Runge Limited’s new release of XERAS promises “scalability and certainty, while retaining the great new user experience” and is being launched in time for MINExpo 2012. XERAS 7.12 was released on August 27 and promises “some big back-end changes”, without affecting the front-end performance that was popular in 7.11. The company states that XERAS continues to deliver solutions for operational planning that reduce cost and risks while increasing certainty and improving results. “As part of our continued improvement and evolution of XERAS, we have updated the underlying database,” said Darren Rostron, Product Manager – Financial Modelling at Runge Ltd.

“It’s a great lift in XERAS’ already impressive performance and is going to give us a great platform to extend into the enterprise integration space,” he added. XERAS 7.12’s new database offers more in terms of scalability, allowing future feature development, and the more advanced technology delivers certainty to users of modern Windows platforms. “At a very basic level, you’ll get more memory capacity – and you’ll be able to open large models with 7.12,” said Rostron. “But these advances are minor compared to the overall improvement in the user performance experience,” he said. Unlike some database upgrades, XERAS 7.12 allows users to utilise new database technology without changes to the front end. It also gives them more power without extended costs. “The only outlay is minimal maintenance to upgrade your
models to the new system. All it takes is a few clicks and a few minutes at most,” said Rostron.

Runge’s XERAS 7.11 release came just six months ago. The more recent adaptions to the back end in 7.12 come quickly after powerful advances to the front end in the earlier release. The company states: “Its tabbed structure presents an easy-to-follow layout, and multiple layouts mean you can present the same information in different ways at different times or to different people. Even better, it is simple to include improved graphs and other graphic outputs on the tabbed dashboard. The toolbar is customisable too, meaning you can manage and display your model in your way. The real superstar, though, is the Navigator pane. Though a series of linked steps, this new feature shows the workflow needed to complete a task. You can work with Runge Ltd’s expert consultants to build templates for your business processes, or power users within your organisation can create their own. You can also alter existing templates to help colleagues who are just starting out, or who might use the product less often.”

“Any budgeting or strategic planning process is going to have some level of complexity,” said Rostron. “The navigation feature, which continues in XERAS 7.12, release takes the user through these complexities step-by-step.” The third of three major front-end changes in February extended the vital “drill down” feature to graphs to provide better access to the data underlying charts and diagrams. By accessing the source of data, and looking at the progression of that data through the planning process, financial planners can gain a greater understanding of what’s happening and when. XERAS was designed for budgeting timeframes from one to five years, as well as complete life-of-project planning. It works from financial first principles and its functions build on these foundations. XERAS’ customised navigation guides users through the process of creating a financial plan, making the product highly usable for frequent and infrequent users. A flexible framework lets the user build their model the way they want.