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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

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: LX 8.3.5 Facility Period Close

Anthony Etzel 0 44951 Article rating: 5.0

The Facility Period Close process was introduced in Infor LX 8.3.4 and has been enhanced in 8.3.5. This feature allows continuous or 24-hour worldwide operations in multiple facilities to submit Period End Close jobs for each facility as daily operations cease, or shifts end.

This enhancement provides a batch mode for the Facility Period Close (INV930) process and allows the Update IIM Inventory from IWI (INV931) process to be submitted from the INV930B program. The enhancement also provides a batch mode for the INV931 process.

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Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Order Series Full – Switching to a Different Series

Kathy Barthelt 0 164404 Article rating: 5.0

In general, you can enter a different series in the order field if you have an available series.

To add a new series, find the appropriate group in the First Free Number session, and add a new series and first free number (usually 1).

In Baan IV, go to the Maintain First Free Numbers Session (under Common, Tables, Maintain Logistics Tables, Maintenance 1).
Groups are easily identified (e.g., Purchase Order, Sales Order, etc.).

In Baan V, go to the First Free Number Session (under Common Data, Tables, Logistics). There are number groups (e.g., 570 may be for Purchase Orders, 650 may be for Sales Orders, etc.).

In LN, go to the First Free Number Session (tcmcs0150m000 – it is in different places in the menu under different Feature Packs). There are number groups (e.g., 210 may be for Purchase Orders, 310 may be for Sales Orders, etc.).

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Revisit The Last Brilliant Idea

Anthony Etzel 0 48073 Article rating: No rating

Sometimes the best ideas have to be tabled due to competing priorities. That doesn’t mean that the idea was bad. Revisit previously suggested cost savings ideas, or ideas to make a manual process more efficient. Now could be the right time to do something great!

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Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Difference Between a Serialized Item and Unit Effective Item

Kathy Barthelt 0 132511 Article rating: No rating

A serialized item is not the same as a unit effective item. A serialized item has a serial number that is used to identify and track individual items, whereas a unit effectivity item has an effectivity unit that provides some information about the item's configuration. However, an item can be both serialized and unit effective.

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Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Alternative Materials in BOMs:

Kathy Barthelt 0 401424 Article rating: No rating

Often, multiple items are interchangeable even when these are purchased from various vendors. You can use any of these items as material in a bill of material (BOM). If a shortage of a standard material is expected to delay a production order, LN can automatically select one of the alternative materials. You can define up to nine alternative materials for any material in a BOM.

The use of alternative materials has the following advantages:

  • LN can handle material shortages for some items without user intervention.
  • The use of alternative items can reduce the average inventory level.

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Purchase Order “In Use” Reset Feature 8.3.5

Anthony Etzel 0 43483 Article rating: No rating

 

This new feature provides the ability to resolve or reset a purchase order or requisition that is no longer being processed, but the system still indicates it is ‘in use’. We all remember those situations where we could never figure out how the order got hung up.

What we previously had to do was run a behind the scenes script to reset the flag so the order was again accessible. This enhancement provides the ability to resolve the issue and resume processes quickly.

This option is now on the PUR menu, and the user can select the Purchase Order/Requisition in Use Maintenance, PUR940D. The user then enters an order or requisition to remove the “In Use” status.

 

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Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Advantages / Disadvantages of Virtualization

Kathy Barthelt 0 136599 Article rating: 5.0

I know a lot of our customers are considering virtualization projects. I came across this, and thought it might be useful:

The advantages of virtualization include the following:

• You get more out of your existing resources. Pool common infrastructure resources and break the legacy “one application to one server” model with server consolidation.

• You can reduce datacenter costs by reducing your physical infrastructure and improving your server to admin ratio. Fewer servers and related IT hardware means reduced real estate and reduced power and cooling requirements. With better management tools, you can improve your server to admin ratio so personnel requirements are reduced.

• You can increase the availability of hardware and applications for improved business continuity.

• Securely back up and migrate entire virtual environments with no service interruptions. Eliminate planned downtime and recover immediately from unplanned issues.

 

• Gain operational flexibility. Respond to market changes with dynamic resource management, faster server provisioning, and improved application deployment.

The disadvantages of virtualization include the following:

• Virtualization adds overhead to the CPU, memory, IO, and network.

• Virtualization adds an additional layer to the hardware and software stack. Therefore, additional complexity is introduced in the following circumstances:

  • When sizing the physical server.
  • When planning VM capacity.
  • When planning multiple VMs on the same physical server.
  • When investigating performance issues.

 

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Tips:  LX | BPCS | M3

Tips: LN | Baan

Kathy Barthelt
/ Categories: Infor LN & Baan Tips

Infor LN & Baan Tip: Considerations for Release to Warehousing for a Cost Item

When there are two Cost Items, one with Release to Warehousing applied and the other with Release to Warehousing not applied, upon approval of the Sales Order, the Cost Item that is released to Warehousing will go straight to Staged status, pending Shipment confirmation, while the Cost Item that is not released to Warehousing will be up for Sales Deliveries.

Apart from this main difference in functionality between having and not having this option to release to Warehousing checked, there are other impacts to consider. Below is some information gathered from various KBs related to the impact of having release to Warehousing applied (or not). KBs used as reference are listed as “– REF: KB XYZ”. Editing the checkbox “Release to Warehousing” itself If there is a Sales Order (in status Free is enough) for a Cost Item, the check box is not editable. As soon as all the Sales Orders for which the Item is involved are Closed (or Canceled or Deleted) the check box becomes editable again. – REF: KB 1439313 & KB 1613780 Simultaneous/separate release to Warehousing with Physical Items In a scenario where a Cost Item (that is released to Warehousing) and a physical Item are released to Warehousing separately, then the shipment confirmation of each of these Items will occur separately. If they are released simultaneously, the shipment of the Cost Item will not be processed unless and until the physical Item is ready to be shipped. – REF: KB 1449001 Note: Ensure a Warehouse is added to Order Lines to ensure Release to Warehousing Activity is applicable. – REF: KB 2229767 Invoicing

To invoice them separately or together, factors to consider are:

  • Composing Criteria, a list of fields that need to match to have a single invoice created – REF: KB 717977
  • Invoicing Methods (tcmcs0555m000) in the General tab, select Combine, for example, Shipments, to combine different Shipments of the same Sales Order into one Invoice. This Invoicing Method is also defined in
  • Invoice-to role of a Business Partner (tccom4112s000) in the Invoicing tab. – REF: KB 812637
  • For a Return Order where a Cost Item and a Physical Item were originally invoiced together, to invoice them together again, consider using Original Document type = Invoice and link the original Invoice to the Return Order. – REF: KB 2072847 

Note: Consider solution in KB 2108605 if Composing Criteria is met, yet still Credit Notes are not combined for a Return Sales Order copied from original Sales Order for one Physical Item and one Cost Item without release to Warehousing. 

ASN ASN cannot be generated for Purchase Order Lines with Cost Item if not released to Warehousing. – REF: KB 1548301 & KB 2111341 Intercompany Trade Intercompany Trade can be applied for a Cost Item that is released to Warehousing, as Intercompany Trade needs a Warehouse and a Department. – REF: KB 2112430 Customs Value Cost Items that are released to Warehousing that are handled via normal Sales Order Lines are considered as delivered goods and will get the customs value assigned like other Items being subject to warehouse handling. Cost Items handled on Shipment Lines as "Additional Cost" are not considered as delivered goods but as pure costs. The customs value of these shipment lines gets defaulted with a zero amount and cannot be modified. The same applies to additional costs on sales order lines. – REF: KB 1600847 Freight  Cost Items cannot be used for Freight handling. – REF: KB 1830170 Additional Cost

  • For automatically generated Additional Costs in Sales Orders, Cost Items that are released to Warehousing are not released to Warehousing. This is because automatic Additional Costs are always generated with 0 quantity, therefore only the amount is filled for these Lines, which leads to the Delivery Type being set to Sales and not Warehouse. As a result, delivery must take place in Sales module. – REF: KB 1995781
  • For Additional Cost Lines added to Shipment for Cost Items, refer to KB 2236856.

Intrastat Record When using Cost Items without release to Warehousing, there is no shipping data within Invoicing. Therefore, the corresponding Intrastat record cannot be found during the printing of the Invoice. To get the Invoice data filled on the Intrastat record, Cost Items with release to warehousing should be used. Otherwise, session Update Intrastat Transactions with Invoicing Data (tccom7271m100) should be ran to update the Invoicing data in Intrastat. – REF: KB 2005482

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