ePlus Releases .Net Supplier Portal; Content+ Supplier Portal v2.5 Enhances Supplier Self-Authoring Capabilities

Business Wire, Oct 6, 2004

HERNDON, Va. -- ePlus inc. (Nasdaq NM:PLUS) recently released a new .Net version of its Content Supplier Portal. Content is the company's comprehensive solution for automating the creation and management of electronic product catalogs, and the new Supplier Portal (version 2.5) provides a true "zero client" environment for suppliers, administrators, and other system users. Featuring dramatically improved performance, the new version allows multiple users to simultaneously process tens of thousands of records through the entire content lifecycle, expediting critical supplier cooperation for eCatalog production and maintenance. Content Supplier Portal v2.5 simplifies catalog administration both for suppliers and for enterprise catalog managers involved in electronic procurement initiatives.

The new release includes many features designed to expedite supplier-buyer collaboration, including:

--a full-featured administrative dashboard for catalog approvers and suppliers

--extended patterns for auto-recognition and value extraction to support full self-authoring enhanced data mining

--enhanced functionality for viewing and approving catalog updates

--new support for extended data elements, images, and attachments

--full audit tracking of catalog changes including date and time stamp plus user and change type identification.

--support for effective dated catalogs with defined starting and ending dates,

--re-loading of catalog changes for activation on a designated date, and product expiration dates.

"Getting suppliers on-board, creating catalogues, and managing catalog data is the #1 impediment to eProcurement and supply-chain implementations" stated Ken Farber, President of ePlus Systems and Content Services. "Our Content Supplier Portal can significantly accelerate supplier on-boarding, promote supplier adoption, and measurably reduce implementation and ongoing administrative times and resources. With the Supplier Portal, enterprises can reap the full benefits of content management, and maximize the value of their eprocurement and supply chain management software investments."

The Portal's usage has also been expanded through integration with industry leading computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) as the single point of entry for catalog item creation. Items are created within the Portal and utilize its flexible approval workflow engine to syndicate to an external system where the item is replicated using XML protocols. Completion of the item creation occurs when the CMMS responds with an acknowledgement and returns the catalog ID from the CMMS system creating a unique one-to-one combination. The CMMS catalog ID becomes a searchable element within the Portal and the Discovery catalog.

Enhancements have been made both to the Portal Hub, a workflow-enabled system allowing suppliers to load, update, enrich, cleanse, aggregate, and self-author data while enabling buyers to control pricing and catalog content, and to the Discovery catalog, the content repository search and shopping environment capable of being connected to any XML compliant eProcurement, ERP or CMMS systems.

The Content Supplier Portal plays a key role in producing intuitive online catalogs that help control enterprise purchasing by enabling requisitioners to quickly search for and compare products available from authorized vendors. It also enables suppliers to reduce overhead, improve negotiation terms, and gain more product exposure by presenting new and updated product information to the buyer directly in the Portal. Suppliers can use the Portal to:

--Self-author their products without having to change branded information or create a new export application for the particular buyer.

--Easily load products via electronic file transfer, FTP access, or manually.

--Quickly classify and enrich products with the help of ePlus technology that automates these processes.

--Easily manage their product information through the entire lifecycle, including easy editing, changing, modifying and deletion of items.

--Maintain and syndicate enriched product information to other buyers using ePlus services and solutions.

The catalogs generated with ePlus' Content enable requisitioners to shop in their own buying culture and easily find all of the products they need in a single hub, with a single look and feel. They also allow buyers to accurately analyze their spend and negotiate better sourcing of goods.

The Content Supplier Portal is being used by major manufacturing, publishing and research companies to simplify and synchronize the creation of electronic product catalogs for internal use in their organizations.

About Content

ePlus' Content is a suite of software and services designed to facilitate the production and management of electronic product content catalogs. The system draws on a 12-year repository of business rules, best-practice methodologies, and commodity and class codes that automate the vast majority of data analysis, normalization and rationalization procedures, significantly reducing ramp-up time and user overhead.