.

Upgrade to Dynamics 365 now – the end of days are upon us! Ok, it’s not as bad as that.

But for people on Dynamics AX 2009 or 2012 RTM and R2, mainstream support ends in April 2018. That’s less than a year away.

So if you haven’t already started down the path towards Dynamics 365, now’s the time to start thinking about it. Extended support for both AX 2009 and 2012 are still available until 2021. Visit https://support.microsoft.com for more information on the differences between mainstream and extended support.

Most of you (and in particular those with ERPs that have been live for a number of years) get support from technology partners. So, the ending of mainstream support from Microsoft may have no real impact. But as time progresses, I confidently predict it will become harder and harder to get quick and skilled support to ageing, outdated versions.

So, what now, and where did you put my Dynamics AX?Put simply; Dynamics AX is now the ‘Operations’ portion of the Dynamics 365 solution.

Dynamics 365 brings together a range of core Microsoft business products into a single offering. It has significantly improved integration and interoperability. But the technology changes and the underlying platform are even more important - the entire solution, including Operations, is now available as a true Software as a Service (SaaS) solution.

What does this mean?

Well, for a start, you can throw out your ageing servers and let Microsoft manage everything. You can pay as you go and get continual updates. And, as long as you have a decent internet connection, you can access the system from anywhere.

This has major implications for everything from licensing, to development, to implementation and much more. But never fear, for those that can’t adopt the SaaS model, Microsoft also offers an on-premise option.

You also have two editions to choose from:

Dynamics 365 Business Edition: Business Edition is a cut-down version of Dynamics NAV with Dynamics CRM’s Sales, Marketing and Customer services modules. It’s aimed at smaller businesses and is the less expensive of the two options. It is currently only available in the US and Canada.

Dynamics 365 Enterprise Edition: Enterprise Edition is the whole kit and caboodle, made up of Dynamics AX and the complete set of CRM modules, including Project and Field services. For customers already operating Dynamics AX 2012 or older, this is the logical choice.

Cloud vs on-premise – surely one’s better than the other, right?There’s no easy answer to this question, as every business has its own set of unique operating conditions.

But it’s a big decision, not to be made lightly. Work with your technology partner to determine which path to take. I’ve listed some of the pros and cons to help you get a feel for which option would better suit your business. There are also some business-critical factors that can be non-negotiable – so those could, in essence, make the decision for you.

The upgrade options – more choices!When planning an upgrade, you need to choose between two very distinct options:

•  Technical Upgrade – utilises technical tools to convert your data and customisations to the latest version.

•  Re-implementation – starts with a fresh installation and only migrates the data and code you need/want.

These options are different from each other, and both have advantages and disadvantages. Neither option is a clear winner for most customers. It comes down to what’s right for you. Both options are expensive, so it’s important you take the time to work through the benefits and drawbacks of each.

Most important of all, leverage your AX partner’s knowledge to ensure you make the right decision for your business and situation. This is a big topic and its discussed in more depth in part 2.

What’s next?The next 3 blogs (see BLOGS on our website for parts 2-4) cover ‘Re-implementation vs. Upgrade’, ‘Internal Resource Requirements’ and ‘Why even bother?’

If you have questions about your upgrade options please contact Lance Garrett - Lance.Garrett@Fusion5.co.nz

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An engaging solutionIn 2015 Fusion5 were invited to demonstrate SharePoint 2013 to key DGC stakeholders. Based on the capabilities of both the latest version and the expertise of the Fusion5 SharePoint team, it was clear to DGC that a solution was at hand which would support all their objectives.

Rowe was the Coordinator of Transport and Quality Systems at Fonterra prior to joining DGC. This experience meant she brought a wealth of process knowledge to the design and set up of DGC’s new SharePoint site. Rowe worked closely with a Fusion5 SharePoint consultant to develop the creative and structural direction of the site. Rowe’s vision was of a site that was highly visual, clean, and intuitive.

Structurally, the new site needed clearly delineated sections so users could easily navigate and use it, upload content to the right place with minimal effort - and of course, find it again easily.

Delivering the visionThe starting point was an evaluation of how the old site managed the company’s needs against how it could be streamlined and improved. Rowe and Fusion5 built the foundations of the new site methodically and organically, over a period of six months.

The solution features a simplified menu showing the most popular items on the

Wasted potentialMelissa Rowe joined DGC as their Quality Coordinator in 2015. She was tasked with creating a centralised solution that provides DGC with a platform for effective internal business communications, that stores all their organisational documentation (with full version control), and has the level of document management compliance required for ISO auditing.

Although DGC had a 2007 version of Microsoft SharePoint in place, its potential had never been fully explored or realised. It hadn’t been professionally set up, it was poorly organised, the menu was overly complex, and critically, it failed to gain traction with users.

While the old solution held some documents, others were distributed in privately maintained folders on the shared drive, or existed only in hard copy. The site’s ‘search’ function didn’t work - so it was difficult to find documents, let alone be confident that you had the latest version. The outdated web parts – which are the building blocks of pages that appear on a SharePoint site – made it difficult to modify the content, appearance, and behaviour of the site’s pages.

site. Content is easy to find with a working search function. By entering key words, the internet-style function brings up documents that fit the search parameter along with meta descriptions.

The personalised My Sites page allows users to ‘follow’ specific topics, people or the progress of a document. A newsfeed, much like Facebook, presents the latest company news and updates on activities and people users have marked as favourites. Forums encourage discussion on topics and projects, and automatically send notifications to ‘followers’ whenever new content is added.

Branded with DGC imagery and colourways, and using a series of stylised illustrations, the new site is intuitive and logical, and supports the engaging look Rowe was keen to create. The whole solution has the familiar feel of a good website, rather than presenting users with the sometimes daunting experience of a complex intranet.

Sales at a glanceDGC sales reports are now presented graphically on screen. Access to the reports is granted through user permissions, which are built into SharePoint’s functionality. The graphics for each report are automatically updated each time the spreadsheets behind them are refreshed with new data. This presents one version of the truth so DGC management have full visibility of and access to the company’s sales performance.

DAIRY GOAT CO-OPERATIVE:

Taking a fresh look at SharePointDairy Goat Co-operative (DGC) is the world's leading manufacturer of goat milk nutritional powder products. The Hamilton-based company is farmer-owned, and has over 200 staff. As a food manufacturer, a tight focus on quality and processes is critical to their success.

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“We knew we needed help,” said Rowe. “The site wasn’t engaging in looks or usability.”

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Fully staffedThe previous staff list was maintained manually. Now people profiles are grabbed from the Active Directory function and presented as a dynamic organisation chart. Staff contact details can be viewed in the context of who they work alongside, or who they report to. As soon as a new staff member is added by the HR department, their details automatically flow through to the chart, so it’s always up-to-date.

Rowe says this function has added considerable value. “Before, new staff data was input into four or five different systems. So we used to struggle with maintaining the organisational chart. Finding someone’s correct role and contact number could be challenging. Now that people are added to the org chart through Active Directory, any errors are obvious. It’s a lot easier to find people in the business.”

Looking goodRowe says that team feedback was encouraging from the outset. “We had some very positive comments from the communications team. They liked the clean and clear approach we took to the design and functionality. And as we started each new section we had feedback from other teams – like HR and Health and Safety – about how impressed and surprised they were with what SharePoint 2013 can do, especially compared with the old version.”

The new solution also delivered a different way to approach internal communications. Instead of playing round-robin with emails, staff now use message boards to discuss and advance projects. Every decision is tracked because messaging is consolidated in one place.

All internal messaging links directly back to content or activities to drive traffic to DGC’s SharePoint site. Rowe is confident, that in time, the old habits of saving documents on shared drives and generating unnecessary emails will change. The development of eForms on SharePoint for leave requests, expenses etc., has already encouraged more individual and team engagement with the solution.

Rowe envisages a time where the DGC SharePoint site becomes a single source of the truth for the company. SharePoint’s value to DGC will increase as it manages more and more processes. Paper forms will be replaced by online forms and approval workflows, especially for the HR team, will be automated.

Documents managed, ideas capturedRowe is especially enthused by the new document management capabilities. “We’re still working on this part of the project, but it’s looking really, really good for the end user. All the work we’ve put in behind the scenes on how documents are controlled in the system is paying off. It’s now much easier for staff to update documents, so we’re expecting great improvements in that respect too.”

Adding metadata and descriptions to documents is an important part of the process. It enables users to locate documents quickly using SharePoint’s highly effective keyword search function.

DGC’s site also includes team-maintained Wikis where ideas are captured and shared by creating simple pages and linking them together. Once created, team members can add or edit content, or add supporting links. DGC teams can use the Wiki for planning, brainstorming, reference or to collect ideas for a large document or manual.

A delivered visionAs the site continues its evolution so does the vision. Buy-in from stakeholders is so positive that a long to-do list has been tabled, which will take at least another 12 months to complete.

Rowe’s full-time immersion in the project means a close and happy working relationship with Fusion5.

“Their SharePoint consultant’s depth of knowledge, and proactive approach to finding simpler and better ways for the end-user to engage with the site, has been invaluable. Our goal has always been an easy, friendly system. And that’s been delivered.”

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Global coffee & tea company provides better service with Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Resco Mobile CRM

JDE has also proved to be a trusted partner when it comes to supplying coffee machines, ingredients and professional services to a wide range of enterprises.

From restaurants and theatres to hospitals and universities, JDE Professional solutions make sure guests, employees and visitors always get their favourite warm beverage.

Running out of steamThe Australian and New Zealand divisions of JDE use Microsoft Dynamics CRM to manage and service the thousands of coffee machines they hire out to cafés, restaurants and businesses. To keep the orders rolling out to thirsty people, service technicians need to be on hand to carry out routine and emergency maintenance. Having service staff waiting in the office to get the details they needed for each job was costing the company money. The technicians needed to be armed with information such as the customer’s name and address, contact details, the machine details (including previous services undertaken) and the description of the job required.

Information ‘to go’JDE were looking for a solution that would save them both time and money. They needed a simple but effective way of alerting technicians about upcoming job assignments, and keep them moving efficiently between jobs.

“The main objective was to keep the technicians on the road and not sitting around in the office which essentially costs money,” said Daniel Hardcastle, General Manager for JDE Australia & New Zealand.

Speeding up the turn-around time for customers would mean a faster service, tailored to individual needs and with great follow up. Daniel said JDE wanted the technicians to update details about the

machines and customers immediately, while still on the job site – not a day or two later – and feed this information straight back to the office.

The perfect brewJDE decided that enhancing their existing Microsoft Dynamics CRM was the best way to achieve the outcomes they wanted. JDE’s CRM partner was Fusion5, and the ongoing relationship was a sound and reliable one.

Fusion5 stepped up to the challenge immediately, suggesting that upgrading the whole system with the addition of the Resco Mobile CRM would cut paperwork to the bare minimum and speed up recording and updating processes. JDE were swayed by the promise that Resco Mobile was not only easy to implement, but also incredibly easy to use. With JDE staff already familiar with Microsoft Dynamics, Fusion5 expected the new tools to be adopted quickly and with little or no extra staff training.

Instant resultsWith the solution in place, JDE‘s team of service technicians throughout New Zealand and Australia now respond to service requests anywhere, and at any time. Maintenance jobs are scheduled through Dynamics CRM in the back office, and then picked up by the technicians using the Resco app on their smartphones. It works for all the jobs being assigned, whether they’re regularly scheduled services, new installs, urgent tasks, or standard repairs. Each technician can access all the information they need for every job: from the client’s contact information, to the previous repairs’ overview.

Once the job is completed it’s a simple matter for the technicians to use their mobile devices to capture detailed information about what was needed, when it was done and how long

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Jacobs Douwe Egberts (JDE) has delivered coffee and tea loved by people around the world since 1753. Its iconic brands include Jacobs, Tassimo, Moccona, Senseo, L’OR, Douwe Egberts, Kenco, Pilao & Gevalia. Operating in over 100 countries, JDE products hold the #1 or #2 market position in 27 countries across Europe, Latin America, and Australasia.

it took. They can also record useful information about customers and machines that might need updating (such as parts used, serial numbers and potential issues for the future), and they can schedule follow up steps, if required.

Fresh, fast dataAs soon as the service technicians switched to Dynamics CRM with Resco Mobile, JDE noticed a dramatic increase in their productivity and an improvement in the company’s CRM data quality.

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The fresh data is then automatically synced to JDE’s Dynamics CRM and is available to back office staff to analyse and pass on. Not only are the JDE sales teams using the data to better target customers’ needs, sales staff are also using Resco Mobile themselves, looking up information on accounts and contacts when they’re out of the office.

The service technicians are completing more jobs per day, since Resco Mobile CRM enables them to easily capture information without spending a great deal of time doing so. With an almost 45% increase in completed jobs per technician, per day, it’s a great leap forward.

Mobile and ‘appy

Resco Mobile CRM has a modern, intuitive user interface, making it easy to use. Whether the job is planned in advance or a last minute service visit, technicians are notified straight after the assignment is made back in the office. Their mobile devices receive all the information related to that particular job immediately.

And on top of that, Resco Mobile gives them additional value-added features. For example, they can take a picture documenting the repair and attach it directly to the record – all from within the app. “The technicians have the app open on their phones all day,” said Dan Lorimer, CRM Consultant at Fusion5. “Simply put, if it wasn’t easy to use, or didn’t make the job easier for the technicians, they wouldn’t use it.”

Uninterrupted serviceFull offline functionality is an essential requirement in a tool for JDE service technicians. They could be operating anywhere in Australia and New Zealand, including areas where the internet connection can be unstable or even entirely unavailable.

That’s no problem for Resco Mobile, because all the information the technicians need is available on their device as soon as the job is allocated. That means technicians have full access and full functionality whether they have an internet connection at the job site or not. And as soon as they get back in range, everything they recorded is uploaded and sent on its way back to the office.

Fully configurable, constantly evolvingJDE is delighted that the app can be configured exactly to suit their needs. For example, the general processes differ slightly between New Zealand and Australian operations. Fusion5 simply altered the Resco Mobile CRM setup to match the preferred methods in both countries.

Additionally, both JDE and Fusion5 appreciate the way Resco Mobile is being constantly enhanced. Resco releases useful and improved functionality on an ongoing basis, plus four major updates every year. This means Fusion5 can offer continuous improvements to their solution and boost JDE’s staff productivity even further.

Smarter service on the menuThe advantages from the Resco Mobile CRM upgrade haven’t stopped at increased productivity and a quicker and more effective flow of information. The JDE service team is currently transitioning from their old and outdated Samsung devices with Android, and onto Microsoft Lumia smartphones with Windows 10. This is easy and issue-free with Resco Mobile. Once the task of configuring the project is completed, it can be deployed at the click of a button across all JDE’s mobile platforms - Android, Windows or iOS - without any extra effort or costs.

JDE has also recently created new processes for appointments, phone calls and scheduling meetings for their sales teams.

Already fans of the Resco Mobile, sales staff are looking forward to the roll out in the very near future.

“The service technicians are completing more jobs per day, since Resco Mobile CRM enables them to easily capture information without spending a great deal of time doing so. With an almost 45% increase in completed jobs per technician, per day, it’s a great leap forward.” – Daniel Hardcastle, General Manager for JDE Australia & New Zealand

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HR PAYROLL

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MyWorkplace is going mobile!The demand for mobility in the workplace is gaining momentum.

HCM UPDATEOur Human Capital Management team operates across Australia and New Zealand and has racked up some terrific results in the last 6 months. They’ve worked with customers not only on getting more value out of existing systems but also created more new and exciting projects in this time period than we’ve seen over the last 3 years.

The first half of 2017 also saw some great new partnerships with SHE software, a UK company with a leading health and safety tool, and The Good Company, a giving platform that allows staff to donate to worthy causes through our EmpowerHR platform.

Other exciting news is that Jemini now has a number of key foundation customers, and we’re in the process of finding early adopters for this innovative and unconventional human resources platform. Check our next issue for much more detail, along with our plans to bring Jemini to both new and existing customers.

Managers can view rosters and the team calendar online, and easily see historical timesheets. If they won’t be available to sign off approvals for particular periods of time, managers can delegate effective date periods. Each employee can manage their own leave balances, and there’s a leave planner to help teams prepare for holiday periods and busy work times.

Employees can enter timesheet information from their mobile devices. Employees can access their timesheets, update them and submit data to their manager. Functions include notifications, punch clock, see leave balance and apply for leave.

Customisable timesheet layout. The web-based timesheet features a selection of layouts that capture variable costing, different claims, and alternative views for your different employee groups.

Custom warnings. The timeband row is highlighted and hover text lets the user know the nature of the error. Rows highlighted in red show critical errors that must be rectified before submitting the timesheet. This reduces mistakes, saves time and enforces good processes and compliance.

We are looking forward to introducing these new features to our MyWorkplace customers and everyone else interested in the new functionality. For more information please contact Gabriella.Barbara@Fusion5.com.au

With the increasing use of smart devices in the consumer market, even companies with the most traditional time and attendance environment are rethinking how to record time worked.

Fusion5 has developed a mobile and web-based solution to complement current MyWorkplace functionality which gives our customers all the benefits of going mobile.

Key features in the new module include:

Web-based timesheets. Employees enter information into their own timesheets online. Timesheets are configurable, so you can devise different layouts for different areas of your business. Validations and warnings highlight certain requirements and also let employees know if they’ve entered something incorrectly. Auto-populating rosters is another way to reduce timekeeping administration.

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Technology has become a ‘good virus’

Many of us are passionate about managing and promoting safe and healthy workplaces. Some though, although perhaps not readers of this article, still consider safety management a necessary chore and bureaucratic burden.

It does not have to be this way. Increasingly, technology is bringing positive change to the promotion of safe working. While technology cannot be the answer to every health & safety issue, in one particular area it presents a significant opportunity: culture.

We know that for every fatality and injury there are many near misses and risky behaviours. But how do you identify and influence those behaviours?

Part of the answer is creating a positive safety culture – one where acting safely becomes an intuitive part of, and not just an adjunct to, the job. One where safety is everybody’s responsibility and not just left to the experts.

The good news is that technology is fast becoming an enabler that encourages people to do the right thing. Gone are the days when corporate IT systems acted as a barrier. We have undergone a technological and cultural transformation in the consumer world. With cloud-based systems employing mobile, easy-to-use consumer-style technologies, this consumer world is now entering the workplace.

Today, technology is becoming a kind of benign, or ‘good’ virus: with the right support it quickly propagates through an organisation because it simply and robustly supports best practice.

Just consider the following ways in which technology can overcome barriers to establishing a strong safety culture.

“It won’t happen to me”Technology can present risks, explain procedures and mitigate measures in a timely manner – for example by using geotagging to explain the hazards in a given location. Those risks can be presented in more compelling ways using photo and video. Moreover, smart reporting, increasingly powered by intelligent tools that interrogate large datasets, can provide convincing information on cause and effect – the link between small risks taken and serious incidents resulting.

“What I do or say won’t make any difference”The solution? Make it easy to comment and provide reward and feedback. A very simple app can report safe and unsafe acts. The key is, at the “back end”, to raise alerts and make it very easy to respond with feedback – and indeed to intervene quickly if required. One organisation has increased by a factor of 20 the reporting of unsafe acts while halving accidents.

Revised legislation has triggered a widespread and heightened awareness about workplace health and safety. For many organisations, this has resulted in a renewed focus on their corporate and social responsibilities. As a Jade Star, EmpowerHR and PayGlobal customer you have access to a Health & Safety framework. However, sometimes organisations need a little more than the standard framework HRIS provides, so Fusion5 has partnered with SHE Software to meet those requirements, providing a comprehensive Health & Safety solution for our Australian and New Zealand Customers. SHE Health & Safety can also be used as a standalone Health & Safety Management solution and interfaced to your HCM offering. We asked SHE Software CEO Matthew Elson to share his views on the topic. He believes technology is our most powerful tool for creating safer workplaces. Here’s why.

How tech is underpinning powerful improvements in health and safety culture

by Matthew Elson, CEO of SHE Software

With these elements in place, each person is empowered to make an organisation safer. From reporting risky behaviour to identifying new risks and sharing mitigation measures, technology is the health and safety practitioner’s go-to solution.

Technology then has the power to democratise responsibility for health & safety, spreading positive behaviour and driving continuous improvement in managing workplace risk.

If boards of directors can readily and quickly see the value of Health & Safety in hard figures, and frontline staff know that their contribution to safety is making a difference, then this is a positive virus indeed!

Fusion5 helps its customers manage their health and safety requirements, including basic recording and reporting, within their core HRIS. However, sometimes organisations need more support, so we have partnered with both SHE Software and Safe365 to provide specialist H&S solutions.

About SHE SoftwareBased in the UK, SHE Software has been delivering H&S software solutions to global customers for more than 20 years. They specialise in intuitive software that can be configured to suit your unique business requirements.

About Safe365If you need to understand your level of health and safety compliance and identify any gaps, we recommend a conversation with our business partner at Safe365. Safe365 helps organisations to assess, diagnose and improve their approach to health and safety and to build a compliant work environment.

Implementing single sign-on in the HCM self service spaceDo your employees forget their login details to your Self Service application? Do they ask if they can use the same login credentials that they use to log into the network?

If this is the case, then a single sign-on solution may help.

What is single sign-on (SSO)?Single sign-on is an authentication process that enables a user to access a variety of software applications using a single user ID and password. Depending on your configuration, the user may have to enter the same user ID and password to access each application, or they may sign-on once to gain access to their applications.

How can this be implemented for an enterprise self service application?In an enterprise environment, Active Directory is often used to store user login credentials. With the advent of Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) and the widespread adoption of the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML), implementing single sign-on has become much easier.

There are a number of vendors who provide SAML - compliant components that can be used in conjunction with ADFS. As long as the application supports a SAML - compliant single sign-on solution, then the configuration of the application and ADFS takes days rather than weeks.

How does single sign-on work using SAML and ADFS? In the SAML standard, the application is a ‘Service Provider’ and ADFS is the ‘Identity Provider.’ The following diagram (figure 1), illustrates the flow of the user’s login request.

Is this secure?All communication is secured via SSL over HTTP. ADFS and SAML are industry standard and are now widely adopted.

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So what’s next? If you are interested in implementing a single sign-on solution for your Self Service application, please contact Gabriella Barbara – Gabriella.Barbara@Fusion5.co.nz | Chris Radley – Chris.Radley@Fusion5.com.au

For more information on how Fusion5 can assist with your health and safety requirements, please contact Gabriella Barbara Gabriella.Barbara@Fusion5.co.nz

ITSM

The recent merger of LANDESK and HEAT software to form Ivanti Software marks an important milestone in the ITSSM market space. Combining industry-leading solutions from the Security, Asset Management, Patch Management and Mobility solutions space, all to be available on the HEAT PAAS architecture, Ivanti’s strategy is clear – to be the leaders in managing, measuring and securing the digital workspace.

LANDESK’s leadership in providing software to simplify IT complexity is further strengthened by HEAT’s Cloud-based Service Management (CSM) and Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) software solutions. The combination will provide additional geographic reach and vertical depth, and will enable Ivanti to better serve IT organisations with solutions to manage and secure end user environments.

LANDESK is the global authority on modern, user-centred IT. By integrating and automating IT tasks, LANDESK helps organisations balance rapidly-evolving user requirements with the need to secure critical assets and data. LANDESK is headquartered in Salt Lake City, UT, and has offices all over the world.

HEAT is a leading provider of Cloud Service Management and Unified Endpoint Management software solutions for organisations of all sizes. HEAT manages millions of service interactions and millions of endpoints every day for thousands of leading organisations across IT, HR, Facilities, Finance, Customer Service and other enterprise functions. Its customers deliver world-class service while maximising operational efficiencies with reduced cost and complexity.

Together, LANDESK and HEAT are well-positioned to deliver market-leading solutions that continue to expand their security and cloud offerings and accelerate growth.

The combined organisation will have a strong market position, with over 1,600 employees in 23 countries serving over 25,000 broadly diversified customers across industries and managing and securing more than 40 million endpoints.

When HEAT, LANDesk, Xtraction, Appsense, Shavlik, Wavelink and several other well-known IT tool companies merged at the beginning of 2017 to form Ivanti, the IT Service Support Management market experienced a seismic shift. The event turned Ivanti into the 3rd largest ITSSM vendor in the world, and Fusion5 customers are benefiting from the industry-leading solutions that are now available to them. Ivanti is standardising all their solutions on the HEAT platform – which is great news. Over 100 Fusion5 customers already on the platform are now embarking on a new era of service management. The roadmap was announced to the world at the Interchange Conference in Las Vegas in the first week in May.

The solution you’ll be hearing about over the next few weeks is Xtraction. Innovative and easy to use, it includes self-service and real time reporting. Xtraction is an alternative to complex BI tools and data warehousing. It gives you, the business user, a key that unlocks your reporting problems – no matter which systems, applications or tools your organisation uses.

Once you solve your reporting and visibility challenges, it’s time for next-generation IT asset management (ITAM), which is the second hot solution the merger brings to Fusion5 customers.

ITAM, software asset management (SAM) and hardware asset management (HAM) are on every CIO’s agenda, especially when software and hardware audits are approaching. Gartner predicts 68% of organisations are planning a software audit in the next 12 months, taking on average 7 months to complete. So, an automated and certified approach to IT asset management is vital. Fusion5 can help you take control of your ITAM, and we’re conducting webinars in the upcoming months to facilitate those discussions.

In other news, our Connect series continues to receive positive reviews and we appreciate all the attendees who take the time to provide feedback. It helps us plan for the next series and provide you with topics and content you want to see.

As for our team, it’s upgrade season for us and our On-Premise customers. We’ve also been busy with several new projects and IT and non-IT service management solution go-lives. We’re thrilled that customers are really embracing the idea that service management is not just about IT.

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ZEISS Australasia focus on Service Improvement with IvantiZEISS Australasia is part of the ZEISS Group, a company operating internationally in the optical and opto-electronic industries.

Access to data is no longer restricted to office staff. ZEISS salespeople and engineers can also view the data they need, and do their own reporting or queries. They can manage their own workloads, without the inconvenience of phoning in for the information they need.

Wonderful workflowsZEISS opted to replicate many of their old manual workflow processes in Ivanti.

“Our system is quite comprehensive,” says Warwick. “We wanted as much automation as possible, to make us more efficient. For example, replacing our manual quote system. So that inputting data automatically generates quotes for us.”

Ivanti can automatically email quotes to customers, and once the quote is accepted, convert them into orders. “Because Ivanti is a web-based solution, we have much more access to advanced technology than with our old ITSM solution, which gives us more possibilities for streamlining our business processes.”

Under the old system, ZEISS ran a complex business model with around 26 different relationships between customers, contracts, addresses and equipment. “Ivanti was more user-friendly than ITSM, and brought the relationships between our different databases down to five,” says Warwick. “That by itself was a compelling reason for us to change solutions.”

A keen focus on serviceImproving ZEISS’s service performance was the primary objective in moving to a new solution. “We needed better reporting capability,” said Warwick, “along with more data transparency. And the ability to manipulate data to produce customised views of customer and equipment history, contract data and so on.”

Now, the company uses Ivanti to focus tightly on customer and supplier management. Administrators use the incident management module to raise, track and report on job tickets. They can also schedule field service engineers for on-site maintenance or repairs with the task management module. ZEISS use the configuration management module to track the lifecycle of their clients’ equipment.

Accessible and flexibleWarwick says the differences between the old and new solution are considerable. “Because Ivanti is web-based we can access our data anywhere, including from home. Our staff now have much more flexible working opportunities.”

The company offers products and services for biomedical research and medical technology, along with system solutions for the semiconductor, automotive and mechanical engineering industries, and high-quality consumer goods such as eyeglass lenses, camera lenses and binoculars.

Out with the old, in with the newZEISS has 250 staff across Australia and New Zealand. For 10 years, the company relied on FrontRange IT Service Management (ITSM) to control and manage the technology they provide to their customers.

When development and support for the ITSM solution stopped in 2012, it gave ZEISS the perfect opportunity to look for something new. They wanted a dynamic web-based solution with expanded reporting capabilities.

In 2014 FrontRange (renamed as HEAT Software in 2015, and Ivanti in late 2016) recommended that ZEISS talk to Fusion5.

“They did a live demonstration of Ivanti - and we were impressed with how responsive it was,” said Warwick Trevithick, Customer Service and Administration Manager for ZEISS Australasia. After years of exporting data to a third-party solution to generate ticket status reports, Ivanti and its inbuilt Business Intelligence (BI) tools was a breath of fresh air. “Straight away we could see the ITSM functions that related to the support tickets we opened. And we got a clear graphic analysis of the status of the tickets, without leaving Ivanti.”

“Things in the old system that used to take us a half an hour, for example, only take us five minutes in Ivanti. We’re saving time and money.”

Growing successIvanti not only helps the business run more smoothly, the system also saves money. While the business is growing 15-20 per cent, year on year, and this is tracked by an equivalent increase in incidents, Warwick hasn’t taken on more staff. “If we were still on the old system staff numbers would have gone up to compensate. And I’m pleased to say they haven’t.”

ZEISS always had positive customer feedback, and that didn’t change with the introduction of the new system. However, if they’d carried on with the old ITSM, Warwick thinks complaints would have risen. “We couldn’t have managed the growth in incidents as efficiently as we can with Ivanti,” he insists. “Now we’ve got such good visibility, when something goes wrong, we can resolve it quickly before it becomes a bigger issue.”

A very pleasing processWarwick found an accommodating business partner in Fusion5. “They provide an extra level of service. The whole process was smooth and their people are a real pleasure to deal with.”

The new system has almost unlimited potential and a programme of ongoing development is now in place. ZEISS joined Fusion5’s PartnerPlus Programme, which gives them extra development days every month, in addition to their ongoing maintenance. The company has been making full use of this option. “We have a long list of work to do,” says Warwick. “But every time, without fail, we see our processes improve. This gives value to the business, and our staff appreciate it.”

The company went over budget on the project, but prefer to see this as a conscious investment they made, once they saw the potential on offer. “Ivanti exposed us to technologies we hadn’t been aware of, so we took the opportunity to improve our process even further. It generated very real business benefits for us, and we couldn’t have continued our growth path without Fusion5 and Ivanti.”

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What’s your role at Fusion5?I’m the Service Delivery Manager for the Human Capital Management Team (HCM) and ERP Team, working across Jade Star and PayGlobal support customers, as well as some JD Edwards customers. I’m responsible for ensuring our customers feel supported and valued, and this entails balancing resources with customer expectations and ensuring delivery to the commitments made. As a Service Delivery Manager, I work closely with our customers to understand their business and what’s driving their needs.

What attracted you to Fusion5?I came to Fusion5 in Wellington via a recruiting agent in Auckland. I’d been looking to move to Auckland after returning from living in Vancouver, Canada, but fate had it that a role became available here in Wellington. So I took the opportunity to apply since I was already local, and the rest is history. I was attracted to this role because I saw a great opportunity to grow in my career and take on additional challenges.

What are you working on?Anything and everything. A Service Delivery Manager’s role can be very diverse: from working on organising basic training for new customer contacts, through to identifying opportunities and risks for customers and helping them meet these head on. This role is anything but dull, and I’m constantly working on trying to engage our customers and create a fun, supportive and committed service experience for them.

What makes a ‘good day’?A good day for me is ensuring that my customers’ agreed expectations and timeframes are met and that they feel supported the whole way through. The Service Delivery Manager role provides a key point of regular contact and ensures that issues are driven along and re-prioritised as customer business needs change. Meeting these changes proactively to keep all parties happy and on track makes for a great day.

What are you famous for?Positivity, perseverance and patience!

What do you get up to outside of work?I do a bit of running, having recently competed in the Buller Gorge Marathon as part of a team relay, which was an awesome experience. I love food, coffee, spending time with friends and family, as well as meeting new and interesting people.

FOR MORE OF OUR STAFF PROFILES, SEE OUR WEBSITE WWW.FUSION5.COM.AU/ABOUTUS OR WWW.FUSION5.CO.NZ/ABOUTUS

Loren Davy

Staff Interviews

Daniel Sykes

What’s your role at Fusion5?It has been a really exciting start to 2017, during which I’ve transitioned into a new role as CTO in the CRX pillar. This is a newly established role at Fusion5 and one, I believe, that speaks volumes to the commitment and drive the leadership at Fusion5 have when it comes to setting up and ensuring we support our people and customers on their digital journeys. This is critical as the pace of change and innovation occurring around us increases.

I’m also personally really excited to get out there and work with our ever-growing community of people and customers to embrace digital innovation. We’re already having some incredible conversations about emerging technologies and trends - from Microsoft Dynamics 365, bots, machine learning, IoT and predictive analytics. 2017 is going to be an awesome year.

What attracted you to Fusion5?I joined Fusion5 in early 2016 as part of the acquisition of Koorb Consulting's Microsoft CRM practice. I was fortunate enough to meet Rebecca Tohill, CEO and Executive Directors, Sven Martin and Chris Radley, early on in the process, and was struck by their positive attitudes, openness and clear dedication to the people and customers who choose to be part of the Fusion5 fold.

Fusion5’s team of incredibly smart, skilled and dedicated people constantly amaze me with their commitment to helping each other and going the extra mile to achieve outstanding results for our customers.

What are you working on?Right now, internally, we’re kicking off some super exciting initiatives as well as continuing on our 'always-on' journey to learn, adapt and evolve our offerings and the value they bring to our customers. This is even more important with the launch of Microsoft Dynamics 365, which is so much more than just CRM. On top of incredible enhancements to the traditional workloads, Dynamics 365 doubles down on productivity with the inclusion of Field Service (think mobile, connected, IoT-driven, predictive field service!), Project Service Automation, enhanced Office 365 integration, new mobility apps, built in machine learning and so much more.

What makes a ‘good day’?A good day for me, other than a lack of traffic on Auckland's Northern motorway, is one where I get to spend quality time with people, learning from them and helping them to better understand and leverage technology. I love that 'a-ha' moment with an organisation or person where things click, a problem is solved or new idea is born.

What are you famous for?Would have to say talking fast and coffee intake, although I’m still clinging to a New Year's resolution to cut back on the coffee part - we'll see how long that lasts.

What do you get up to outside of work?Family. I have two young children, 4 and 1, which means Saturday morning sports, getting out and about and exploring Auckland's parks and beaches, as well as a healthy dose of Peppa Pig. We also try to get back home to Dunedin when possible. It's hard to beat the South Island when it comes to a laid-back lifestyle, lack of traffic and beautiful locations.

What’s your role at Fusion5?I’m a Senior Consultant in the ERP Pillar specialising in JD Edwards (JDE) based in Brisbane. I have a finance and accounting background, so I look after the finance modules of JDE predominantly. But I also support and implement other modules, and am constantly adding to the areas I support. I’m on the E-Team - which is a team of staff who plan events and social activities to help bring Fusion5 together as a whole and for each office.

What attracted you to Fusion5?I was looking at opportunities in New Zealand (and was in the process of discussing opportunities with another employer) when I spoke to Fusion5 about a role that was available in Auckland. I’d heard good things about the company and was looking for a challenging role. I was told that there was the opportunity to move back to Australia if I wanted. When I was asked during the interview process if I was willing to learn new things, and was told that I would always be challenged, I knew it was the position I wanted. So I moved to Auckland and worked there for two and a half years. I relocated back to Brisbane when I couldn’t take the cold any longer.

What are you working on?I am currently working on a project in Melbourne implementing Project Accounting for a global company. Australia is the company’s first new JDE site before a global rollout. I also support a number of our customers who are already using JDE, including some smaller project work for a Queensland company.

What makes a ‘good day’?Well I was told by a customer today that she loves me! And although that is a great reaction, I’ll settle for helping to make a customer or colleague’s life easier. When a project goes live it’s a good day, as it can be months or years in the planning. When I get to spend time with the customers, working closely together to get a good result, that is also very satisfying. But just knowing that I work for a truly equal opportunity company, with management that cares about its staff, makes them all good days.

What are you famous for?In Auckland it was probably my cheerful attitude and getting together with the team on a Friday for drinks. As there are only a few of us in Brisbane it is probably more for getting things organised in the office here, including planning the Christmas party and decorating the office with its first Christmas decorations, ever. I still make sure the fridge here is stocked with everything though.

What do you get up to outside of work?I love to travel but have just purchased a unit in Brisbane and so my travel plans are on hold while I get stuck into the improvements. I love to participate in sport, especially tennis, but don’t enjoy watching any sport on TV! My well-travelled fur baby (cat) keeps me company when I do relax in front of the TV. If only I could keep him from scratching the lounge…

Tricia Flanigan

James Duffield

What’s your role at Fusion5?I’m part of the mobility development team with two others, Max Sorensen and Frank Fenton. I've developed a wide range of mobile applications that include: work order management, GPS asset tagging, and purchase order approval and delegation. I've also developed an OH&S web portal for logging incidents, single sign-on functionality that uses Windows sign-on for JD Edwards access, and other web and mobility solutions.

What attracted you to mobile app development?Mobile app development is increasingly popular and even a necessary service for many companies. There’s a lot of variation and innovation that can be applied to our solutions. Enterprise Resource Planning and Client Relationship Management are powerful systems that can be difficult to use without training. I develop minimalistic mobile apps that don't require any user training. The beauty of these apps is that they bypass the complexity of desktop systems to help people work more productively. It's very satisfying when you can hold your app or webpage in your hand knowing it'll make the user's life easier.

What are you working on?I am currently working on a seat booking and checkout service for a customer in the sporting sector. It's for club members and specific stadiums. The product is easily scalable with the Azure Cloud Web App.

What makes a ‘good day’?Boot up project. Coffee. See plethora of JIRA tasks (none of which are bugs). Add functionality. Fix feature. Coffee. Get stuck on solving problems. Coffee and lunch. Experience a wave of realisation about an issue whilst chewing on a bagel. Come back and knock out task after task. Look up and realise the tasks are all gone. Success! Coffee.

Essentially, I like sinking my teeth into a project for the day and problem solving.

What are you famous for?The three of us in the mobility team have gained a reputation for continuous integration for absolutely everything possible. Also coloured status lights that dot the office, terrible puns, and elegant web and mobile interfaces. Some would say that we have the CSS, but not the style.

What do you get up to outside of work?Typically nerdy stuff. I'm not breaking the developer stereotype anytime soon. My free time is filled with video games and Dungeons & Dragons. I am also part of a social group in Melbourne who believe 5th dimensional reptilians rule our government with mind control, and I brew my own beer – guess which one of these is not true.

For more information please contact us on one of these numbers or email

Rebecca Tohill: Rebecca.Tohill@Fusion5.co.nz or Sven Martin: Sven.Martin@Fusion5.com.au

Auckland Level 16, 34 Shortland Street Auckland 1010 PO Box 106 190 Auckland 1143 Phone +64 9 379 0525

Wellington Level 6, Lambton House 160 Lambton Quay PO Box 10 111 Wellington 6143 Phone +64 4 473 4552

ChristchurchUnit 6, 15 Sir Gil Simpson Drive Christchurch 8053 Phone +64 3 943 4369

Dunedin Level 1, 30 London Street Dunedin 9016 Phone +64 3 474 1819

Sydney 1 Castlereagh Street Sydney, NSW 2000 Phone +61 2 8240 3800

PerthLevel 13, 251 Adelaide TerracePerth, WA 6000Phone +61 8 9203 3600

Melbourne Level 16, 60 Albert Road South Melbourne, VIC 3205 Phone +61 3 9922 5519

AdelaideLevel 1, 155 Fullarton RoadRose Park, SA 5067Phone +61 8 8239 5700

BrisbaneLevel 14, 110 Eagle StreetBrisbane, QLD 4000Phone +61 7 3215 3400