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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

Moving Beyond ERP Customizations: Smarter Solutions for a Future-Ready System

Kathy Barthelt 0 4373 Article rating: 5.0

Transitioning away from ERP customizations can feel like a major hurdle—but with the right strategy, it’s not just possible, it’s powerful. Let’s cut through the noise and look at the real issues... and the smart solutions that pave the way to a leaner, more future-ready ERP.

Common Challenges (and Why They’re Not Dealbreakers)

Reliance on Custom Processes
Custom workflows often become second nature—but are they still serving you? Modern ERPs evolve with industry best practices baked in, and chances are, today’s standard features do what your custom code used to… only better.

Budget & Time Constraints
Testing, retraining, consulting—it all adds up. But the long-term payoff? Reduced technical debt, faster upgrades, and major gains in efficiency and scalability.

User Resistance
Change is hard, especially when teams are comfortable with their tools. But clear communication and a strong change management plan can turn skeptics into champions of a smarter, streamlined system.


Reality Check: Has Your Business Outgrown Its Customizations?

Infor LX/BPCS Tips & Tricks for OPERATIONS: IDF Customer Order Inquiry enhancements

George Moroses 0 12594 Article rating: 5.0

This enhancement provides additional views, additional order and line details, improved navigation, and additional capabilities to the IDF Customer Order Inquiry cards and to customer order-related business objects such as Allocations, Customer Invoices, Inventory Transaction History, Promotions, Drop Shipments.

Enhanced Order views based on user roles such as customer service, warehouse/logistics, salesperson/commission, data analysis/management reporting

  • Improved sort, select and filter capabilities
  • Enhanced navigation, data organization and data display
  • Improved customer service access to all transactions throughout the entire customer order life cycle – from quote to order, related invoices, and any RMAs, return orders, related credit memos
  • Improved grouping of related fields
  • New cards to present additional order and order line details
  • Consolidation of cards and card details when appropriate
  • Enhanced Display and Maintain capabilities for drillback to related customer, ship-to, item, carrier, terms, and other master file details
  • Improved display of dates, times and applicable time zones when Region Code time zone support is implemented
  • Multi language Description, Name and Address fields displayed in user’s language, if defined, else in base language

Infor LX/BPCS Tips & Tricks for TECHNOLOGY: Search by Description in Segment Value List

George Moroses 0 12735 Article rating: 5.0

This enhancement provides search capabilities on segment value description in Segment Value List window (WINGSVD).

Segment Value List (WINGSVD):

  • Converted to a standard subfile
  • New action code 10=Search

This makes it easier to locate segment values when defining segment values in Model Account Builder or Alias definition. In addition, WINGSVD has been redesigned as a subfile to enable WebTop grid capabilities.

Infor LX/BPCS Tips & Tricks for FINANCE: Increase A/P Retention Days

George Moroses 0 5633 Article rating: 5.0

This enhancement allows reconciled payables and payments to be retained in the system for over 200 years. It extends the retention period in A/P Application Control Maintenance (ACP180) to support up to five digits. This gives LX customers the ability to retain data online for significantly longer durations.

Embracing Industry 4.0: The Future of Smart Manufacturing is Here

WEBINAR - Join us: Thursday, April 17th, 2025 from 1:00 to 1:30 (US/Eastern)

Anthony Etzel 0 5629 Article rating: 5.0

We’re standing in the middle of the Fourth Industrial Revolution—Industry 4.0—a transformation that’s redefining how products are made, moved, and managed. But many companies are still operating with Industry 3.0 systems: digitized, yes, but not yet intelligent, connected, or adaptive.

So, what makes Industry 4.0 different? And more importantly—where does your company stand in this transformation?

Automation to Intelligence: The Shift from Industry 3.0 to 4.0
Industry 3.0 introduced computers, electronics, and early automation into manufacturing. It marked the beginning of digital systems and the rise of Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) as a bridge between planning and the shop floor. Industry 4.0 takes it further: it brings interconnectivity, real-time data, and AI-powered intelligence into every corner of the industrial environment. It’s about smart factories, self-optimizing systems, and predictive capabilities that weren’t possible before.

8 Pillars of Industry 4.0:

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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

George Moroses

Infor LX & BPCS Tip: PowerLink

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?
There's not a finite amount of records that PowerLink can export. However, PowerLink export was never intended to handle large volumes of data. It was designed as a quick snapshot of a fairly small subset and a simple view of the user's PowerLink card. 

What is the maximum amount of data that can be exported?
The maximum number of records is only limited by the system resource like memory, etc. When the system runs out of resources, an OutOfMemory error should occur. In previous testings, we have exported +1 million records, although the size of records differs greatly between business objects, the total size of the data could be an issue. For larger volumes of data, customers should investigate other tools such as the iSeries Access "Data Transfer from iSeries Server" feature to download directly to Excel.

How do I know if the size of the data is an issue?
1. When exporting to an external file (text, HTML) then importing to Excel: You can easily check the output (text, HTML) to see if the intermediate output has all the records. This can be done by visual inspection or through the use of column totals. Simply compare between the output and what you see in PowerLink. If the exported file has all the records, then the problem is definitely Excel.
2. When exporting to clipboard, then copy/paste to Excel: There is a clipboard export size limit that is controlled through client preferences. Check the exported data in the clipboard, and see if it contains all the records or only partial records due to the size limitation set in client preferences. If limited, change the client preferences using Customize from the Main browser > Preferences > Miscellaneous tab > Limit Clipboard Export, and try the export again. If the clipboard has all the records the problem is in Excel, which we don't have jurisdiction over.

Suggestions for improving the export process. 

  1. Reduce the number of columns seen in the view. This will serve to reduce the data being exported and may increase the number of records that can be exported. 
     
  2. Reduce the complexity of the view. If the view has one column that lives on a related object, then it has to build SQL behind the scenes to get that related record. If all of the columns come from a single business object, then the processing will be significantly faster.
     
  3. Export to HTML, which can be opened directly by Excel, Access, and many other programs. This reduces the processing of the export formatting because PowerLink needs only to put begin and end tags around each data element. This will also preserve column alignment when Excel or other programs open the file.
     
  4. Unless you are exporting a fairly small volume of data, export to a file, not clipboard. Clipboard is held in memory until the entire view is read, and records are written to the file as they are retrieved.
     

 Also see KB 1357068 for more information about testing your view.

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