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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

Reskilling and Upskilling Your Staff – Why You Shouldn’t Ignore This

Kathy Barthelt 0 7912 Article rating: 5.0

According to the World Economic Forum, half of all employees will require significant reskilling or upskilling by 2025.

For many of you, your Infor ERP system was implemented 5, 10, 15, or even 20+ years ago. Now, there are only a handful of people left from that implementation, if any at all. Since most of your "how and why" walked out the door, how much longer can you rely on “tribal knowledge”? While many companies understand the importance of employee training, implementing that training remains a challenge. What’s the best way to proceed, you ask?

Reskill and upskill your staff with your go-to experts at Crossroads RMC!

Crossroads RMC's consultants deliver highly impactful, focused training that shows an immediate benefit. Contact us to discuss a training plan that is right for your business. Call us at 800.762.2077.

Training & Workshops:

Still not convinced? Check out this article which provides several great reasons to make training a priority for your staff: 12 Benefits of Training Employees In the Workplace.

Infor LN & Baan Tip: Outbound Order Lines

Kathy Barthelt 0 9024 Article rating: 5.0

When the originating order or order line of an outbound order line is canceled or changed, this affects the outbound order line and may impact the related outbound advice, shipments, or shipment lines.

For most order origins, warehousing order-type parameters determine whether these actions are allowed:

  1. Update the outbound order line if the originating order is changed.
  2. Cancel the originating order line and the outbound order line.
  3. Delete the canceled outbound order line.

Updating Outbound Order Lines

  • Allowed:

inPower 2024 - Join Gold Sponsor Crossroads RMC

Monday Sept 23 - Thursday Sept 26, 2024 | The Ingleside Hotel, Pewaukee WI

Frank Petrasio 0 7395 Article rating: 5.0

Crossroads RMC is a Gold Sponsor of the upcoming inPower 2024

Registration is now open. Join us for hands-on workshops, product roadmaps, customer-led and educational deep dive sessions, and more. Many individual vendors will offer specific solutions to make life easier for the Infor LX users. Don't miss this chance to elevate your skills, enrich your network, and shape the future of your business.

Format: The general flow of the conference will be similar to 2023, with the addition of Enterprise Integrator educational sessions on Monday and expanded educational content on Wednesday, due to popularity in 2023.

Full agenda coming soon! 
Agenda Sneak Peak

inPower 2024 sneak peak slide

📅 Event Dates: September 23-26 📍 Location: Ingleside Hotel, Pewaukee, WI


🚀 Pricing & Registration>

DON'T MISS - 8 Ways to Modernize your IBM i Product– Topic #3 of 8: Best practices in integration for the office of finance (Part 2)

Thursday, May 30, 2024 - 10am EST | 9am CST | Duration: 30 minutes

George Moroses 0 6129 Article rating: 5.0

Get ahead of the curve with a seamless, comprehensive integration strategy that surpasses other competitive solutions. In part two of this webinar, join our discussion of best practice integration tricks and solutions from a fellow customer’s office of finance. Understand what makes their integration approach effective and review best practices in integrating your IBM i solution to other office of finance solutions (F9/EPM/Birst/GRC).

Hosted by Peg Tuttle from the IBM i podcast, “The Incredible i Show”. 

  • How version upgrades have tightened internal control loopholes.
  • Structural IBM i advancements designed to safeguard your organization.
  • IBM i ecosystem solutions that strengthen both data and access vulnerabilities.

Don't miss this fourth fireside chat, Eight Ways to Modernize your IBM i product – Topic #3 of 8: Best practices in integration for the office of finance (Part 2). Register today!

Register today!

Customer Appreciation Day Giveaway

Crossroads RMC 0 6870 Article rating: 5.0

🎉 Customer Appreciation Day Giveaway 🎉

At Crossroads RMC, our success is built on the trust and support of our amazing customers like you. As a token of our gratitude, we're excited to announce our Customer Appreciation Day Giveaway!

If you've done business with us in 2024 or engaged in a project by 5/17/24, you're automatically entered for a chance to win 1 of 4 prizes from our exclusive giveaway. Three lucky winners will be selected at random to receive a fantastic prize!

🏆 Winner picks 1 of 4 Prizes:

1. KardiaMobile EKG Monitor
2. Mini Projector by NICPOW
3. Solo Stove Tabletop Fire Pit
4. Apple AirTag 4 Pack

Entering is easy:

ATTENTION INFOR LN USERS! 📢 LN NAUG Face-to-Face Annual Meeting 2024

May 14-16, 2024 | Chicago Marriott Naperville | Naperville Illinois

Kathy Barthelt 0 8418 Article rating: 5.0

Join us at LN NAUG: LN North America User Group Event - May 14-16, 2024

This three-day event promises valuable LN ERP insights, networking opportunities, and the chance to engage with industry experts. 💡

  • Are you interested in learning more about Infor LN ERP, CloudSuite Industrial Enterprise, and associated products?
  • Would you like to connect with other LN users who face the same ERP challenges that you do?
  • Could other LN customer experiences help your organization navigate a complex implementation project?

If you answered YES to any of the above questions, then the LN NAUG Face-to-Face Annual Meeting on May 14-16, 2024 is THE event for YOU!

Conference Agenda > https://www.lnnaug.org/events/2024-f2f-annual-meeting

Conference Hotel
Marriott Naperville
1801 N. Naper Blvd, Naperville IL 60563

[Register Now>]

[Learn more]


SILVER PARTNER

DASHBOARDS for IBM i WEBINAR

See it. Understand it. Discuss it.

Anthony Etzel 0 6764 Article rating: 5.0

Are your numbers telling the full story? Discover the power of dashboards in our recorded webinar from 5/2/2024: "Unlocking Business Insights with Dashboards" Numbers are just the tip of the iceberg; the real insights lie beneath, in the 'how' and 'why'. Imagine presenting your manager with a dashboard that not only showcases the figures but also unveils the backstory behind them. Picture revealing that the 3rd shift was short-staffed for over a week, or that a material shortage caused order fulfillment delays, or that quality issues triggered extensive rework, impacting subsequent production runs. How do you unearth all this crucial information without consulting every individual involved?

The Answer:  D A S H B O A R D S !

[Watch Video] Webinar: Business Insights Made Easy With Dashboards...

Infor LN & Baan Tip: The ABC’s & 123’s of Serialized Items

Kathy Barthelt 0 9360 Article rating: 5.0

A serialized item is a physical occurrence of a standard item that is given a unique lifetime serial number. This enables tracking of the individual item throughout its lifetime, for example, through the design, production, testing, installation, and maintenance phases. A serialized item can consist of other serialized components.

In Service, a serialized item can be a customer-specific or owner-specific installation. Installation groups are a group of installations/serialized items such as photocopiers, computers, air conditioners, forklifts, lathe machines, and even aircraft.

A serialized item is identified by both the item code and serial number. You can set up the mask used to generate the serial numbers so the serial number includes some fields of the item data, such as the item group and the manufacturer.

In a multi-company structure, the companies can share the serialized item data. All the service departments in the various companies can refer to the same serialized items.

The serialized item can originate from a sales order or a project. The details of a serialized item indicate their origin, for example, by using specific sets of serial numbers for items that originate from sales orders and from projects. Serialized items can also originate from an as-built structure or directly from the production bill of material in Manufacturing.

In Service...

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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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Kathy Barthelt

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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