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

Crossroads Connections

Infor ERP Tips & News from the Experts

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

Tim Baker – Infor LX User Group’s Newest Board Member!

George Moroses 0 25720 Article rating: 5.0

We are proud to announce that Tim Baker, Crossroads RMC Senior Solutions Architect & Project Manager, has become a member of the Infor LX User Community Board of Directors!

Tim brings 32 years of experience to Crossroads RMC and takes pride in offering exceptional leadership and expertise to achieve the goals and objectives of his clients. It is this level of experience that will make Tim an excellent representative for the Infor LX Community going forward as a member of the board.

At Crossroads RMC, Tim serves as a Senior Solutions Architect and Project Manager for Infor LX and Infor ION implementations. He has been a Senior Manager of Software Development and Support, Senior System Analyst, and has managed software development team objectives and projects, which included planning, installation, and software modification of BPCS, Infor LX (ERP LX), I2, DC Service, and web development software. Additionally, he has managed a multitude of projects and led analysis, design, training, and development efforts across multiple ERP verticals.

Please join us in congratulating Tim and wishing him well in his efforts to help the Infor LX User Community!
Infor User Communities allow you to network with other customers and discuss any of Infor’s software solutions. 

Not currently a member of the Infor LX User Group?
The LX User Group has moved to https://concierge.infor.com. All access requests require approval by your organization's support admin. Once you have access to https://concierge.infor.com, click on the Communities box, and join the LX - User Group - LX. 

Infor LX & BPCS Tip: Inventory Stocking Levels – Warehouses, Locations and Lots…Oh My!

George Moroses 0 22076 Article rating: 4.0

The Infor LX system supports 4 levels of inventory. You can view summaries of stock at each level through the Material Status Inquiry program or through reports. Below are the 4 levels:

  • Item
  • Item + warehouse
  • Item + warehouse + location
  • Item + warehouse + location + lot

The lot number level and/or container of inventory can...

Need Knowledgeable ERP Staff Quickly?

Infor LX, BPCS, Infor M3, Infor LN & Baan

Crossroads RMC 0 22106 Article rating: 5.0

Consider this

Your staff is working on a critical project for your top customer, but in order to complete the project on time with high customer satisfaction, you need to extend your team. You know that the recruitment process is lengthy and it is not easy to find highly qualified people who won’t require a lengthy training process just to bring them up to speed on your ERP, (let alone your business) so this option is not suitable.

Or how about this…

Your ERP system is dragging and you know there are updates to install which are likely to improve system performance, but your IT guy is tied up working on something else and doesn’t know when he can perform the upgrade.

Either of these scenarios sound familiar?

Infor LX & BPCS | Infor LN & Baan: Accuracy & Productivity Aren't Important!

Crossroads RMC 0 23211 Article rating: 5.0

Oh, you think they are?

Well, you might want to take a hard look at HOW you’re running your Infor ERP system.

  • Have you been able to eliminate large amounts of data entry for your staff?
  • Do all of your systems talk to one another?
  • Is your data error-free at month end?

If the answer is no, your company would likely benefit from...

Infor LN & Baan Tip: Financial Integration Mapping Scheme

Kathy Barthelt 0 58993 Article rating: 5.0

Transactions to be mapped - In the mapping scheme, you must define the ledger mapping and the dimension mapping for these types of transactions:

  1. Financial integration transactions resulting from logistic events in Operations Management.
  2. General Ledger transactions.
  3. Procurement card transactions in Accounts Payable.


In addition, to support dimension accounting...

Infor LX & BPCS Tip: Main Benefits of IDF?

Infor Development Framework

George Moroses 0 29208 Article rating: 5.0

The Infor Development Framework (IDF) re-architects the way a user interacts with the application, providing an efficient, task-oriented process to view application information that is contained within Infor LX. IDF enables users to configure their view of the application data without modifying the core application and its supportability.

The examples below describe how users can configure their display of data and maximize overall productivity:

  • Arrange application information into multiple groupings and sequences that make sense for the job.
  • Filter or hide records to show only the information that applies to the job or task that the user is performing.
  • Customize the information for an individual user, a group of users, or all users.

Is it time to get more out of Infor LN & Baan?

Kathy Barthelt 0 59079 Article rating: 5.0

As crazy as it sounds, we’re about to enter the 4th Quarter of 2021. How are you doing on your 2021 goals? Planning for 2022 projects? Maybe it's time to get more out of your Infor ERP system.

TIME TO UPGRADE or NOT?

Is an upgrade to the latest version of Infor LN the goal for 2022? If so, Crossroads RMC brings 35+ years of industry experience to the table to ensure that your upgrade achieves the results you’re looking for and does so on time and on budget. Our goal is to delight your users and maximize the efficiencies that your business can gain from implementing best-of-breed business practices.

Crossroads RMC's team of expert consultants will...

Infor LN & BaanTip: Restructuring Your Warehouse

Am I able to remove a warehouse location?

Kathy Barthelt 0 61589 Article rating: 5.0

You may want to restructure your warehouse with new bin codes and new bin characteristics. You will not undertake this kind of activity very often, but situations can occur where a reclassification is necessary to achieve or maintain a more efficient operation. In this case, you may want to remove a given warehouse location. It can be done, but you must be aware of the following:

A location cannot be removed if any of these conditions exist:

  1. Any outstanding inbound advice for the item.
  2. Any outstanding outbound advice for the item.
  3. Any unprocessed cycle counting order/adjustment order lines.
  4. Any cycle counting data.
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Tips:  LX | BPCS | M3

Improves control over PO costing changes during invoice entry by replacing passive warnings with an intentional override action.

  • In ACP500D3 (Invoice Entry PO Costing), users previously could unintentionally accept changes by pressing ENTER, even when quantity to cost or amount to cost values had changed.

  • A new “F14 to Override” warning message replaces the old message:
    “Details have changed. Press enter again to accept data.”
    This ensures users acknowledge and confirm significant changes explicitly.

New System Parameter:

  • “Apply GRN Costing Tolerance for PO Costing” (optional):

    • Within tolerance: Displays the original message —
      “Details have changed. Press enter again to accept data.”

    • Outside tolerance: Triggers the new override requirement —
      “F14 to Override”

Benefits:

  • Enhances oversight and reduces unintentional cost acceptance.

  • Enables better control of PO costs when invoice details differ from expectations.

Last

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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Kathy Barthelt

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