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Infor ERP Tips & News from the Experts

Infor LX | Infor LN | BPCS | Baan | Infor M3

Kathy Barthelt
/ Categories: Infor LN & Baan Tips

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Product Configurator - Part 2

Baan Tips

Who gets involved?
  1. Most commonly Engineering is involved in writing the rules, creating the bills and routings.
  2. Sales or Customer Service determines the questions and the order they are asked in.
  3. Sales or Customer Service determines the rules for the pricing.
  4. Sales, or Customer Service, and Engineering work together in determining the part number, description and text.

What are the steps?

  1. You must start by defining the features and options (questions and answers) and the order in which these are asked. We work this out first using sticky notes and large easel paper. Normally during the process we find that we want to move these questions around. Setting them down on paper makes the process of getting the data into Baan much more efficient. We also then have a record of what decisions were made prior to entering the data. This is normally a joint effort of Engineering and Sales. This is required and must be the first step.
  2. Constraints for features and options. These are the rules for determining what questions are asked and which options are allowed. This is generally done by Engineering or whoever is responsible for the configurator. This is required.
  3. Generic Bill of Material. All possible bill options are entered here and constraints are written to determine which options are selected based on the answers to the questions. This is generally done by Engineering or whoever is responsible for the configurator. This is a required step.
  4. Generic Routing. Similar to the bill of material, but used for generation of the routing steps. This is generally done by Engineering or whoever is responsible for the configurator. This is optional.
  5. Generic Item Data. This consists of creating custom item numbers, descriptions, text, material, size or standard fields in the custom item master. This is generally done by Engineering or whoever is responsible for the configurator though Sales may have some involvement. This is optional.
  6. Generic Pricing. This is used to calculate the selling price based on the answers to the questions. This is normally a responsibility of Sales or whoever determines the pricing. This group is also trained on writing the constraints for this section only. This is optional.

What other modules will be affected?
  1. Quotes, sales orders and projects.
  2. PRP planning for the configured items.
  3. Managing changes to the configuration. Who, what and when?
  4. Variant statistics.
  5. MPS and generic items.
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Kathy Barthelt

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Tips:  LX | BPCS | M3

TECHNOLOGY: Facility Security Ranges

Previously, a user could complete the Cost Transfer (CST920) process for any range of facilities regardless of their security settings established in SYS600. This enhancement verifies the user security settings set up in SYS600 before processing cost transfers for a range of facilities in CST920. If the user has authority for a facility range, but there are facilities within that range that are not authorized, the program skips those facilities and completes the cost transfer process.

FINANCE: Expiration Date for Quotes and RMAs

A Cancel-by-Date has been added to the Quote Header and RMA Header panels. This optional field can limit how long a quote or authorization to return items for credit is valid.  

For quotes, this enhancement provides an optional end date for the quote. For RMAs, it provides an optional date by which the customer must return the items to receive the credit listed on the RMA.

The Cancel-By-Date prints on the Order Acknowledgement and RMA Acknowledgement to inform the customer of this important limitation to the quote or return authorization. 

An Order Entry user cannot copy the quote to create a new order if the Cancel By Date has caused the quote to expire.

OPERATIONS: Default Split Salesperson to Customer Orders

Sales commissions are based on combinations of the Primary, Split, and Line-Level salesperson and the commission codes defined for the customer and item. You can now define the Split Salesperson in the same master files as the Primary Salesperson. While the Primary Salesperson is mandatory, the Split Salesperson is optional. It defaults during Order Create using the identical hierarchy as Primary Salesperson. Using Split Salesperson provides more flexibility in the calculation of sales commissions. The ability to define a default Split Salesperson improves the accuracy of sales commission qualification and calculation and reduces maintenance and adjustments necessitated by corrections.

Previously, a user could complete the Cost Transfer (CST920) process for any range of facilities regardless of their security settings established in SYS600. This enhancement verifies the user security settings set up in SYS600 before processing cost transfers for a range of facilities in CST920. If the user has authority for a facility range, but there are facilities within that range that are not authorized, the program skips those facilities and completes the cost transfer process.

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Tips: LN | Baan

You can use job management to schedule jobs based on your organizational requirements. For example, you can schedule jobs at non-peak hours to improve the overall system performance in a heavily loaded environment. A job consists of one or more sessions or shell commands, or both, that run without user interaction. The sessions and shell commands in a job can be started while you are not logged on to the ERP system. You can schedule jobs to start processes periodically, at a defined interval, or immediately. Typically, you use job management for print and processing sessions.

Job data  - To create a job, you must specify basic job data and link sessions or shell commands, or both, to the job. In the basic job data, you specify whether the job is periodical. For periodical jobs, you specify how the job will be scheduled.

Shared job data tables  - Typically, each company stores its own basic job data. As a result, a job runs for a particular company. However, in a job, you can also run sessions in more than one company. You can run sessions in multiple companies when the job data tables of the associated companies are physically mapped to a single main company.

Job execution - Jobs can be started in multiple ways. The job’s status defines how you can start the job. You can start the job if the job’s status is In Queue or Free.

Job history -  When the execution of a job stops, for example, when the job completes successfully or when a runtime error occurs, information is written to a history log. The job history contains information, such as the date and time of the execution and the reasons why the job and its associated session ended.

Sales quotations are used to supply a sold-to business partner with the required details to make a purchasing decision.

You can create a sales quotation in response to a request for quotation (RFQ) from a business partner, or as a sales tool to initiate the sales process with potential business partners. A quotation includes the dates, terms, items, or item descriptions to be sold, and a success percentage, which reflects the level of certainty that the quotation will be accepted. Sales quotations are included in the planning modules based on their success percentages. Quotations with a high success percentage are considered as sold.

You can print and send quotations to business partners. You can specify the results of the returned quotations in Sales. If the quotation is not accepted, you can...

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