Electronic catalogs made easy

ePlus has released a new version of the Supplier Portal component of Content+, its solution for automating the creation and management of electronic product catalogs. ePlus says the new features are designed to expedite critical supplier cooperation in e-catalog production and maintenance and to simplify catalog administration both for suppliers and for enterprise catalog managers involved in electronic procurement initiatives.

The company reports the new release adds a full-featured administrative dashboard for catalog approvers and suppliers; full audit tracking of catalog changes, including identification of users, date, time and nature of change; extended patterns for auto-recognition and value extraction to support full self-authoring and enhanced data mining; and enhanced functionality for viewing and approving catalog updates.

Enhancements have also been made to Content+ Syndicator, a utility that helps suppliers satisfy customers' disparate data requirements by allowing customer-defined data to be dynamically distributed in a variety of formats to virtually any third-party e-procurement, ERP or accounting system using XML protocols.