Compiling Form Generates INVOKE Error

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If you are compiling a form that generates an error “Program X Does Not Allow INVOKE”, that means that the invoked program needs to be set to allow invoke. To do that, from a LID session, go to the form in pgmdef (pgmdef <prodline> <system code>). Select Define (F6) > Program (A).  Set the property “Can Be Accessed Via INVOKE” to Yes. Compile the invoked form and then compile the custom form that does the invoking.

Define (F6) > Program (A)

The Top 10 Technology Trends In Retail: How Tech Will Transform Shopping In 2020

Technology is making its mark in just about every industry we know of. It helps create efficiencies, save money and provide better products and services. In retail for example, not only is technology making it easier for consumers to shop in store, online and on their mobile devices, but the softwares and processes are helping retail companies do business better. Strategic business & technology advisor Bernard Marr shared an article on Forbes predicting the top trends we might see in retail in 2020.

  1. Extended Reality – “Virtual and augmented reality offer retailers several ways to enhance the customer experience. From browsing products to virtually “trying them on,” extended reality is already in use by many retailers today such as Tilly’s, Ikea and Treasury Wines Estates. In the future, extended reality will eventually enable consumers to be able to share their virtual reality shopping experience with others.”
  2. Predictive Analytics (Big Data) – “Retail organizations have never had an issue collecting lots of data, but analyzing it and using the data to solve problems or create new solutions has been a struggle. Predictive analytics changes that. Now retailers can be proactive about the future by analyzing consumer behavior and trends from the past. Predictive analytics helps retailers be smarter, more efficient, and reduce costs.”
  3. Micro Moments – “Retailers who can meet customers “in the moment” have a powerful advantage. Thanks to direct digital access to consumers and powerful analytics capabilities, businesses can capture moments and help customers during their moment of need and even anticipate what a customer might need before they even know it.”
  4. Recommendation Engines – Another powerful tech tool for retailers is recommendation engines that help customers find things they never knew they needed and to help funnel options to a consumer at relevant times in their shopping journey. Retailers get to benefit from higher cart sales and improved customer satisfaction thanks to the ease of use. Amazon, Netflix, and Spotify are the recommendation engines you might be most familiar with, but many other retailers such as Best Buy use them too.
  5. Order Fulfilment Automation – “By the end of 2025, more than 580,000 autonomous mobile robots (AMR) will be deployed to help warehouses fulfill customer orders. Many retailers are scrambling to adjust to the “Amazon Effect” and are exploring order fulfillment automation to try to increase the speed and flexibility of operations in order to compete with Amazon. This automation can significantly reduce order processing times.”
  6. Face Recognition – “Many of the most successful retailers have online and offline presences. Facial recognition technology helps retailers proactively battle shoplifting and retail crime. In addition, it can bring the personalized online shopping experience to the brick-and-mortar location. When a customer is identified through facial recognition technology, the store staff can better respond to that customer’s unique needs.”
  7. Stock Management – “Automated warehouses help improve inventory control. Rather than wait for manual inventories, smart robotics and computer systems keep reliable stock data in real-time. This accurate data helps retailers manage stock flow, make solid predictions, smart decisions, and forecasting that help improve the store’s bottom line.”
  8. Robotic Store Assistants – “Another tech trend that’s changing shopping is robotic store assistants. Robots can help shoppers find the merchandise they are looking for and answer questions. They can even email special offers or coupons. Lowe’s has the LoweBot that helps with in-store customer service.”
  9. Customer Chat Bots – “There has been rapid adoption of messaging-based customer service bots across retail. Messaging has become the preferred customer service channel, so call volume will be reduced. Artificial intelligence bots will be able to improve the customer journey pre- and post-sales by lowering cart abandonment and help customers solve problems after the sale without human intervention.”
  10. Internet of Things (IoT) and Smart Equipment – “The Internet of Things and smart equipment will transform the shopping experience. Thanks to the volumes of data we have available and the ability to process it, consumers can receive a personalized shopping experience that wasn’t possible before. Today’s consumers want experiences that include personalization and information to help them make decisions.”

 

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Impresa Pizzarotti & C. Spa Embraces Digital Transformation with Infor

Italian civil engineering and construction leader Impresa Pizzarotti & C. Spa has selected an Infor enterprise software suite based around Infor LN. Set up for 700 users, the suite incorporates enterprise resource planning (ERP), enterprise asset management (EAM) and analytics (Birst) capabilities, and will support Impresa Pizzarotti & C. Spa’s digital transformation strategy. The company will focus on process consolidation to increase visibility and better forecasting. The strategy will support expansion into new emerging markets and cement Impresa Pizzarotti & C. Spa’s position in existing territories. Impresa Pizzarotti & C. Spa chose Infor because of the capabilities of the software and its ability to scale for future growth. Additionally, Infor’s ability to facilitate best practices in corporate governance, risk management and reporting, as well as tight cost control across every customer project to support reporting and planning was exactly what the company was looking for.

 

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Append to XML Node in IP Designer

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To append XML elements to a parent element in IPA, use the “Append output to” property on the XML node.  First, create a root XML element in the start node.  In your XML builder node, check the “Append output to” property, and set the root element to the variable that you created in the start node and the element that contains the list.  So <root>.<listelement>.

What SMBs Should Consider When Choosing An ERP Solution

Arun Upadhyay, CEO and Founder of LionO360 shares an article on Forbes regarding what small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs) should consider when choosing an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Upadhyay stresses that implementing the right technology makes a world of a difference and can impact your business.  ERPs are designed to connect the different areas and processes of a company that’s needed to run the business.  Deciding what ERP to implement is half the battle. Below are Upadhyay’s tips to consider before seeking an ERP solution.

  • Figure Out Your Requirements – Start by identifying shortfalls, challenges, inconsistencies, processes or systems that are inefficient, waste money or slow productivity. Seek input from senior management, IT teams, end users and others who are engaged in specific areas of your business.
  • Compare Offerings -After you’ve sorted out your requirements, look to see what features, functionalities and technologies different ERPs offer. Most have a dizzying array of options. To avoid being overwhelmed, take a big-picture approach.
  • Appoint An Integration Manager – Many vendors will assign you a project manager. However, you should appoint an internal person or team that understands the ERP you’ve selected as well as your company’s systems. Ideally, this person will be involved in the ERP onboarding process from day one: They will help gather requirements and will become fully acclimated to the new ERP. They will work alongside the vendor on any data conversions, coding customization and application migration. They will coordinate all necessary training and will liaise between the vendor and internal staff.
  • Decide On An Option – As with most technologies, it’s important to think long-term when you’re selecting ERP software and a vendor. By doing so, you’ll better position your company and the vendor as partners for mutual success.

 

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IP Designer Series – XML Node

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The XML Node can be used to build or read XML in IPA.

For the Action tab, select Build or Parse depending on the function you are performing.  You can Build the XML input if you have a schema to point to in the Build menu.  The Evaluate on Condition field means that the XML will only be built if criteria that you specify are matched.  The Append Output To option allows you to append the XML string you are building to a node that exists in your flow (i.e. adding elements to a list within a data iterator).

NOTE: Variables are denoted with curly braces: {variable}.

6 CRM Trends to Watch

The future of customer relationship management (CRM) seems to be left in the helms of another technology of today: Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI has been talked about for a very long time and today it’s proved to be the game changer it truly is. Peter Kowalke at IT.ToolBox notes that the inclusion of AI in CRM systems is projected to deliver businesses roughly $394 billion in additional revenue in the United States by 2021, according to Statistica research. Not every CRM currently flows through AI, and while most do, it’s very likely they all eventually will. Below are 6 CRM trends to watch in the near future, with excerpts directly from Kowalke’s article on IT.Toolbox.com:

  1. Automatic Automation – “AI and Machine learning capabilities have significantly evolved during the past few years, and AI can enhance CRM utilization thanks to automating mundane tasks that employees would otherwise waste time on,” says Katherine Kostereva, CEO and founder of CRM maker, bpm’online.
  2. Voice-Based Access – “The integration of voice assistants into CRM systems will allow for dictation and fast access to data with the help of voice commands,” notes Illia Pinchuk, CEO of software development firm, Diceus.
  3. Advanced Data Mining – “Today, with AI-based technology, big data can bring customer relations to a new level using different electronic devices, gadgets, wearables, social networks, etc.,” says Pinchuk.
  4. Tighter Integration with Other Systems – “CRM has forgotten the ‘relationship’ part of its acronym, and has failed to adapt to businesses’ evolving needs and the modern workplace,” says Morgan Norman, chief marketing officer for Google-based CRM, Copper. “A major weakness of traditional CRM systems is that they aren’t integrated with digital workplace tools users prefer, like Slack and G Suite.” This is changing, however, as CRM makers such as Salesforce and others break CRM out of its silo and build around the cloud model where everything easily connects with everything else.
  5. Social Media-Inspired User Interfaces – “Based on user experience preferences and design, the next evolution of CRM may resemble a social network or consumer-facing application so that users feel comfortable with its functionalities,” suggests Norman.
  6. IoT Data – “IoT will connect with CRM significantly in the near future, particularly in service organizations,” says Robin Grochol, vice president of product management for the Salesforce Sales Cloud. “With IoT and CRM data integrated, customer service agents can provide better support to customers and provide a consistent and personalized experience.”

 

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Transitioning Open POs from one ERP to another ERP

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Here are some things to consider:

  1. Is there a cut-off date for open POs or are all open POs going to move over to the new systems?
  2. Will open (unmatched) receivers also be moved over to the new system for the open POs?
  3. When AP vendors are moved to the new system, will they have the same vendor number or is a vendor cross reference needed to import the open POs and receivers to the new system?
  4. Are your item numbers staying the same? If not, you will need an item cross reference for bringing the line items of the POs and receivers over to the new system.
  5. Is there anything special about your PO processing that needs to be taken into consideration when selecting POs or Receivers for conversion?

 

 

 

Key Insights to Inform the Future of Your CRM

Customer relationship management and marketing is continuously evolving and becoming more and more imperative to the way we do business. Brands today are focusing a lot of their time on customer data and ways to leverage customer relationships. They are constantly finding ways to engaging with customers through people-based marketing strategies. Marketing strategist Jose Cebrian recently surveyed 200 marketers on this subject.

Marketers are Seeking to Invest More in Data, Analytics, and Technology

Cebrian explains that “marketers are feeling more pressure to enhance the customer experience and deliver differentiation throughout the full life cycle from prospect to customer to loyalty and win-back. They need investment to deliver on the promise of modern CRM, which is to ingest and analyze data, surface insights, and serve decisions to the systems that need them, whether it be a mobile app, an email campaign, a call center, or even an ATM.”

 

Email Remains a Valued Channel for Personalization and Insights

“Commercial email has been around for many years; email platforms are fairly mature, as are the operational processes around them. The channel is inherently –data driven, and the relatively large format allows for personalization in many different areas, including subject lines, imagery, content blocks, and other pieces. But that may contribute to the problem. Low levels of personalization are pretty easy in email, but it allows people to “check a box” that they are personalizing. But it has to mean more. If we continue on the theme of modern CRM, email personalization should not be considered something as basic as inserting a name or loyalty balance into a merge tag – that’s JV personalization. Rather, it has to be powered by insights and impact not just the content people see in their email, but also when they receive an email, the imagery they see, the language they read, and the offers they see – and even whether they receive an email at all. In addition, we need to connect that logic with other media in channel-appropriate ways.”

 

Direct Mail is on the Decline. Can We Do More with Less?

“As a channel, direct mail still has an important seat at the table – it’s a great acquisition channel for some industries, including financial services, home services, nonprofit, and retail. And the laws surrounding direct mail in the US are simpler than other PII-based marketing tactics. But the reality is that direct mail is relatively expensive on a per-piece basis, so you have to know who you are targeting, why, what you are going to say, and what you expect the outcome to be. While those tenets should be true in any channel, the economics of direct mail enforce the discipline. So, like all channels and tactics, direct mail has its place in the marketing quiver for acquisition, renewal, and continuity programs. But also, like other channels, you shouldn’t use direct mail to target everyone on your list. Start with the audience. Understand the channels through which they respond and use those in a coordinated fashion.”

 

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3 Questions to Ask Your ERP Vendor About Data Management

Throughout your enterprise resource planning (ERP) selection process, you as the business manager will have many questions regarding its functionality, ease, and worth to your company. Another thing you should keep in mind is the future of your ERP, your long-term commitment to the system. Sometimes that means switching to a new platform, or switching vendors for support. With that in mind, you’ll have to wonder about data management. But what are the right questions to ask when considering long term solutions for your ERP? SolutionsReview.com suggests the following 3 questions to ask your ERP vendors regarding data management.

  1. Who owns my data? When you ask this question, most vendors are likely to answer that, of course, you are the owner of your data. Most vendors will also direct you to their privacy policy or security documentation. While important, those documents aren’t everything.
  2. If I decide to leave your software, how can I take my data with me? Being able to leave a solution with your data should be a given in this scenario. However, the vendor should also have both policy and process in place for exporting your data from their system. Preferably, your information can be converted to a universally exportable file (such as a .csv). It can then be imported into another ERP system.
  3. How is data restricted from (or permitted for) different users? Ask your vendor if permissions can be granted on a more granular level. Once customized, every employee who uses the system can access exactly what they need, while being restricted from what they don’t.

 

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