News | Nogalis, Inc.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) has revolutionized the way businesses operate. With the help of technologies such as the internet of things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI), almost every industry could benefit from an effective ERP system. Smart manufacturing companies, for example, could benefit from automation and value-added advancements to their development process. An Article in CIO Review highlights some of the benefits of effective ERP use in smart manufacturing.

Accelerating business automation – ERP automation allows a workforce to focus on supervising and monitoring automated methods, which adds to increased productivity and operational accuracy.
Enhancing customer experience – ERP maintains accurate periodic-based customer follow-ups, provides practical insight into service capabilities and involves customer-focus ideas.
Enabling deeper visibility and insightful decision-making – With high-tech visibility options, ERP enables the workforce and the managers to monitor and manage processes from remote locations.

05/10/2019

Modifying VMWare to use Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol so you can Transfer Files Easier

First, you’ll need to connect to your installed VMWare Client:

Now before connecting to the virtual server, right click the connection and select Microsoft Remote Desktop:

Once this is selected, you’ll be able to connect to the host Virtual machine and use VMWare as if it was Microsoft Native Remote Desktop Protocol.

One of the biggest advantages of this is being able to copy and paste files to and from the VMWare client using CTRL + C and CTRL + V.

The other Protocol settings can be used as well.

VMWare Blast is optimized for mobile cloud and consumes less CPU in case you’re trying to save battery life.

PCoIP may be better optimized for use when a poor internet connection but results will likely be equal to the other options.

05/10/2019

French Frames Manufacturer Morel Chooses Infor M3 Fashion ERP to Support its International Expansion

In 2016, French family-owned eyeglass frame company Morel selected Infor to assist them in implementing a centralized, modern, reliable and scalable information system with Infor M3 Fashion solutions. Continuing with their international expansion, Morel is extending the services of the IT giant to nine subsidiaries abroad. Infor’s M3 specialist partner Hetic 3 took charge of the project from the commercialization phase, to replace a home-made solution whose flexibility and functionalities no longer suited Morel’s ambitions. Morel’s international growth strategy called for the company to select a tool that could be deployed in each of its regions, to adhere to local laws and obligations, and to communicate with headquarters efficiently. “A customer like Morel perfectly illustrates our ability to respond to very specific requests with a dedicated solution,” says Laurent Jacquemain, senior vice president and general manager, Southern Europe, Infor. “With Hetic 3, we have been able to set up a progressive deployment project, first in the home market of Morel, then internationally, with deployment in nine territories abroad between now and 2021 that will help Morel to manage its activities with efficiency and agility.”

05/09/2019

Infor Process Automation (IPA) Best Practices and Performance Improvement Tips

Since Infor Process Designer is an open-ended visual design tool, different users can achieve the same end goal but in many different ways. While the flow might technically “work”, this level of design freedom usually leads to processes that are not as efficient as they could potentially be.

Here are some tips to keep in mind as you design your next flow:

Use a MsgBuilder node instead of writing to file for each record

By using a MsgBuilder node, we can append all found records to a String in memory. We can then call the string when we need to write the records. This is much faster than individually writing each line, each time through the FileAccess node.
Merge Assign Nodes

This is a common mistake in many processes. There is no reason two Assign nodes would have to line up one after another in a flow. You can simply use one Assign node for all your variables/javascript. More nodes in your flow results in slower speeds so you should always try to use as few nodes as possible.
Remove Unnecessary Assign Nodes

When a value is returned from a query or processing node, it is automatically assigned an internal variable name.

In the screenshot above, we see the values pulled from my SQL query have already been automatically assigned a variable. Therefore, there would be no point in having an Assign node to set SQL ADDRESS to my custom variable <!ADDRESS>. It would be better to simply call <!SQLQuery1080_ADDRESS> when needed as the variable has already been created for me.
Remote File Access
When the Infor Lawson business applications and ProcessFlow are on the same server, file access is blazing fast since all the files are local. However, when IPA is on a separate server, the process slows down since the flow must now access the file across the network and not locally.

To mitigate this issue, make sure file access is done as efficiently as possible. Perhaps reach out to those in charge of network IT to see about reducing network lag.
Upload the Process with Logging Off
Process logging can negatively affect performance. Unless you are troubleshooting a problem, processes should be uploaded with Log Level: No debug

05/09/2019

IP Designer Email Node – Using HTML and Inserting Images

Using HTML or inserting images via the IP Designer Email node seems to be a common problem based on the number of forum posts on this topic.

Here are some of the solutions that have been proposed.

USING HTML

Based on the responses of senior IP Designer users, the gold standard for using HTML in your email is to write the HTML directly into a MsgBuilder node (https://www.nogalis.com/2017/09/12/ip-designer-series-message-builder-node/) so that we can call the MsgBuilder variable name in the email body of the Email node.

INSERTING IMAGES

A simple way to insert images in emails sent by IP Designer Email node would be to compose HTML as shown above and bring in images from web servers.
Another way would be to store the image in the Lawson emailattachments directory in order to attach it in the Email node.In Windows the directory to store the images is: lawsondirectory/bpm/emailattachments
In Unix: lawsondirectory/LPS/emailattachments/

05/08/2019

Iberian Sport Retail Group Gets Fit for Business with Infor

Newly formed Iberian Sport Retail Group (ISRG) recently joined the Infor Nexus Supply Chain Network (the world’s leading network for multi-enterprise supply chain orchestration. ISRG is the combined group of Sprinter, Sportzone and JD Sports – creating the second largest sports retailer in Iberia. Being part of the Infor Nexus enables ISRG to manage the flow of goods across the global supply chain efficiently and collaborate in real time with a community of buyers, suppliers and logistics providers. Improving supplier compliance and accountability by increasing automation throughout the supply chain process is important for ISRG and Infor Nexus could get them there. Infor Nexus will also help ISRG achieve their corporate goals on sustainability enabling supply chain transparency and collaborative relationships with supply chain partners inspiring change within the industry.

05/08/2019

5 ServiceNow Tips & Tricks I Wish I Knew When I Started!

Performance degradation? Forms slow to load?
Try following these steps:
• Click the Settings Gear Icon on the top right of your ServiceNow screen, next to your name. Then, navigate to the Forms tab.

• Changing the Related list loading from “With the Form” to “After Form Loads” for a slight improvement in performance. Changing to “On-Demand” can result in significant performance gains as this would change it so that records get loaded only upon click.
Change the form view to a cleaner tabbed format versus the normal lengthy vertical layout.
From the same Forms tab in System Settings (refer to tip #1), we can turn on Tabbed forms to change to this view.

BEFORE:

AFTER:
Using asterisks (*) and double asterisks (**) for Reference fields.
In ServiceNow, searching for a record in a reference field will automatically use a “STARTSWITH” query.
This can cause some difficulties when trying to search for records.

The solution is to use an asterisk before typing in the search term. This will change the query to a “CONTAINS” search which makes searching for records a lot easier.

Also, you can also use double asterisks (**) to quickly return the first (up to) 15 records in the table.
ServiceNow Keyboard Shortcuts.
Quickly add attachments by simply dragging file to “Work notes” area.
Attaching files by clicking the paperclip icon and then browsing for the file is a slow process. You can
simply drag and drop the file you want to attach into the Work notes box.

05/08/2019

SQL DECLARE and SET datetime

This article discusses the DECLARE statement in SQL, which you can find the official documentation here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/t-sql/language-elements/declare-local-variable-transact-sql?view=sql-server-2017

The DECLARE statement is used in a SQL statement to declare a variable. The declared variable can then be set using SET statement. Once set, the declared variable can be referred by the SELECT statement.

The DECLARE statement can also be used to declare a DATETIME and the SET statement can modify this DATETIME with DATEADD. This allows us to avoid dealing with JavaScript datetime variables.

For our case, we wanted to query all individuals that were set to turn 18 years old within a year.

In order to do this, we first ‘DECLARE’d the variables we would need and modified them using SET:

Note: First argument of DATEADD function can be any accepted SQL interval (year,month,week,day,hour,second,etc.)

Now that our 3 variables had been set, we were able to refer to them in the WHERE portion of the SELECT statement:

Full query with results:

By specifying the search range using DECLARE and SET, we are able to query the DOBs of just those users that are set to turn 18 years of age within a year of the query date.

05/07/2019

How to Leverage Relationships Through CRM

If your business is not using a customer relationship management (CRM) system to manage contacts and improve customer experiences, you are missing out. CRM has evolved throughout the years to better sales, customer data and maintain relationships. Today, big data and artificial intelligence are integrating with CRM systems. However, this doesn’t mean that CRM technology, though becoming fully automated, will not be as effective for sales and marketing. In fact, the technology available can help your business manage customer relationships better than ever. It can provide what your customers are looking for before your competition can. The following are measures to leverage CRM software most effectively to focus on customer relationships.

Create Relationship-based Touchpoints – Once a customer relationship is formed, it’s crucial to maintain it. It often takes several touchpoints for customers to gather and fully process information about a brand. The key here is personalization and customers can usually pick out if a message is automated by a robot, or personally written by a salesperson. So invest in utilizing CRM data to have more personalized touchpoints with customers.
Finding the Right Amount of Touchpoints – Every customer is different, but marketing professional Jeff Hoffman suggests using 5-7 touchpoints. Learn about your customer segments, demographics and buying behaviors to determine the ideal touchpoint for your customers to increase your chances of success.
Optimizing Customer Data – The optimal CRM system will allow you to see all of the touchpoints with a customer displayed on one single page. These insights are the building blocks of a solid customer relationship. They can help you plan future outreach messages and analyze business growth.
Building Relationship Through Emotional Connection – Many people claim they make decisions based solely on facts, but the truth is that most choices are based on emotion and subconscious rationales. Buying behavior, especially, has an emotional factor to it for some customers, so utilize your CRM data for your marketing team to reach out to customers on an emotional level.
Creating Integrations – Integrations make work so much easier. It de-clutters, saves time, and organizes your productivity. Integration your favorite tools and applications to your CRM system will provide maximum coverage and optimal contact to your clientele.

True CRMs help businesses forge meaningful relationships with their customers. Cultivating relationships with the help of your CRM system will lead to an increase in customer loyalty and increased brand reputation.