Importance of Creating a BRD

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Creating a new interface? Doing an Upgrade? Don’t forget the Business Requirements Document (BRD)

Often we go through the process of meeting and discussing different aspects of a project.  Those meetings are essential to understanding what is needed to be done.  A good BRD is basically a bible for all to refer back to during and even after the process to make sure that everything has been done at the level that was decided upon.

It is also a good way to make sure that everyone goes into the project with the same understanding. It is important to keep the BRD up to date with any changes that are decided upon.  This limits overlooking small aspects of a project that might have been referred to in – when did that email get sent again?

Based on client needs, we put together a BRD that reiterates what we think the client said.  When you review and approve it, it means we are both are working under the same premise.

It helps to eliminate those famous cartoon moments:

Considering a Divestiture? Here are a few things to consider

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Considering a Divestiture?  Here are things to consider:

History: How much data do you need to extract to send with the divested division/company?

Consider each module that currently has data and determine if there is a similar module in the new system. If there isn’t a similar module in the new system, then how will the data be accessed? Possibly a separate database that stores the information for lookups as needed.

Fixed Assets: Do you have assets that need to be moved with the divested division/company?

What are the criteria for which assets need to be moved with the divested division/company?

What date will these assets be last depreciated in your current system and how will the depreciation continue in the new system?

Will you keep the original in-service date and depreciation history and continue depreciating the same in your new system?

AP Payments:  How will you handle bank reconciliations and payment voids that occur after the division/company is divested?

Will there be on-going communication for this information to be sent?

Will there be a complete pay-off in the current system so that AP starts clean in the new system with no open invoices?

Do you have a consolidated AP process now that needs to be split into multiple AP processes? If so, when should you start this process of separation?  Especially important if you have any EDI or other interfaces to AP that will need separation as well.

Vendors: How will you notify Vendors that invoices after a certain date should be handled differently? Are your vendors even aware that there are two different divisions or companies that they are currently billing? It is very important to start working with your vendors and any 3rd party AP interfaces sooner than later.

Purchases: How will any open POs and/or requisitions be handled?

Make sure that you have enough inventory on hand for the divested division/company prior to cutting off standard replenishment.

 

 

How to Resolve Workunits Sitting in Ready Status

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Problem: Workunits for Infor Process Automation are sitting in Ready Status and not processing.

Solution:
1.  Via LmrkGrid (Grid Management), determine how many workunits may simultaneously process in your system. (see attached “DeterminingSimultaneous.docx”)

  1. Determine how many workunits are currently in a processing state.

NOTE:  Please refer to attachment “DeterminingSimultaneous.docx” for instructions on determining simultaneous processes.  In case you will need to engage support, you should screenshot this information to provide when you open the support incident.

 

– Command to count records in Ready Status:  dbcount <DATAAREA> -f Status=\”1\” PfiWorkunit

– Command to count records in Processing Status:  dbcount <DATAAREA> -f Status=\”2\” PfiWorkunit

– Command to count records in Completed Status:  dbcount <DATAAREA> -f Status=\”4\” PfiWorkunit

 

It is a good idea to monitor and take counts of these records periodically. Are the number of workunits in Ready status growing? Are the number of workunits in Completed status growing? Is the number of workunits in Processing status equal to the maximum number workunits that can simultaneously process?

NOTE: If the number of workunits in Ready Status is growing and the number of workunits in completed status is not, then either:

  1. You have workunits that processing for a very long time holding up the system; use the Grid Management UI to determine which workunits are processing so long and determine if those are stuck in a loop; or if they are just processing normally large jobs. Consider cancelling the long running workunits, and scheduling them to run in off business hours.
  2. If you are on Landmark 10.1.0.x, there was a bug in this version of Landmark that periodically caused Async to stop picking up new workunits. This issue was resolved by a re-write of Asnyc and LPA nodes in 10.1.1.x Landmark versions. If you are on Landmark 10.1.0.x you should restart the Async Node, and the IPA node.

NOTE: The workunits that were already queued to an LPA node will not automatically start back up;  the workunit polling frequency (default 30 minutes) will need to trigger before they are requeued to a new LPA node.

Acquiring a new Hospital? Here are some things you should consider…

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If you are acquiring a new hospital in the near future, below are 5 things to consider:

  1. Will adding the new hospital cause a difference in your GL structure?
    • Are there different management hierarchies that need to be addressed in the new departments/cost centers?
    • If you are using automated flows for approvals will the current structure work for the new location as well?
  2. Localized vs. Centralized purchasing and AP
    • It is often thought that just centralizing purchasing and AP is the norm when acquiring a new hospital. This is often more difficult to achieve then it seems on paper.
    • There are item number differences – how will those be handled? Is there some normalized data in the item master that will allow for consolidating the item master? Does the new hospital provide specialty services that requires adding many more items into the item master? Who will maintain the new items?
    • There are long term contracts in place at both locations – often different prices and terms – Will these stay separate or renegotiated?
      • Different locations often have different sales reps for the same suppliers. How will these relationships be affected? And what affect will it have on the local service if the local rep is no longer involved?
  3. What kind of reports are used at the new location that are not used currently in-house? Are the reports necessary? If these are not canned reports- how will the reports be created and maintained?
  4. What amount of history is necessary to bring over to the new system for each module that is being transferred to your ERP? How will older data be accessed when needed?  Will the old data be available for research?

Schedule a ProcessFlow to Run Every Other Week

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You can schedule your ProcessFlow to run on a weekly schedule by using the ProcessFlow scheduler. Recently, a client had asked if there was a way to schedule it bi-weekly. Great news – there is a way, and it’s easy to set up.

In Rich Client, Start -> Applications -> My Actions -> My Scheduled Actions -> Double click action you wish to modify

In this next screen, scroll down to Scheduling Details and click on Week Number

In order to schedule a process to run biweekly, you would want to use Even Weeks in the “Select Week Number” field and specify the day you want it to run (in this case, Monday)

Now you can have your ProcessFlow running every other week.

 

For a step-by-step guide to Scheduling a Process in IPA, check out this related article: Scheduling a Process in IPA

Troubleshooting: Rich Client workunit log too large to extract

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Depending on the process run, Rich Client workunit logs can grow extremely large. So large in fact that you may not be able to extract the full log from the Landmark Rich Client.

If a workunit log grows too large you may not be able to extract the full log from the Landmark Rich Client,  in this case you can use the following command to extract the log from a Landmark Command Prompt.

What Is the Landmark Command Prompt?
The Landmark administrator will perform many tasks from a command prompt. When you are instructed to use a Landmark command prompt, you should be sure you are in the Landmark Environment that you want to use, and that all environment variables are set correctly.

Setting Environment Variables
Before you startBefore you perform this procedure, be sure that the /etc/lawson/environment/environmentName/config.sh file contains the appropriate settings for environment variables.

 

Use this procedure to export the appropriate environment variables for your Landmark Environment before issuing commands from a Landmark command prompt.

To set the Landmark Environment variables

At a command prompt, type

. cv landmark-env-name

Where landmark-env-name is the name of the Landmark Environment.

Resolution:

dbexport -C -f “PfiWorkunit=####” -o . -n <dataarea> PfiWorkunit

Example:

dbexport -C -f “PfiWorkunit=7000” -o . -n prod PfiWorkunit

Best Way to Document Your Interfaces

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Is documenting your interfaces challenging? Do you find yourself confused as to what you should focus on and how to best format things? Do you feel that the work you’re creating is not going to get used and you are not sure where to store it all? Join our webinar to get answers to all those questions and learn a new way to create accurate, valuable and well written documentation for your team. We’re going to cover a host of topics including:

  • How documentation of your interfaces will impact things
  • What you should include in your interface documentation
  • How to effectively create a document that has value to the organization
  • How to store your documents for best value, retention, correctness, and accountability
  • Q/A

 

Download PowerPoint

Syufy Enterprises Selects Infor to Build More Successful Teams

Syufy Enterprises, a leading entertainment and leisure company that owns a variety of businesses, including high-end athletic clubs and spas, restaurants, golf venues, shopping centers, public markets and drive-in theaters, has decided to deploy Infor Talent Science to build more successful teams. Utilizing Infor solutions at its VillaSport Athletic Club and Spa division, Syufy will gain access to tools to predictively link behavioral data to real business outcomes. The cloud-based application Infor Talent Science helps drive better business performance through hiring, developing, and retaining the right people. With it, VillaSport will be better prepared to reduce turnover of its hourly employees, improve the quality of hires, and identify career paths for both applicants and existing employees. By elevating the hiring process with data science to find the right employee for the right position, the organization will be able to improve customer experiences while also driving more memberships throughout the club.

 

For Full Article, Click Here

How to Update LBI WebSphere Data Source

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If you change the database server that hosts your LBI data, you will need to point your LBI instance to the new server.  This is done in WebSphere.  Log into your LBI WebSphere console, and navigate to Resources > JDBC > Data Sources.  Click on each data source that needs to be updated (LawsonFS, LawsonRS, LawsonSN).  Modify the server name, click OK and Save.

If the user credentials are different for this new data source, from the data source screen go to JAAS – J2C authentication data and update the credentials there.

Save the configuration changes and synchronize the nodes (if applicable).  Go back to the Data Sources screen and test each connection.

How AI is Changing CRM Landscape

The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has greatly changed the way we do business. In one such area, customer relationship management (CRM), AI has improved its usability. An article from IT Toolbox shares 5 ways that AI is changing CRM.

  1. Increased Automation – By taking care of administrative tasks like data entry and anomaly detection, AI is making CRM more accessible to employees and less of a chore. Increased automation also helps with lead visibility, streamlining workflows and improving team productivity.
  2. Advanced Data Mining – Whereas old CRM systems gathered data without necessarily making sense of the data, AI mixed with CRM is helping the data in these systems finally become useful.
  3. Sales Process Optimization – Legacy CRMs lack personalization and aren’t very intuitive as far as understanding what drives customer sales. AI baked into CRM helps businesses optimize sales by assisting in price optimization, forecasting, up-selling and cross-selling.
  4. Improved Personalization – AI helps CRM deliver a far more personalized customer experience. This means that CRM paired with AI is starting to offer next best actions, inform users of potential customer upsells, spot customer care issues before they get out of hand, and help CRMs interface with marketing, sales and support.
  5. Enhanced Collaboration – Creativity and collaboration continue to be predominant forces in determining a company’s ability to adapt and compete. Departments can no longer afford to operate as silos — sales teams included. AI-enabled CRM is helping companies meet that challenge around breaking down silos and fostering inter-departmental collaboration.

CRM has been somewhat static for the past few years in terms of new features and functionality. With the rise of AI, that’s changing. AI-enabled CRM is reducing the pain points that used to hamper CRM use, and at the same it is greatly improving the intelligence of the system. This translates into more actionable data, and systems that are easier to use.

It is an exciting time for CRM and the businesses that rely on them.

 

For Full Article, Click Here