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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

Is your Baan or Infor LN system STILL not integrated with UPS and FedEx?

Kathy Barthelt 0 25068 Article rating: 2.5

It's hard to find a manufacturing article, or talk to a manufacturer for that matter without hearing about the importance of efficiency. In fact, 92% of manufacturers reported that their most significant business imperative is improving efficiency, according to a major new report published by The Manufacturer and IBM. Improving efficiency cuts costs, improves throughput, and ultimately improves competitiveness.

One way to improve efficiency is to eliminate the redundant process of manually keying data from Baan and Infor LN to your third-party logistics systems such as UPS or FedEx. Third-party systems need to know what you want shipped, how it is being shipped, the weight, quantity, etc. Once the shipment is ready, the tracking number, freight cost, and other information need to be entered into Baan and Infor LN in order to process your sales orders and ultimately invoice your customer. This process is time-consuming, error-prone, and causes delays in shipping and invoicing.

Why waste time and energy when the entire process can be automated on-premise or cloud with RMCship?

RMCship provides a complete one-way or two-way communication channel between Baan IV, Baan V, and Infor LN to UPS Worldship & FedEx Ship Manager.

TO UPS & FedEx -
RMCship....

Infor LN & Baan Tip: Rework of Serialized Items

Kathy Barthelt 0 120425 Article rating: 5.0

There are two options for rework of serialized items. One is to define the serial numbers upfront by defining the as-built serial header before releasing the rework order. The second option is to not define serials in the as-built header and instead, the serials are defined through issuing the material to the rework order. Manually entering the serial number after release of the rework order is not supported.

Check-Ups are important… Including Infor LX & BPCS ERP Check-Ups!

George Moroses 0 27561 Article rating: 5.0

What would you say to someone if they never went to a doctor for a check-up, or never took their car in for regular maintenance, like an oil change?

You might say that they were asking for problems, right? The point of those check-ups is to catch a problem early, or better yet before it occurs. Going for check-ups gives you the peace of mind that things are running well and if an issue is identified early enough you can reduce overall risk. Regular check-ups can help reduce out-of-pocket expenses over time.

What about Finance, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, and Company-wide Check-Ups for your Infor ERP system? What will happen if you NEVER hit pause?

Here are some questions by department to consider.

Finance:...

Infor LX & BPCS Tip: Return Material Authorization (RMAs)

George Moroses 0 29649 Article rating: 5.0

The Return Material Authorization process, RMA, controls and monitors the return of goods. Infor LX generates an RMA which mirrors the terms and conditions of the return. You can copy the RMA from a processed invoice or create it independently of an existing order. If you copy an invoice to create an RMA, Infor LX copies only regular lines, not special lines. You can manually add special...

Infor LX & BPCS Tip: Drop Shipments

George Moroses 0 28401 Article rating: 5.0

Infor LX provides a tightly integrated drop shipment processing capability. The product supports the creation, tracking, and management of customer drop shipment orders via the Order Management, Purchasing, and Billing applications.

The order processing professional initiates drop shipments during customer order creation. You can designate any order line for drop shipment if it meets user-defined drop ship controls. If you designate a line as a drop ship line, the system automatically creates a drop ship request in purchase order processing.

When a buyer responds to a drop ship request...

Top 10 Things You Might Not Know About Crossroads RMC

Crossroads RMC 0 27292 Article rating: 5.0
  1. Crossroads RMC has been in business since 1984 & has been an  partner since 1991. 
     
  2. Crossroads RMC offers functional & technical training on all versions of Infor LX, BPCS, Infor LN, and Baan and will completely tailor the training to your specific needs. 
     
  3. Many of our consultants are 🎵 musically inclined, so you might have the added benefit of some entertainment while your ERP problems are being solved!
     
  4. Our consultants have expert level functional & technical knowledge of every version of Infor LN & Baan from Triton 2.X through LN 10.7., and Infor LX & BPCS from BPCS 3.0 to LX 8.4!  💡
     
  5. Crossroads RMC is a value-added reseller of data collection equipment (mobile computers, printers, RFID equipment, and more).
     
  6. Our headquarters are just outside of Chicago, but for some silly reason, our East Coast staff thinks they have the best pizza.🍕
     
  7. Our integration specialists have developed close to 50 different integrations to Infor LN, Baan, Infor LX & BPCS.
     
  8. Crossroads RMC offers 24 X 7 support to all of our customers. 💪
     
  9. Our technical consultants have developed many Infor ERP software add-on solutions like MES, Data Collection, an Analytics Dashboard, FedEx / UPS integration, and more that are used by thousands of Infor users every day.
     
  10. We’ve been publishing Infor LN, Infor LX, BPCS, and Baan tips & tricks since February 2010, and most are still available on our website, with new ones being added every other week!

Infor LX & BPCS Tip: PowerLink

George Moroses 0 50355 Article rating: 5.0

PowerLink is a Windows-based client for end-users within the Infor Development Framework (IDF). PowerLink allows exports/imports from/to the ERP database, but how much do you really know about it? Here is some helpful information about PowerLink.​

Why does PowerLink sometimes fail to export all records?...

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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
/ Categories: Infor LN & Baan Tips

Infor LN & Baan Tip: Performance improvement by setting the First Free Number Cache (tcmcs0651m000)

Many transactions in all kinds of modules use order numbers or serial numbers. These order numbers are most often automatically generated. In the Number Groups (tcmcs0151m000) session you can define groups of order numbers used for dedicated areas. A Number Group is a group of the first free number series that you can assign to a specific use. All the numbers that Infor LN generates in the number groups that are dedicated to the same purpose are unique.

All the first free numbers are stored in the table tcmcs050.

As many different processes can request a free number from the number groups, we often see delays in the performance, due to locking on the first free number records. This locking issue can have a severe impact on the performance of huge batch-type transactions, but also on the performance perceived by individual users in many areas in LN.

For example:

  • Processing warehouse transactions. Single or in-batch
  • Completing / closing orders
  • Backflushing of production orders
  • Generate Order Planning
  • Cost calculation and warehouse revaluation


How this performance can be improved?

Resolution

In the Number Groups (tcmcs0151m000) session you can open the details of a specific Number Group (tcmcs0651m000) or start the session stand-alone.

In the Number Group, you define the Series with the related First Free Numbers. Per Serie in the First Free Number, you have the option to define the Cache Size.

This Cache size is defaulted on a value of 0 (zero). A cache size of zero means No Cache. How does the First Free Number caching works:

  • When the Cache Size is zero: With this setting a process requests a Free Number from the Serie and the first free number is issued to the process. But the first free number record is not updated yet. At the moment the requesting process is finished, without errors, it reports back that the number is used and the first free number record is updated. All the time that the process is working on the transactions the first free number record is locked. If another process is requesting a free number from the same series, it must wait (retries) until the record is updated and released by the previous process. This is the locking which is causing delays in the other processes.  
  • Setting the Cache Size to a higher value then zero activates the caching. When the Cache Size is set to 1 or higher, the requested free number is sent to the requesting process, the first free number is updated, with the number as defined in the Cache size, and the record is saved. It does not wait until the requesting process has reported back that is finished, with or without errors. In this way the record is immediately released and no locking will occur. If another process is requesting a free number, it does not need to wait until the free number record is released by the earlier process. If the process is ended with errors and therefor the number is not used, this number from the series is lost. This can result in gaps in the numbering. When the cache size is greater than 1, for example it is set to 5, the requesting process receives 5 free numbers. Even if it only needs less than 5. In this way the process only has to request for a new free number after it has used the first 5 numbers from the cache. This will also speedup the process in case of large batch transactions. For ‘warehouse integration users’, like for example Factory Track or WMS users we advise to set the cache size to 5.  

Note that financial documents are not based on number group series / first free numbers. Instead they are based on transaction type series, for which the caching functionality does not exist. Financial documents, like sales invoices, bank transactions, are thus not cached.

The caching is especially important to improve the performance of all logistical processes.

It is strongly recommended (mandatory) to set the Cache Size for all Number Groups to a minimum of 1.

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Kathy Barthelt

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