The new release of Quotation Factory brings several benefits for its users. And there are more smart additions on the way. In this newsletter, we will walk you through all the developments.

What’s new on the platform?

Communicating in your own corporate style

The Quotation Factory’s current focus is on self-service and the portal that enables it. So developments in this area are moving fast. One of the additions is an upgrade in terms of your communications. You can now fully customize the emails you send to customers in the self-service portal using your own style and content. We have developed a new option that allows you to easily create your own templates for this. As a result, invitations no longer look ‘spammy’ but sleek and professional. This contributes to recognizability and makes your communication attractive to read.

Add and remove operations yourself

The second addition within the self-service portal is the ability to configure which metalworking operations you want to offer in the self-service portal. Which ones do you want to be visible and which not? Users of the self-service portal can also add and remove operations themselves.

Always up-to-date on the status of orders

There is another innovation that makes it easier for your customers to work in the self-service portal. Because you can communicate the status of a project from your ERP system back to the platform, customers can see the exact status of their order at any time. So they’re always aware of whether production, product packaging or transportation is complete. And that ensures that customers need to call less, and perhaps not at all, with questions about the status of their order. That’s nice for all parties.

Integration with Lantek’s ERP software

Improvements to the Quotation Factory platform are also happening in rapid succession beyond the self-service portal. For example, there is now an integration with Lantek’s ERP software: Lantek Integra ERP.

This means that users can automatically synchronize client information, client segments, items and purchase prices from Lantek with the Quotation Factory platform. As soon as a project is given ‘quoted’ or ‘ordered’ status, the Bill of Materials, including all details about estimated production times and material requirements, is automatically processed in Lantek into quotations and production orders. Of course, including attachments such as technical drawings. Forget endless and error-prone retyping; this is the new and much faster reality.

Easily create purchase parts from subassemblies

Our new release has even more to offer. As a Quotation Factory user, you can now easily create purchase parts from subassemblies. This is useful if you have to work with drawings of a product that consists of many different parts, such as a wheel. With one press of a button you can now turn such a subassembly into a purchase part, which then appears on the quotation in a single line.

What is currently in development for the platform?

New algorithms to determine residual material in a smarter way

We are well advanced in developing brand new algorithms for four types of strategies to determine residual material. We are now testing those algorithms and adapting the back-end of the platform accordingly. The advantage for the user is that, as a metalworker, you can determine the residuals more intelligently. It is also possible to still influence the choice of strategy via business rules or manually. Ultimately, this ensures that the material price you quote is even more competitive.

Calculating operations at the subassembly level

We are working hard on the capability of calculating operations at the subassembly level. Think of operations such as screwing, welding, powder coating and painting. This extension includes smart surface calculation, which is useful for all kinds of operations that involve surface treatment.

Flexible Excel exports

Also forthcoming is flexible Excel export. This will allow users to create their own Excel templates, upload them and then download the quotation as an Excel sheet in a template they created themselves. Useful if, for example, you still need to manually type some of the information into your ERP system. You can pour the information into Excel in such a way that you can retype it one-on-one. In addition, this is a way to create digital documents for the workplace.

Copying projects

Last but not least, the Quotation Factory will soon introduce a feature that allows you to copy projects. And that’s useful if you want to be able to issue quotes easily for different numbers. For example: what is the price for a quantity of one, of five or of a hundred? We will make that copy function so smart that you can easily outsource work to another party that also uses the Quotation Factory platform.