September 18, 2025

Sofon 2024 1.3 Minor Release

Sofon 1.3 Release: Smarter Product Governance and a Stronger Quoting Experience

We know manufacturers face rising pressure to manage complex product portfolios, global markets, and multi-channel sales. With the latest Sofon 1.3 release, we’ve focused on two priorities: making it easier to connect Sofon with the rest of your technology stack and giving your teams faster, more reliable tools to configure and quote.

This update brings meaningful enhancements to both EPAL (Enterprise Product and Lifecycle manager) and Sofon Web Edition, making it easier for the rules and data that govern your products to flow directly into the sales and quoting process.

Smarter Product Governance with EPAL 1.3

EPAL is where manufacturers control the rules, versions, and structures behind their products. In this release, new API endpoints allow external systems such as ERP or PLM to create products, objects, formulas, and references directly in Sofon. This eliminates the need for manual setup by allowing ERP and PLM systems to push product definitions directly into Sofon. As a result, integrations move faster, reduce duplicate data entry, and ensure product information is always consistent across systems.

We’ve also lifted restrictions that previously required downtime during channel updates, so global teams can keep working without interruption. Performance has been improved by optimizing SQL queries that once caused slowdowns after upgrades. And to ensure data accuracy, EPAL now automatically ignores obsolete records and generates unique IDs, preventing duplication or conflicts.

For manufacturers, these changes deliver:

A More Reliable Quoting Experience with Web Edition 1.3

While EPAL manages the foundation, Web Edition is where sales teams, dealers, and partners create quotes and process approvals. In this release, we’ve focused on usability, accuracy, and flexibility.

Previously, quotes created by resellers for dealers sometimes appeared in the quote list but not on the Start Page, leading users to believe the quote was missing. Now, quotes are consistently visible across both entry points, removing that uncertainty for dealers and resellers. Approval deadlines automatically adjust if a quote’s verification becomes outdated, ensuring due dates remain correct. Document generation has been improved so appendices and templates are included without error, and change tracking now shows full item descriptions for greater clarity during edits.

Configuration models in Sofon can now call external web services using secure, token-based authentication. This gives IT teams a reliable way to connect models to other platforms, such as pulling real-time data from ERP or pricing systems, without compromising security. Backward compatibility has also been reinforced, so existing connectors continue to work even as you adopt the latest version. Additional fixes across scripting, pricing, and exports make the quoting process more dependable for users.

For manufacturers, this means:

Faster sales cycles through accurate approvals and complete documentation
Flexibility to connect Sofon securely with external systems
A consistent quoting experience for dealers, resellers, and sales teams
Fewer risks of errors in pricing, deadlines, or exports
Easier upgrades with less disruption to existing integrations

The Bottom Line

With Sofon 1.3, manufacturers gain faster integrations, higher system performance, and more dependable quoting workflows. EPAL ensures product rules and data flow cleanly from engineering to sales, while Web Edition gives teams a consistent, accurate, and secure way to configure and quote. Together, these updates reduce errors, eliminate downtime, and keep global operations moving with confidence.