New Icicle Dashboards and Features for Exceptional ERP Data Management
The last few months have yielded more Icicle features and upgrades for manufacturing automation, compliance, and ERP data management. Many of these innovations stem from Icicle’s core strength: by unifying data from all aspects of your business, Icicle can generate meaningful insights to maximize profit margins.
From minimizing production waste to launching new products, Icicle ERP’s data management tools support your growth and establish confidence in the safety and quality of your products.
Icicle ERP Dashboards got a big upgrade (plus a new Maintenance Dashboard, Sensor Log Dashboard, and Invoice Dashboard)
When was it released? April 20 2024
What does it do? Icicle’s ERP Dashboards include a Production Dashboard, QA Dashboard, Procurement Dashboard, and Sales Dashboard were already pretty cool, but they all got a big boost when we relaunched them with Amazon’s Quick Sight technology, which allows users to easily customize analytics on each interactive dashboard and generate customized reports. You can modify the settings to show specific metrics over any time period, such as production costs, planned production, fulfilment rates, or sales trends.
Plus, we launched new ERP dashboards to round out Icicle’s ERP data management capabilities. The new Maintenance Dashboard helps users track and investigate work orders and other maintenance activities, including costing for labour, materials, parts, and service providers. You can generate analytics for particular facilities, pieces of equipment, priorities, projects, and more. The Device Logs Dashboard complements the new Maintenance Dashboard nicely, allowing users to track metrics for each device (like sensors) employed at their facility. Lastly, the new Invoice Dashboard builds on the existing Sales Dashboard to generate specific insights for invoices (the Sales Dashboard pulls sales order data instead).
Get in touch with our training and support team to get a walkthrough of the new dashboards and learn how to maximize this suite of data management tools.
Who requested it? Thanks to the team at UP Vertical for getting us thinking about new dashboard possibilities, and to the team at Amazon that helped us implement their cool new technology!
Icicle’s planning and costing features continue to grow, yielding yield exceptional insights and ERP data management
When was it released? December 21 2024
What does it do? Late last year, we added two new costing features that allow Icicle users to maximize their profitability. The Sales Report now shows users the average cost and average profit margin for shipped orders, enabling them to quickly track crucial profitability metrics at a glance (a huge benefit of ERP data management).
In order to optimize costs of raw materials, users can now search for price lists by supplier, item, or price list name in order to compare prices for ingredients and other materials.
Who requested it? Thanks to Navjot from Blue Ocean Tea and Grant from The BE-Hive for their suggestions!
Work Orders now track Service Provider costs plus more automation and workflow improvements for smooth ERP data management
When was it released? May 20 2024
What does it do? Icicle users can now also track costs for services (like cleaning services) on Work Orders, just as they could already do with parts, materials, and (employee) labour. This addition rounds out Icicle’s maintenance data management features to show a truly complete picture of maintenance costs. To add Service Provider hours to a work order, simply go to the new “Service Providers” section on any Work Order Details page. You can create a new Service Provider directly from the Work Order, too, and define hours and rates in the same place.
Some more changes to Work Orders came out recently, like the new colour-coded status icons on the Work Order List page that indicates, at a glance, which items may need immediate attention. Additionally, Work Orders and Work Order Templates have a new category field that can be customized by admin users via the Admin page, allowing users to easily differentiate between different kinds of work orders. You can also give Work Orders a specific name that will show up in the calendar on the Work Orders List page instead of the template name.
Lastly, when you approve a work request, you may have noticed that Icicle now automatically transfers the information in the work request to a new work order and opens the new work order so you can edit and add to it as needed – a nifty workflow improvement.
Who requested it? These improvements come courtesy of Wayne from Keith’s Quality Foods as well as Darcy and other users from Sobeys!
We expanded logistics tools with Delivery Windows and Inter-Facility Shipments
When was it released? May 10 2024
What does it do? In February, we added a new attribute for suppliers, customers, and other companies in an Icicle user’s account to indicate start and end times for delivery windows. With this information stored in Icicle, users can easily schedule shipments when the recipient is open to take deliveries. Combined with Icicle’s Shipping Notices feature, which enables communication between purchasing/sales and warehouse staff, Delivery Notices make it easy to optimize schedules and costs for seamless ERP data management. You may have noticed a new section on a supplier’s Company Details page too, displaying, displaying all the receiving records associated with that supplier at a glance.
For Icicle users with multiple facilities, the new Inter-Facility Shipments List and Inter-Facility Picking interface introduces a new, specific workflow for moving inventory from one facility to another (like a warehouse), with all the comprehensive features of Icicle’s regular traceability system. You can access the Inter-Facility Picking interface from the Inter-Facility Shipment List or by clicking the “scan” icon on a shipment’s Detail page. Almost identical to the Pick-by-Product interface, this new feature requires a consistent internet connection and does not track shipping notes, lot code explanations, or log code images.
Who requested it? This series of updates came from Icicle users at Keith’s Quality Foods, Snow Cap, Made-Rite Meats, and Country Prime Meats!
We added new task features and notifications to support user workflows and overall ERP data management
When was it released? February 2 2024
What does it do? Over the last few months, we’ve released a series of improvements to Icicle’s task management and notifications features. First up, Icicle users can now subscribe to alerts for expiring training records, indicating that one or more employees needs to renew training in the next 30 days – allowing you to get ahead of deadlines without the headache.
Scheduled Tasks are repeating tasks that take place at a regular interval or for a set number of occurrences. To further improve the usefulness of this interface, we added new search and filtering options to the Scheduled Tasks List page to show scheduled tasks by assignee, by verifier, by date, and by facility.
Who requested it? Our appreciation goes to our very own training specialist Katherine for these updates!
Responding to customer complaints is even more streamlined
When was it released? December 14 2024
What does it do? We worked with Icicle users to improve workflows for processing customer complaints. Icicle will now send automatic alerts to relevant users when a customer complaint is logged in the system. Once you’re on the Customer Complaints Details page, click the new “send” button to automatically generate an editable email to stakeholders, including a PDF attachment with completed documents and pictures.
We added some upgrades to make it easier to investigate issues as well as respond to them promptly. Logged complaints are now searchable from the Customer Complaints List by salesperson, purchaser, or responsible person. And if an Icicle user doesn’t know the exact lot number associated with a customer complaint, they can now search for matching lot numbers by product, showing all the complaints associated with that product to locate what you need quickly.
Who requested it? Big thanks to our users for their feedback on this feature that really leverages the benefits of ERP data management!
There are more AI and smart data options for assigning hazards and conducting hazard analysis
When was it released? April 29 2024
What does it do? Based on a great user request, we added the ability to search hazards by keyword – but that small adjustment gave us some ideas for enhancing Icicle’s AI capabilities (the next level of ERP data management). When you click the AI Suggest button to suggest hazards for ingredients, materials, packaging, equipment, or processes, Icicle’s AI search tool will generate smart suggestions based on the item name. Now it also automatically displays the item name next to the button, allowing users to edit the item name as needed until you get the most accurate results. As with most AI search tools, the more generic the keyword, the more useful the results – this extra (optional) step gives users the chance to make small changes like removing brand-specific or packaging information from the item name.
The same option to adjust the keyword is also available when you edit assigned hazards on the Details page of an ingredient, material, packaging item, piece of equipment, process, or cross-contamination point. From the Assigned Hazards section, you can select whether you want to add hazards using the Smart Suggestions tool (based on previously assigned hazards for that item or similar items), select a hazard from Icicle’s substantial hazards database, or create a new hazard entirely.
Note that you can only assign applicable kinds of hazards to particular item types:
- Ingredients, Materials, and Packaging: biological, chemical, physical, allergen, quality, radiological, threat, vulnerability
- Processes: biological, chemical, physical, quality, radiological
- Cross-Contamination Points: biological, chemical, physical
- Equipment: injury
The ability to assign hazards to equipment is new too – effectively extending Icicle’s HACCP tools to Occupational Health and Safety compliance!
Who requested it? Thanks to the team at Sobeys for thinking these ones through with us!
Want to hear about other Icicle feature updates? Icicle users can head over to the Feature Request Forum and see recent feature updates not included here, and vote up other user requests!
