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What if you could make your ERP system work harder for you? How would you improve it?

Crossroads RMC 0 1268 Article rating: 5.0

The answer to this question is often integration to other systems. Why not take advantage of Crossroads RMC's best of breed solutions to take your ERP installation to the next level and really TRANSFORM your business?

Read this great article by NextProcess:
Here’s How You Can Enhance Your ERP with Software Integration

Crossroads RMC has integration experts ready to tackle any integration project!

Contact us today! 800.762.2077

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Your Enterprise Resource Planning software lies at the heart of your business

Infor LN & Baan

Kathy Barthelt 0 16474 Article rating: 5.0

How Infor LN & Baan is utilized is critical to operating a stable, well understood, and effective business system. Knowing the current state of your system will enable you to make decisions to either better utilize your current ERP version or upgrade.

Crossroads RMC’s ERP Assessment helps you to flush out issues and areas for improvement. Our findings have resulted in minor procedural changes to a full reimplementation, or system upgrade to Infor LN. If your business requirements and your resources have undergone major change since your original implementation, it is time to take a look at your Infor ERP system to see if it is being utilized properly. The Crossroads RMC Utilization Review is designed to work with your people to identify the best way to apply the powerful capabilities within the Manufacturing, Supply Chain and Financial modules within the LN/Baan software to best suit the needs of your business, not only today, but in years to come.

Learn more>

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Infor LN & Baan Tip of the Week: What is the LN Report Designer and what is required to use it?

Kathy Barthelt 0 1430 Article rating: 5.0

The main purpose of the Report Designer is to enable changes to the design of a 4GL application report, without modifying the standard report or using an external reporting solution. The changes are stored as personalizations. Therefore, the effort that is required to implement changes, after the standard is updated, is reduced.

You can also generate new reports that are based on a selection of fields from the application data model. These reports are generated in the extensibility package. You can personalize these reports in the Report Designer, or modify them in LN Studio.

  • The Report Designer is available with LN 10.5 and later.
  • Enterprise Server 10.6 is required.
  • The Report Designer is only supported in LN UI.

Note:  On LN 10.5 you must re-compile the reports once with Enterprise Server 10.6 to enable them for the Report Designer.

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OTTO - On-Time Ordering: Q&A with an MIS Manager from a metal fabrication manufacturer

George Moroses 0 429 Article rating: 5.0

OTTO  A Q&A with an MIS Manager from a metal fabrication manufacturer:

1. How difficult was it to initially install OTTO?

"We loaded OTTO on our AS/400 on a Friday morning and demonstrated OTTO's capabilities with our own data that afternoon. That really impressed me from an IS perspective because it was so easy to load and run."

2. Would you install it on a test system or on the production system?

"We installed on the production system in order to use live data. OTTO resides outside of the ERP system and builds its own databases so it is not detrimental to any other system."

3. How difficult was it to implement OTTO, was there a negative impact on daily operations?

"Some reports were being used on the first day of the evaluation. There was only positive impact on our operation. For example, shortages in our final assembly area were eliminated within 30 days of the demonstration."

4. Comments?

"I was greatly surprised OTTO fit so well with our operation. OTTO has worked well in our company (we substantially increased on time shipments at the same time our business was seeing a 3 fold increase), but each company has to judge for themselves how well OTTO fits in with their organization."

Contact us to learn how OTTO can help your company!

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Analytics Dashboard News: What is a CFOs Biggest Concern?

Crossroads RMC 0 388 Article rating: 5.0

If you ask CFOs about their biggest concerns, most of them will tell you that increasing cash flow is a high priority.

In order to succeed at this, you have to keep an eye on your accounts receivable. Many companies, however, do not have the means or data to find out where they currently stand.

What if you could have that information at your fingertips?

Learn more about Analytics Dashboard for Infor LN/Baan >

Learn more about Analytics Dashboard for Infor LX/BPCS/M3 >

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Your Enterprise Resource Planning software lies at the heart of your business

Infor LX & BPCS

George Moroses 0 13124 Article rating: 5.0

How Infor LX & BPCS is utilized is critical to operating a stable, well understood and effective business system. Knowing the current state of your system will enable you to make decisions to either better utilize your current ERP version or upgrade.

Crossroads RMC’s Utilization Review helps you flush out issues and areas for improvement. Our findings have resulted in minor procedural changes to a full reimplementation, or system upgrade to Infor LX.

If your business requirements and your resources have undergone major change since your original implementation, it is time to take a look at your ERP system to see if it is being utilized properly. The Crossroads RMC Utilization Review is designed to work with your people to identify the best way to apply the powerful capabilities within the Manufacturing, Supply Chain and Financial modules within the LX/BPCS software to best suit the needs of your business, not only today, but in years to come.

Learn more>

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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.

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Tips: LN | Baan

Kathy Barthelt
/ Categories: Infor LN & Baan Tips, Technology

Infor LN & Baan Tips & Tricks for TECHNOLOGY: Data Sharing Methods (Advantages and Disadvantages)

Depending on the multicompany scenario you choose, an implementation team must decide whether or not tables must be logically linked or if data must be synchronized in another way to achieve availability of data across various companies. 

There are 3 ways in which data may be shared among companies. Here are some advantages and disadvantages of each:

  1. Logical Table Linking - If two companies use the same physical data, the physical table exists, or is used, in only one company: the physical company. Each piece occurs only once: one instance of the same data. If the term logical table linking is used, users from multiple companies use a single physical instance of the data. If the company tables are on the same server, this can be accomplished by logical table linking. Access to specific data can be restricted, if required.

    • Advantages: Logical Table Linking takes place in real time; therefore, the moment a record is created or modified in one company, a record becomes available in all other linked companies as well. The setup and maintenance of logical table linking is easier than the setup and maintenance of data replication. Logical table linking is extremely reliable because this type of linking is independent of network connections and user interventions. 

    • Disadvantages: Table sharing implies that all attributes for a record are the same in all companies. Therefore, suppose you share the item table and, for a particular item in a company, the product class is XXX. In this case, in all other companies, the product class for this item must be XXX as well.

  2. Data Replication - In this situation, each company has exactly the same data, but each company has a unique copy of the data. The same piece of data exists in multiple (physical) places: multiple instances of the same data. The process to copy the data is called data replication.

    • Advantages: Rather than using table sharing by means of the logical linking of tables, you can replicate the content of tables between companies. The advantage is that, on company level, some (non-key) attributes of a record can differ by company. For example, if the bills of materials are replicated instead of shared, for each company, you can link a different warehouse to the bill of material. As a result, the bills of materials can be the same across all companies and only the warehouses differ. Using replication, you can also make only a subset of the records available in other companies. For example, if you replicate items between companies, in a sales company, for example, by means of the item group, you can only make end items available. In addition, you can replicate only a subset of items, for example, depending on the item group. Note that replication also requires that the referenced tables are replicated or shared.

    • Disadvantages: Replication is not in real time, and therefore, for processes that require real-time integrated data as the financial integration processes, replication is not an option. For replication, you also must take into account the sequence in which you replicate. First, you must replicate the child tables and then the parent tables, and therefore first the business partners and then the purchase contracts. During the replication process, the data must be frozen. This point is of particular importance if the replication process takes a lot of time.

  3. Manual Syncronization - If only a small number of records are the same between some companies, you can enter, maintain, and keep the records synchronized manually. Note that the more dynamic data is, the more difficult this process is. This solution is strictly procedural. Therefore, depending on the discipline of the users, the solution is error sensitive: data can be forgotten, updated too late, or typing errors may occur.

  • Advantages - The main advantage is the flexibility so that only the data that really must be shared can be kept synchronized. By manually keeping data synchronized, not all attributes of a record need to have the same value.

  • Disadvantages - The main disadvantage is that this method depends on user interaction. Therefore, the method depends on the user’s time - because the method is not a real time procedure and the user may forget to update the data - and users can make mistakes.

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Kathy Barthelt

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