Financial management.

• Position: Technology Tools - Enterprise Financial Management 8.8 - Brief Article

PeopleSoft Inc. has scheduled release of Enterprise Financial Management 8.8, its latest release in the series, for the fourth quartet The enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendor promises faster implementation than the old 8.4 application, using a new setup manager that does setup tables and automated configuration.

The new release emphasizes embedded analytics in context to business processes, said Chris Leone, vice president of product management, in an interview. For instance, it offers a contracts application module that helps forecast revenues, and well as project management capabilities, with the ability to forecast time to completion.

The 8.4 release, now more than 18 months old, had reporting analytics, but the new versions extends this capability to forecasting and graphics, Leone says, adding that it runs directly off transaction systems. "We wanted to focus on simple analytics, where you can work directly in the transaction systems and don't have to replicate data."

Leone says the new release has pared the time it takes to enter an expense report and navigate through the application, to the extent...