Infor ERP Tips and Infor ERP News for Infor LX, BPCS, Infor ERP LX, Infor LN, Infor ERP LN, Baan, Infor M3, and Movex

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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

The Far-Reaching Impact of Disconnected Data

Kathy Barthelt 0 7017 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  • Real-time data access → no more outdated spreadsheets.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 15406 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 7783 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 8752 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.

Infor LX/BPCS Tips & Tricks for TECHNOLOGY: Add Last Maintained Audit Fields to SYS600

George Moroses 0 15128 Article rating: 5.0

LX has enhanced the SYS600 User Security Maintenance application by adding the ZXUP audit fields:

  • Last Maintained Date

  • Last Maintained Time

  • Last Maintained User

These fields are updated whenever a user or role is revised, deleted, or reactivated.

This enhancement provides standard audit tracking to identify who modified a User Security record and when. The audit fields can be used for ad hoc tracking, reporting, and analysis.

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Tips:  LX | BPCS | M3

Tips: LN | Baan

Crossroads RMC

Dashboards vs. Reports – What do they offer and which do I need?

Companies are collecting oceans of data, and struggle with transforming it into usable information. Most businesses focus on two methods of sharing data - the report and the dashboard. While these two terms mean many things to many people, it is important to understand what these terms mean and how the report and dashboard have similar features but they are not the same thing.  

What is a Report?

A report is meant to be used to gather detailed intelligence on the operations within an organization, thus a report can be either very broadly covering a wide scope of related information, or narrowly focusing on details of a single item, purpose, or event. All of this information, while presented in a report, is meant to be a snapshot in time.

Quite often, a report is built within the ERP system itself and often is constrained by the graphical and user limitations within the ERP. More often than not, large amounts of data are exported to Excel where added features allow for better manipulation of the data to a format that is digestible by users. Regardless, the data is only valid for that moment and time.

What is a Dashboard?

A dashboard is a graphical interface that provides at-a-glance views revolving around answering a central question. For example, an executive may ask you for up-to-the-minute details on "how the business is doing?". The answer to that question is as complex as the organizational structure of the company, but it is probably very simply measured with approximately 10 metrics. Those 10 metrics can likely be analyzed in chart form, and can and should be combined into one chart when the numbers are relatable or are on a similar scale. All these things should be considered when building a dashboard.

Dashboards, similar to the one in your vehicle, display critical data. Imagine driving down the road and having to push a bunch of buttons to find out how much fuel you have left, or having to pull over and pop the hood to check the oil pressure. It would be dangerous and a waste of your precious time. Your car's control panel or dashboard displays the most crucial information in an easy-to-use, graphical way.

How do Dashboards and Reports differ?

First, a report contains much more detailed information. Where a dashboard might provide a CEO with information on how the entire company’s sales are progressing, a corresponding report will give the CFO or VP of Sales the ability to see how each sales region or even salesperson is performing and make leadership decisions. Just like responsibility, data will get more granular as the organizational hierarchy goes down. The C-Suite might be interested in the detailed data, but for seeing a snapshot of high-level information, the dashboard is the desired mode.

Second, a report is much longer than a dashboard. Not only in the amount of detail but also visually. Tables and charts that live within a report can take up many pages. Furthermore, a report will likely require the reader to scroll through many screens or click from page to page.

A dashboard should confine its display to a single screen with no need for scrolling or switching among multiple screens. Something powerful happens when we see things together, all within eye span. Likewise, something critical is compromised when we lose sight of some data by scrolling or switching to another screen to see other data.

When an individual dashboard has so much information on it that scrolling is required, the power of the dashboard is diminished because the information that lives there is intended to be viewed together. Each piece of information on the dashboard is meant to give the reader the ability to answer part of the central question of the dashboard. These charts combine to answer the question, so if the reader can’t see them together, making them work together is much more difficult.

To sum it up, a report is a more detailed collection of tables, charts, and graphs and it is used for a much more detailed, full analysis while a dashboard is used for monitoring what is going on. The behavior of the pieces that make up dashboards and reports are similar, but their makeup itself is different. A dashboard answers a question in a single view and a report provides information. Put in another way, the report can provide a more detailed view of the information that is presented on a dashboard.  

With dashboards, you can empower your entire team with data insights in real-time information, so your data is never stale. Users can create and share custom views of your data on the fly, in minutes.

With powerful Dashboards, you can:

  • Create pie charts, graphs, interactive maps, and more with just a few clicks.
  • Build a dashboard once and make it instantly available on any device.
  • Tell a story with your data with your own custom layouts, colors, and commentary—all with no coding and changes available instantly to users.
  • Know you always have current reports with real-time data updates.
  • Access your dashboards from anywhere–computer, tablet, or phone.
     

Manufacturing

Enlarge Production Summary Dashboard Enlarge Work Center Job Step Status


Finance

Enlarge Accounts Receivable Dashboard


Materials

Enlarge Inventory Dashboard Enlarge Sales History Dashboard


 

Analytics Dashboard for Infor LX & BPCS>

Analytics Dashboard for Infor LN & Baan>

Contact us today to learn how dashboards can help you go fast, go big, and go bold.

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