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

Infor News You Can Use | Have you upgraded to Infor LX 8.4.2 yet?

George Moroses 0 13422 Article rating: 5.0

Unlock industry capabilities

The latest version of Infor LX, release 8.4.2, provides core enhancements, an expanded database, and global modernization to meet market changes.

  • IDF serves as a rapid development platform with extensibility that enables release transparency and allows your IT team to eliminate legacy queries and custom reports

  • Advanced functions like embedded warehouse management, collaboration with logistics server providers and suppliers, and vendor-managed inventory are all included as standard and designed to support all of your supply chain needs

  • Embedded tools like document management, notifications, and workflows improve collaboration and productivity across teams

Infor LN / Baan Tips & Tricks for EXECUTIVES

Kathy Barthelt 0 24541 Article rating: 5.0

Finance: Propagating Unused Sub-Accounts

You can use this procedure to find accounts that have a valid sub-accounts group but no corresponding general ledger chart account records. This action creates the general ledger chart account record for the account and sub-account combination. This action does not add the accounts to charts.

  1. Select Financials > Global Ledger > Setup > Finance Enterprise Group > Maintenance.
  2. Open the finance enterprise group and click the Sub Account tab.
  3. Select Actions > Propagate Unused Sub Accounts.
  4. Select the finance enterprise group and click OK.

Sub-accounts are added according to group if they have been defined on the accounts. The resulting account can be added to the charts.

Operations: Best Practices for Purchase Order Archiving / Deleting

Here are some best practices to follow if you are considering archiving or deleting purchase order data:

  • If Financials is implemented, we recommend that you do not delete order data in a fiscal year that has not yet been fully closed. This is because the GRINYA process uses information that would be deleted by this action. For best results, check whether the logistical balance for non-invoiced receipts matches the balance of the GRINYA accounts for the periods up to which you want to delete purchase order data.
  • When a purchase order is canceled, you can only delete the purchase order and the related tables. If only a purchase order line is canceled, the line can be deleted and archived.
  • Purchase contracts must be archived before purchase orders can be archived.

You cannot delete a purchase order (line) if:

  • The linked warehouse order is closed but cannot be removed.
  • The purchase order is linked to a PCS pr

Infor LN & Baan Tip & Tricks for OPERATIONS: Best Practices for Purchase Order Archiving / Deleting

Kathy Barthelt 0 29804 Article rating: 5.0

 Here are some best practices to follow if you are considering archiving or deleting purchase order data:

  • If Financials is implemented, we recommend that you do not delete order data in a fiscal year that has not yet been fully closed. This is because the GRINYA process uses information that would be deleted by this action. For best results, check whether the logistical balance for non-invoiced receipts matches the balance of the GRINYA accounts for the periods up to which you want to delete purchase order data.
  • When a purchase order is canceled, you can only delete the purchase order and the related tables. If only a purchase order line is canceled, the line can be deleted and archived.
  • Purchase contracts must be archived before purchase orders can be archived.

You cannot delete a purchase order (line) if:

Infor LN & Baan Tip & Tricks for TECHNOLOGY: Using Table Boosters to Speed Up Sessions & Processes

Kathy Barthelt 0 31803 Article rating: 5.0

To increase the speed of sessions and processes slowed by large amounts of data, you can use table boosters. These speed up access to specific database tables by loading the table, or a specified part of it, into memory. Table boosters are defined in the Table Boosters (tcmcs0598m000) session.

Tables

Table boosters are implemented for tables. By default, table boosters are not active. When you access a table, LN builds a list of tables for which you can activate the boosters in the Table Boosters (tcmcs0598m000) session.

Note: You can only activate table boosters for tables that have been accessed at least once.

For more information, refer to the LN - Performance, Tracing, and Tuning Guide (U9357).

Infor LX / BPCS Tips & Tricks for Executives

Finance | Operations | Technology

George Moroses 0 18585 Article rating: 5.0

Finance: Cost Rollup by Effective Date
Allow the load standard cost from routing and cost rollup programs to process as of a specified effective date.  With the addition of an optional effective date parameter to prompt screens for cost rollup CST500 and load standards from routing CST600. If entered, only consider bill of material components and routing operations with effective and discontinue dates that make them effective as of the entered parameter effective date.


Operations: Outside Operation Purchase Order Include Vendor Item Number
Copy the vendor item number from the vendor quote to purchase orders created automatically from outside operations of shop orders. During the process of automatically creating purchase orders from outside operations of shop orders, copy the vendor item number from the vendor quote to the purchase order line. With this change, looking at a purchase order that was created automatically for an outside operation of a shop order, the vendor item number from the vendor quote will be visible on the purchase order line.


Technology: Group Security for ILM501 Inbound Delivery Maintenance
Add function key / action code security to control who is authorized to create/revise/delete functions in ILM501 Inbound Delivery Maintenance.  With added Group Security, managers can control which users are authorized to create, change and delete deliveries in ILM501 Inbound Delivery Maintenance.

Infor LX / BPCS Tips & Tricks for OPERATIONS: Outside Operation Purchase Order Include Vendor Item Number

George Moroses 0 18375 Article rating: 5.0

Operations: Outside Operation Purchase Order Include Vendor Item Number

Copy the vendor item number from the vendor quote to purchase orders created automatically from outside operations of shop orders. During the process of automatically creating purchase orders from outside operations of shop orders, copy the vendor item number from the vendor quote to the purchase order line. With this change, looking at a purchase order that was created automatically for an outside operation of a shop order, the vendor item number from the vendor quote will be visible on the purchase order line.

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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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