Enterprise Resource Planning | News

OpenERP 6.1 Adopts Social Features, Expands Outlook Support

• By Leila Meyer
• 02/29/12

OpenERP has released a new version of its open source enterprise management software suite, which comprises 1,800 free applications for accounting, human resources, and other organization management needs. OpenERP 6.1 was in development for more than a year and introduces 85 new applications, including social features and a kanban view for organizing activities.

OpenERP has added new social features to facilitate collaboration. Users can share documents with anyone, even those who aren't OpenERP users, and specify read-only or read-write access to those documents.

OpenERP has also added the ability to embed any OpenERP content on an organization's Web site. This feature is useful for contact forms, so online entries are automatically entered into OpenERP. It also enables organizations to easily export statistics or graphs to their Web site.

Other new social features include improved e-mail integration, which has been unified into a single and improved e-mail subsystem, and according to OpenERP, is easier to use than the old e-mail capabilities of version 6.0. Also, the main business workflows now automatically send e-mail notification upon confirmation by default.

OpenERP is also touting its new kanban view, which is a visual board that enables users to view and manage their activities on a single interface using drag-and-drop.

New features in OpenERP 6.1 include:

• Significant performance enhancements as a result of the new Web client and architecture that can support multiple servers and multi-processing;
• Drag-and-drop kanban view to reorganize records such as tasks, opportunities, and recruitment while maintaining a global view;
• Customizable dashboards for each application;
• Reusable advanced filters;
• Dynamic Gantt charts; and
• New Outlook plugin that has been completely redeveloped from scratch using Microsoft .NET so it is now compatible with all versions of Outlook.

OpenERP 6.1 is currently available for demo, online subscription, or download. Further information is available on the OpenERP site.