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Infor LN & Baan Tips & Tricks for TECHNOLOGY: Archiving Concept

Kathy Barthelt 0 41993 Article rating: 5.0

Companies are developing procedures for entering data into an ERP system and for archiving manuals, drawings, specs, and other hard-copy documents. However, in many cases there is no defined procedures to store historical electronic data. Archiving electronic data should be an integral part of your business processes. 

Generally, archiving is the process of moving historical data from the operational environment to a special archive environment. At home, you might move old bank statements from a closet in your study to a box in the attic. At the office, you might store old hard copies of purchase orders in a room far from your own desk. Just because you no longer need the information in your daily work, does not mean you can dispose of the information. In terms of electronic data in your ERP system, archiving means moving historic data from the operational company to a special archive company; in that way, the historic data will be out of your way and safely stored. To free up disk space on your machine after you have archived the data, you can also move the historic data to an external medium.

Archiving strategy:

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Infor LN & Baan Tips & Tricks for OPERATIONS: Blocking or Unblocking Warehouses

Kathy Barthelt 0 15313 Article rating: 5.0

You can block a warehouse for inbound procedures, outbound procedures, or both. For example, you can block inbound and outbound procedures for a warehouse if the warehouse must be closed temporarily for inspection.

You can impose these types of blockings:

  • Full block: Full block on warehousing procedures.

  • Interactive block: Override blocking allowed except blocks on confirm shipment or confirm receipt.

If you impose a full block on inbound procedures...

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Infor LN & Baan Tips & Tricks for FINANCE: Interest Invoices

Kathy Barthelt 0 23694 Article rating: 5.0

You can generate interest invoices for paid invoices, partially paid invoices, and unpaid invoices. In addition, after you generate and send an interest invoice, you can generate a subsequent interest invoice for the next period.

Setting up interest invoicing: You can set up interest invoicing in Accounts Receivable and the General Ledger.
To set up interest invoicing, use these sessions:

  • Invoice-to Business Partner (tccom4112s000)

For invoice-to business partners...

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Infor LX/BPCS Tips & Tricks for FINANCE: Creating Configurable Macros (CEA)

George Moroses 0 15587 Article rating: 5.0

You can create new macros in the Infor LX Configurable Enterprise Financials CEA107. 

On the Macro Definition window, you define the source file and the field in which you perform an arithmetic or special operation. For example, you can create a macro to accrue sales commission based on revenue. Your source file and field are the Invoice Line History (SIL) file and the G/L revenue (ILREV) field. 

Select Functions to access the Macro Functions window, on which you define the arithmetic, character, or special operation to process against the defined source field. In the previous example of accrued sales commission, you enter an arithmetic operation of multiply (*) and an operand value for the percentage, such as 0.05 for five percent. 

Note:  Previously created user defined macros will have to be updated to include any expanded field sizes in V84. 

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Infor LX/BPCS Tips & Tricks for TECHNOLOGY: Setting Up User Groups (CEA)

George Moroses 0 12713 Article rating: 5.0

To utilize the Security Rules Optimization feature, a system administrator can assign security codes to 100 pre-defined user groups. User groups are created in the Group Security Maintenance (SYS603) program. All users assigned to this group possess the same level of security.   

A system administrator can assign security codes for up to 100 of the user groups. All user groups over 100 are still administered by all security reject/allow rules assigned to them but are not able to utilize the optimized process. 

Each of the security codes and access levels are assigned to user groups and are mapped to the account strings and stored in the Account Cross Reference (CEA106D1) file.   

Once security codes have been assigned, the system administrator must: 

  • Determine which level each group is allowed access.

  • Determine which segment values/account strings are assigned to which user groups.

  • Create security rules for specific segment values/account strings and assign these groups to the created rules.

  • Select the rules to be processed.  Processing can be done in either batch mode or interactively.

  • The Security Rules flag must be on in the CEA Control Parameters program before any rules are effective. 

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Infor LX/BPCS Tips & Tricks for OPERATIONS: Lot Expiration Date

George Moroses 0 11703 Article rating: 5.0

This feature provides a parameter that allows the user to enter expiration dates on the Inventory Transaction Posting screen, INV500, and Purchase Order Receipts screen, PUR5505, when they have received a lot controlled item that is not QMS controlled. This new field allows an expiration date to be entered and not overridden. A system parameter was added to Advanced Process Industries Parameters, API820D. When the parameter is set to Yes, a new lot expiration date is available in the Inventory Transaction Posting, INV500D2, and Purchase Order Receipts, PUR550D2, screens.

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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, Manufacturing

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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