Sage adds social dashboard and search to ERP X3

Sage has announced a number of updates to its ERP X3 enterprise resource planning software for the mid market, including a new dashboard that integrates information from social networking sites with a company's internal data.

Emmanuel Obadia, senior vice president for Sage ERP X3, said during a virtual press conference that the company is creating the "third generation of ERP software" with the customer at the centre.

"There are lots of technology trends at work at the moment and chief executives have a difficult time integrating them," he said.

ERP X3 customers will now be able to access an "intelligence dashboard", dubbed the Sage Enterprise Webtop, to track topics of their choice on blogs, videos and social sites including Twitter.

"The dashboard allows people to listen to everything happening on the web and personalise it according to their needs," said Obadia. "Then they can act on the data and trigger alerts."

Obadia explained that the dashboard works with any device, including smartphones, tablets and PCs.

Sage has also added Sage Search to ERP X3, which allows users to find data in their own company's ERP systems more easily.

"There is so much information sitting in ERP systems and users need to access this. So we integrated a search engine right at the core of Sage ERP X3," said Obadia.

"Users will be able to get a 360-degree view of their business data and connect this with real-time analysis [from the Enterprise Webtop]. In version 6.2, we have been focused on web services and rapid integration."