Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Setting Up New Employees in LN

Kathy Barthelt / Wednesday, July 30, 2014 0 62919 Article rating: No rating

In LN, the People package is used to register the employee’s hours and expenses. To support the People package, the Employees - General (tccom0101m000) session only contains the general employee data.

The title of the Employees - General (tccom0101m000) session was changed to Employees – General (tccom0101m000).

From the Employees - General (tccom0101m000) session, users can start the following sessions to define the more specific employee data:

Employees - People (bpmdm0101m000).
Employees - Project (tppdm8101m000).
Employees - Service (tsmdm1140m000).
Skills by Employee (tcppl0120m000).
Employees by Team (tcppl0150m000).
Roles by Employee (tcppl0170m000).

After users define the employees, users can also start the listed sessions from the Employees Dashboard (bpmdm0101m100) session in People.

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Month End - Miscellaneous To-Do's

Kathy Barthelt / Thursday, July 24, 2014 0 61646 Article rating: No rating

Print Sales Order History Information
- all invoices processed through sales
Check Inventory Valuation
- this should tie out to your inventory accounts
Print Integration Information
- see all postings from WIP to finished goods
Print G/L Transaction Information
- print specific transaction types for any GL account
Print Lot Control Information
- will show where serial numbers were used

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Why Define Location Fields in the Work Center File

Anthony Etzel / Thursday, July 24, 2014 0 48743 Article rating: No rating

If you setup the “From” and “To” Location fields in the Work Center file, this will determine the locations for material issue transactions and production reporting transactions.

The reporting of the transactions happen through production reporting, JIT600, or using the Shop Floor labor posting, SFC600, or Shop Floor Posting from SFC650.

Remember, any location used in the work center file must first be set up in the location master file. Using an MES solution by-passes the need to key any of the data to Infor LX.

If ERP is plumbing for the Enterprise; How do we unplug it and keep it from making a huge mess?

David Dickson / Thursday, July 17, 2014 0 48800 Article rating: 5.0

I have been working with ERP in various roles for over 30 years, directly involved in over a hundred implementations, while my company has been involved with over 300 more. Of course, in many ways the systems we use today are completely different from what we used in the ‘80s – back then it was green screens, simple transaction entry forms, and cumbersome updates (at best) to link what one department did with all the other areas that needed access to that information. Then there were those planning programs that took all the information along with various parameters the users needed to set and told us what to do.

The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: The Product Configurator

Kathy Barthelt / Wednesday, July 16, 2014 0 51631 Article rating: No rating

What is it?
The configurator consists of a set of features (questions). The options (answers) to these questions are used to generate the custom bill of material and routing. These questions may be answered at the time of order entry, prior to order entry (in a project or quote) or after order entry (in the project). The order of the questions do not need to have any relationship to the bill of materials. The configurator may also calculate the selling price, create a unique “smart” item number, custom description and text. Simple rules are used to interpret the answers.

Who uses the configurator?
Companies whose products have options. The configurator eliminates the need for part numbers for all combinations of options. The configurator ensures that the pricing and bills are correct. The configurator also keeps statistics on the frequency the options are selected.

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Understanding What Goes On – Out on the Factory Floor

Anthony Etzel / Wednesday, July 16, 2014 0 17146 Article rating: No rating

Ok… so you want to know the status of a specific shop order that was released two days ago.

What do you do?

It’s a sure bet that you have a manager, supervisor, or planner who can walk the floor and find the order at whatever work center it happens to be at. He/she can then answer “what operations have been completed and how many were completed?” All this requires leg work, and of course, a fair amount of time.

Now, if you have set up your BPCS master files properly, and you report transaction activity, you should be able to get those shop order statuses much faster using the SFC300 Shop Order Inquiry Screen.

At your fingertips you can see:

Release date & due date
How many hours remain in total and at each operation
The quantity required, what was finished, and the remaining quantity
What components (materials) have been issued

Pretty basic information, right? Are you getting what you need to know? If not, then you may want to reexamine how your BPCS files are set up and what transactions along with their frequency are captured.

PDIC selects NextTrack Dashboard for Costa Rica Wire Plant

Anthony Etzel / Tuesday, July 15, 2014 0 46763 Article rating: No rating

The Analytics Dashboard will be used in combination with the existing Crossroads MES system to provide real time machine status across the plant. In addition, KPI’s like OEE and Downtime % will be monitored and displayed at the wire machines and to the production management.

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Changing the Master Schedule

Anthony Etzel / Wednesday, July 9, 2014 0 54203 Article rating: 4.5

You can change your master schedule by specifying the type of master schedule update to perform. You can run a Net Change or Regenerative Schedule.

You also have the ability to clear the lower level requirements out of the Planned and Firm-Planned Order file.

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12Nov2024

Infor LX/BPCS Tips & Tricks for EXECUTIVES

Tuesday, November 12, 2024

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.

12Nov2024

Infor LX/BPCS Tips & Tricks for TECHNOLOGY: Facility Security Ranges

Tuesday, November 12, 2024

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Tips: LN | Baan

Crossroads RMC / Wednesday, April 13, 2022

/ Categories: Because I Care, Analytics Dashboard

Dashboards vs. Reports – What do they offer and which do I need?

Companies are collecting oceans of data, and struggle with transforming it into usable information. Most businesses focus on two methods of sharing data - the report and the dashboard. While these two terms mean many things to many people, it is important to understand what these terms mean and how the report and dashboard have similar features but they are not the same thing.

What is a Report?

A report is meant to be used to gather detailed intelligence on the operations within an organization, thus a report can be either very broadly covering a wide scope of related information, or narrowly focusing on details of a single item, purpose, or event. All of this information, while presented in a report, is meant to be a snapshot in time.

Quite often, a report is built within the ERP system itself and often is constrained by the graphical and user limitations within the ERP. More often than not, large amounts of data are exported to Excel where added features allow for better manipulation of the data to a format that is digestible by users. Regardless, the data is only valid for that moment and time.

What is a Dashboard?

A dashboard is a graphical interface that provides at-a-glance views revolving around answering a central question. For example, an executive may ask you for up-to-the-minute details on "how the business is doing?". The answer to that question is as complex as the organizational structure of the company, but it is probably very simply measured with approximately 10 metrics. Those 10 metrics can likely be analyzed in chart form, and can and should be combined into one chart when the numbers are relatable or are on a similar scale. All these things should be considered when building a dashboard.

Dashboards, similar to the one in your vehicle, display critical data. Imagine driving down the road and having to push a bunch of buttons to find out how much fuel you have left, or having to pull over and pop the hood to check the oil pressure. It would be dangerous and a waste of your precious time. Your car's control panel or dashboard displays the most crucial information in an easy-to-use, graphical way.

How do Dashboards and Reports differ?

First, a report contains much more detailed information. Where a dashboard might provide a CEO with information on how the entire company’s sales are progressing, a corresponding report will give the CFO or VP of Sales the ability to see how each sales region or even salesperson is performing and make leadership decisions. Just like responsibility, data will get more granular as the organizational hierarchy goes down. The C-Suite might be interested in the detailed data, but for seeing a snapshot of high-level information, the dashboard is the desired mode.

Second, a report is much longer than a dashboard. Not only in the amount of detail but also visually. Tables and charts that live within a report can take up many pages. Furthermore, a report will likely require the reader to scroll through many screens or click from page to page.

A dashboard should confine its display to a single screen with no need for scrolling or switching among multiple screens. Something powerful happens when we see things together, all within eye span. Likewise, something critical is compromised when we lose sight of some data by scrolling or switching to another screen to see other data.

When an individual dashboard has so much information on it that scrolling is required, the power of the dashboard is diminished because the information that lives there is intended to be viewed together. Each piece of information on the dashboard is meant to give the reader the ability to answer part of the central question of the dashboard. These charts combine to answer the question, so if the reader can’t see them together, making them work together is much more difficult.

To sum it up, a report is a more detailed collection of tables, charts, and graphs and it is used for a much more detailed, full analysis while a dashboard is used for monitoring what is going on. The behavior of the pieces that make up dashboards and reports are similar, but their makeup itself is different. A dashboard answers a question in a single view and a report provides information. Put in another way, the report can provide a more detailed view of the information that is presented on a dashboard.

With dashboards, you can empower your entire team with data insights in real-time information, so your data is never stale. Users can create and share custom views of your data on the fly, in minutes.

With powerful Dashboards, you can:

Create pie charts, graphs, interactive maps, and more with just a few clicks.
Build a dashboard once and make it instantly available on any device.
Tell a story with your data with your own custom layouts, colors, and commentary—all with no coding and changes available instantly to users.
Know you always have current reports with real-time data updates.
Access your dashboards from anywhere–computer, tablet, or phone.