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Infor LX Tips, Infor LN Tips, BPCS Tips, Baan Tips, Infor M3 Tips & Infor ERP News

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Infor ERP Tips & News from the Experts

Infor LX | Infor LN | BPCS | Baan | Infor M3

Webinar Invitation: JumpStart for WebTop Decorators for Infor LX

September 18, 2025 | 12pm CT / 1pm ET

George Moroses 0 81 Article rating: 5.0

Date: Thursday, September 18, 2025
Time: 12:00 PM CT | 1:00 PM ET

Infor LX users already understand the value of WebTop for simplifying navigation and extending capabilities. In this webinar, we’ll take it a step further and show you how WebTop Decorators can help you customize and streamline your Infor LX experience.

What You’ll Learn

  • How to enable WebTop Designer Mode
  • How to assign Web Administrators
  • How to enable a Grid Decorator
  • …and much more!


Speaker: Nick Olson, Crossroads RMC

Register: https://ibmi.workoutloud.com/Event/-decoratorswebtop/Register/0

👉 Can’t attend live on Thursday? Register for free and we’ll send you the recording after the session.


Additional Opportunity at inPOWER

We’ll also present JumpStart for WebTop Decorators for Infor LX at inPOWER:

The Far-Reaching Impact of Disconnected Data

Kathy Barthelt 0 1872 Article rating: 5.0

Disconnected data doesn’t just slow you down—it creates bottlenecks across your entire business. When your ERP isn’t connected to the systems you rely on, every department feels it.

How Disconnected Data Hurts Your Organization

  • Operations: Spreadsheets and manual order entry waste valuable time.

  • Finance: Budgets, POs, and invoices stuck in silos cause delays and errors.

  • Technology: Teams burn hours exporting data to stay “up to date.”

  • Executives: No single source of truth makes it hard to see the big picture.

A recent study found that 61% of companies face project delays from slow data integration, while employees waste the equivalent of 19 workdays per year moving data between systems. That’s lost productivity you can’t afford.

Why ERP Integration Matters
Your ERP is the heart of your operations. Connecting it to the rest of your business tools unlocks:

  • Real-time data access → no more outdated spreadsheets.

  • Improved communication → one source of truth for every team.

  • Higher productivity → eliminate duplicate entry and manual reporting.

  • Smarter supply chains → better visibility, fewer delays.

  • Sales enablement → reps get live pricing, inventory, and customer data.


Simplify Integration with Infor ION...

Infor LN & Baan Tips & Tricks for OPERATIONS: Subcontracting Overview

Kathy Barthelt 0 3274 Article rating: 5.0

Companies can decide to involve a subcontractor and subcontract part of their activities. The subcontractor carries out the work and returns the products to your company.

In Infor LN, subcontracting is considered as purchasing labor from a third party. Therefore, if a manufacturer wants to subcontract work, he must generate a purchase order to start the subcontracting process. These are the types of subcontracting:

  • Subcontracting with material flow
    • Operation subcontracting: For operation subcontracting, a part of the production process (one or more operations) is subcontracted.
    • Item subcontracting: For item subcontracting, an item's entire production process is subcontracted. Therefore, it is always used with material flow support.
  • Subcontracting without material flow: The simplest form of subcontracting is to generate a subcontracting purchase order to record the operations outsourced to a subcontractor. The subcontracting purchase order only represents the administrative handling of the subcontracting process. When the subcontracted item is received back from the subcontractor, you must close the subcontracting purchase order, which initiates the production process.
  • Unplanned subcontracting: Unplanned subcontracting is applicable when you subcontract after generating a production order. For unplanned subcontracting, a purchase order is generated from the production order and the material supply lines are populated by Shop Floor Control.
  • Service subcontracting: For service subcontracting, work on an item to be maintained or repaired is subcontracted. This work entails the entire repair process, or only a part of it. Service subcontracting can be used with or without material flow support.

To start the subcontracting process, a purchase order is required.

Infor LN & Baan Tips & Tricks for FINANCE: Set Up and Calculate Currency Differences

Kathy Barthelt 0 1484 Article rating: 5.0

To set up and calculate currency differences for foreign currencies:

  • Use the Company Parameters (tfgld0503m000) session to specify the profit and loss ledger accounts, 12 profit and loss dimensions, and transaction type for a posting exchange rate differences that is calculated using the FIFO method. To specify this data, use the Currency Diff. FIFO tab. The reports printed from the Print Company Parameters (tfgld0404m000) session, include the Currency Differences FIFO fields.
  • Use the Calculate Currency Differences (tfgld5201m000) session to calculate the currency differences resulting from transactions posted on accounts for which the field Currency Analysis in the session Chart of Accounts (tfgld0508m000) is set to Required.

Infor LN & Baan Tips & Tricks for TECHNOLOGY: Using the Data Access Layer (DAL)

Kathy Barthelt 0 1571 Article rating: 5.0

During an Exchange import, you can use all the functionality programmed into the Data Access Layer (DAL). If you use the DAL, Exchange carries out all the constraint checks, integrity checks, and side effects, for example, updates on other tables, that are programmed into the DAL. Database integrity is guaranteed automatically.

Using the DAL reduces the costs of interface development. You can use the DAL to import standard interfaces developed by Infor for partner products, as well as for specific interfaces built by customers, for example, to integrate LN with legacy systems. You can use the DAL in both single site and multisite environments.

The checks or additional actions specified in the DAL are carried out for each row that is imported. Database errors are logged in the same way for DAL and non-DAL import. DAL hook errors are also logged. You can specify whether the DAL property checks are or are not carried out.

If you specify the use of the DAL for a table relation for an import, the dal.new, dal.update, and dal.destroy functions are used instead of db.insert, db.update, and db.delete. You can choose to use DAL for particular tables and not for other tables, therefore, an import batch can contain both types of table relations simultaneously. The import through DAL works for both the import based on audit or indicators (inserts, updates, deletes), and the full import (inserts only).

DAL settings are run time aspects, which means you can change these aspects without having to regenerate the import program. DAL settings are also logged in the log table at batch line level, to enable you to find out what the DAL settings were when the import was run.

Important to realize is that an update through the DAL can result in a number of side effects. Actions performed by the DAL must not be carried out twice. For example, if the DAL updates the available to promise (ATP) quantity for an item when importing order data, the ATP quantity must not be updated in a condition script as well.

For this reason, you must not add any actions in condition scripts, or import additional data, that are already handled in the DAL.

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Tips:  LX | BPCS | M3

Tips: LN | Baan

Kathy Barthelt

Infor LN & Baan Manufacturing Tip: Performance Problems in Generate Order Planning (cprrp1210m000)

When the Generate Order Planning (cprrp1210m000) session is run it can take minutes to days to finish the process.

The performance of this session depends on many settings, like the number of plan items, the number of orders, but it also depends on hardware and database setup.

Here are some guidelines on how performance can be improved.

  • Be sure you are always on the latest solutions with the planning sessions. We are constantly improving the software to gain more speed in the Enterprise Planning (EP) sessions.
  • The number of planned items is critical. Try to reduce the number of planned items. Is it necessary that all items be planned via EP? For shop floor stock the TPOP or SIC replenish systems are often more suitable.
  • When you use PCS, be sure to close the projects when they are finished. When a PCS project has status Closed, the customized items will not be planned.

It's better to run Remove Plan Items for closed Projects (cprpd1220m000). This session removes the item planning data for customized items of closed projects.

  • If you run EP with the option, Also Generate Item Master Plan and/or Online Update Item Master Plan, consider if you need an Item Master Plan for all plan items. An Item Master Plan is usually meant for global long-term planning. Again this is not very useful for shop floor stock. Reducing the number of master-planned items improves performance.
  • When you use Resource Master Plans; are all your resources really critical? If a work center is not critical do not create a Resource Master Plan for it.
  • When using Item Master Plans and/or Resource Master Plans, set in Scenarios (cprpd4100m000) the total scenario length as short as possible. For example, if your sales order horizon is 2 years, a scenario end date which is 3 years after the current date is sufficient. During the calculations of the Item Master Plan and the Resource Master, all periods defined in the scenario are checked and calculated. So if you have the end date of the scenario on 2038, EP will do the calculations (for every master-planned item) until 2038.

Defining a rolling scenario will keep your scenario length constant and you don’t have to worry that you run beyond your scenario's end date.

  • Updating the pegging relations has a serious impact on the EP performance. In EP Parameters (cprpd0100m000) you can set the Pegging Horizon in days. Keep this horizon as short as possible. The Update Signals by Item/Planner option also has some impact, but less than the pegging.
  • EP uses the so-called phase numbers to detect the lowest level in which an item is used within a BOM structure or in a supplying relation. If the phase numbers are not ‘up-to-date’, EP will correct the phase numbers during the planning. This takes time during the planning run. If there are loops in BOMs or in supplying relations, this recalculation has a big impact on the performance. Therefore you could run Compute Phase Numbers (cprpd6200m000) on a regular basis. For example once a month. Always run this session with the Generate Report option selected. If loops are detected these are reported. Be sure to solve all the reported errors.
  • When unexpected results occur, especially when the data is imported from external packages, always check the number of records in tables cprpd100 and cprpd120. The number of records should match! Remark: From 10.4 onwards the table cprpd120 has become obsolete so this point not applicable anymore.
  • The number of calendars also impacts planning performance. Then for every warehouse, work center, or BP, and so on, a different calendar is defined. Planning has to read all of these calendars from start to end. This can have a huge impact on performance.
    • If you link a calendar to a work center or warehouse, avoid defining a new calendar for every work center/warehouse. Try to link the same calendar to more than one department.
    • Define the start of the calendar close to the start date of the scenario. For example, the current date is 01-07-2014, the start date of the scenario is 365 days in the past. So a start date for your calendar could be 01-07-2012.
    • Define the end date of the calendar not too far in the future. Depending on the end date of the scenario you could use 5 years ahead.  For example, the current date is 01-07-2014, the end date of the scenario is 3 years in the future. So an end date for your calendar could be 01-07-2022. Do not define an end date past 19-01-2038, which is the last UTC date Infor LN can handle.

Also, the interaction with the database can have a big impact on performance. 
A commonly used way to improve the total run time of the EP run is to start the session in parallel processing. 
See also Knowledge Base Article 22881401 Performance, Tracing and tuning Guide, for more details.

These guidelines are just some hints, and a good starting point because performance is a complex issue.

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