How can CRM software help me improve customer relationships?

One of the biggest goals in almost every business is to build strong connections with their customers. Luckily, customer relationship management (CRM) systems provide all the necessary tools to do just that. The best CRM software puts the customer first, so you can optimize your marketing and sales processes to drive conversions and boost revenue. With so many CRM tools provided, where do you even begin? Business and technology expert Paul Maplesden shares an article at Tech Radar providing helpful information that will improve customer interactions, optimize your processes, and increase your bottom line. Maplesden notes the right CRM technology platform will provide you with the framework, measurements, and tools you need to transform customer relationships.

  • Understand the importance of improving customer relationships
  • Realize that building better customer relationships is about optimizing customer-facing processes
  • Focus on improving one area of customer relationships at a time
  • Understand the specific CRM processes that fall into each improvement area
  • Use CRM metrics to create a baseline for customer relationship processes
  • Understand the user-led, data-driven changes that will most improve specific CRM processes
  • Make necessary changes and measure improvements
  • Continue to track CRM metrics so everything runs smoothly

Improving customer relationships is an ongoing job. Repeating these steps will continue to optimize customer relationships and lead the path to business success.

 

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Creating an LBI Smart Notification Series – Creating an Info Set (Part 1)

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LBI Smart Notifications are reports that are sent directly to users for reviewing vs a user logging into LBI to manually view a report. In this section we will first start off with an Intro to creating an Info Set.

 

  1. Login into LBI (admin permission required) >> go to Tools >> Select Smart Notification
  2. In Smart Notification, select Admin at the top >> Work with InfoSets
  3. Click Add to start creating an InfoSet
  4. InfoSet Wizard should start >> Select the type of Info Set you want
    • Our example will be a Relational Database (JDBC) stored procedure with a predefined Data Source
  5. Click Next or go to Step 2 Define Info Set
    • In this section you will be defining your data depending on what type you select.
    • This data can include defining column data, number/string format etc.
  6. Click Next or go to Step 3 Specify Links
    • This section allows you to add file or class links which is dependent on your organization’s needs and what the notification will be used for.
  7. Click Next or go to Step 4 Save InfoSet
    • In this section you can add a Name, Description, set a group name.
    • Also allows you to add additional access, filter certain content, even categorize or limit the InfoSet.
  8. Once done with Step 4, click Save As New at the bottom to finish your InfoSet

 

That’s it! Smart Notifications and InfoSets have a lot of customizability, most of which aren’t necessary to get it going.

See Part 2 of this series titled “Creating an LBI Smart Notification Series – Creating a Smart Notification (Part 2)” to find out how to add this InfoSet to a new Notification report. Good luck!

Foundation Building Materials Selects Infor CloudSuite Distribution as its Technology Platform for Growth

Foundation Building Materials (FBM), a leading building materials and construction products distribution company, has selected Infor CloudSuite Distribution as its technology platform for growth. Moving to Infor’s CloudSuite Distribution ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) solution will allow Foundation Building Materials to automate certain business processes, simplify complexities across several acquired businesses, and enhance scalability with AWS (Amazon Web Services’). Per the press release, FBM will also gain access to an integrated suite of applications, such as Infor Pricing Science (designed to help distributors set competitive prices and find opportunities to increase profits), proof of delivery and intelligent document management — eliminating the need to manage multiple third-party solutions. FBM will also be able to scale its business, while deploying its people resources more efficiently.

 

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Allowing company select in Requisition Center

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The default behavior of the shopping screen in RQC is to now allow users to select their Requesting Company.  To allow users to select the company, the rqc_config.xml file must be updated.  Navigate to LAWDIR/system and open the rqc_config.xml file in a text editor.  In the “client” section, update the setting “allow_company_select” to “true”.  Bounce the WebSphere application server for the change to take effect.

 

 

 

3 Ways Mixed Reality Is Changing Healthcare

Healthcare and technology have been an attractive combination in the modern digital age. Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) have been game changers. There’s also a new player in – mixed reality (MR). An interesting article on Channel Futures Channel Futures technology and media platform defines this new form of interactive tech is a mixture of virtual and augmented reality, creating a new way to interact with everything around us. Also known as ‘hybrid reality’ and ‘extended reality’, MR’s potential spans across every industry imaginable. In healthcare, MR can help simple and complex medical procedures become easier and safer.
The Channel Future’s article shares three ways mixed reality has the potential to revolutionize the healthcare industry.
  1. Instant diagnoses. “MR glasses are being built that can display images and information on top of a patient’s body and even perform instant analysis of a patient’s condition. The day is almost here when doctors wearing MR glasses will be able to look at a patient and instantly know not just a patient’s vitals, but what the most likely diagnoses are.”
  2. Medical training, mixed reality style. “By leveraging MR, medical students can operate on cadavers in an environment that replicates what it’s like to perform surgery on a live patient. With the implementation of half reality and half simulation, these mixed reality surgeries can respond to a student’s actions as if it were a real procedure. Students can now practice with realistic virtual procedures that don’t risk anyone’s life.”
  3. Enhanced surgery. “Surgeons can make use of mixed reality and carry out virtual procedures with more accuracy than ever. Mixed reality glasses or screens can project real-time information (such as blood pressure and heart rate), patient imaging and more. MR can even help doctors monitor vitals and changes in a patient’s condition better than they can with the naked eye. MR imaging also provides real-time 3D views of anatomy, giving surgeons more detail and helping them make better informed decisions during procedures.”

 

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How to Get a List of Users from AD to Compare against Users in Lawson

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This process is going to assume you already know how to build a Lawson CSV report of users to compare against. LSA Report Maintenance has these report options available for this.

 

  1. Login into your windows machine and open Powershell as an Administrator.
  2. Type in this command: Get-ADUser -Filter * -SearchBase “dc=domain,dc=local” | select Name,SID | Export-CSV
    1. dc=domain,dc=local will need to be updated to match your organizations.
    2. select Name,SID will extract the users Name in AD (typically First and Last Name) and their Security ID.
    3. Since we are doing this to compare against Lawson users (assuming you’re using SSOP), you want to also include the sAMAccountName, this is login name the users use to login into their windows machine.
    4. Export-CSV Requires a path after it including filename,
      • example: Export-CSV C:\ExportDirectory\ADUserList.csv
  3. For example, if you only wanted the Name and sAMAccountName use the command below:
    1. Get-ADUser -Filter * -SearchBase “dc=Yourdomain,dc=Yourlocal” | select Name,sAMAccountName | Export-CSV C:\ExportDirectory\ADUserList.csv
      • NOTE: If you type dc=domain,dc=local incorrectly, Powershell will list the allowed partition(s), see screenshot below.
  4. If you only want Name and SID use the command below:
    1. Get-ADUser -Filter * -SearchBase “dc=Yourdomain,dc=Yourlocal” | select Name,SID | Export-CSV C:\ExportDirectory\ADUserList.csv

You should now be able to acquire the CSV file in your C:\ExportDirectory\ that you outputted to.

Good luck!

The Cornell Peter and Stephanie Nolan School of Hotel Administration Partners with Infor

The Cornell Peter and Stephanie Nolan School of Hotel Administration of New York has chosen to implement key Infor Hospitality applications, Infor HMS, Infor EzRMS, and Infor Sales & Catering to meet and exceed modern guest expectations. Per the press release, Infor HMS is a hotel property management system (PMS) built in the cloud that provides hospitality organizations with a reliable hub for operations, tools to create clarity around business data, and the ability to establish a solid foundation to consistently deliver a superior guest experience. Additionally, Infor EzRMS is a cloud-based hotel revenue management software solution that automatically calculates demand and revenue forecasts, while recommending appropriate selling strategies. Further, Infor Sales & Catering automates the entire event booking process—from initial inquiry to the final invoice.

 

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How to get a list of specific program codes and screen descriptions in Lawson

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There are two common ways to get a list of program forms and their description from Lawson. One is through LID and another is through a database application like SQL Management Studio.

 

Method 1: The database application method requires your user to have at least database read access to the PROD or TEST Lawson database.

  1. Login to the PROD or TEST database through your database app (using SQL Management Studio for this example).
  2. Expand the PROD or TEST GEN database and expand the Tables folder:
  3. Scroll to the dbo.SCREEN table >> Right-click >> Select Top 1000 Rows
  4. For those not familiar with SQL, simply remove the TOP 1000 portion from the code to return all records in this table.

Change from this:

To this:

  1. Now click the Execute button:
  2. Select all returned records at the bottom by clicking the top left box:
  3. Right-click same box >> Copy with Headers
  4. Paste into Excel and filter as needed:

 

Method 2: The LID method is simpler if you have access to Lawson Interface Desktop

  1. Login into LID, your user will need access to rngdbdump
  2. Change directory to a safe directory to dump a file into.
  3. Type this command: rngdbdump -ct gen SCREEN > SCREEN.csv
    1. This command will dump out the SCREEN database table into a csv file in your current directory
  4. Go to that directory and open the csv file in Excel, filter down on the forms you want to view.

Good luck!

 

Infor Continues to Invest in Cloud-Based Event Management for Hospitality Industry

Infor recently released a significant update to Infor Sales & Catering with two new guest self-service portals (SSPs) for online booking and ordering. Part of the Infor CloudSuite Hospitality suite of solutions, Infor Sales & Catering is one of the industry’s only platforms designed around the beginning-to-end stages of an event with its unique, process-driven lifecycle technology and customizable to streamline processes for added productivity, building consistent business practices to improve data integrity, and eliminating errors to help reduce costs. There are two new portals:

  • Infor SCS Online Booking SSP –  allows guests to check availability for new events in real time. If event space is available on a desired date, guests can reserve that location, make selections for food, beverage and other services, receive a summary of charges and pay with a credit card — all online without having to engage with a salesperson. The benefits to guests and meeting planners are convenience, flexibility and enhanced productivity.
  • Infor SCS Online Ordering SSP – delivers tools for guests to go online to order catering services for delivery. Whether ordering food and beverage services for a trade show booth at a convention, catering for a meeting on campus at a university, or catering services for a wedding in a backyard, everything can be ordered and paid for online. The benefits to guests are convenience, flexibility and enhanced productivity, with no more waiting for a reply to an inquiry or working within the venue’s business hours.

 

For Full Article, Click Here

Program Error “netexpress not found”

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In a new install of Lawson, we recently had an issue running forms (inquire, previous, add, etc).  The program would hang and eventually show an IOS error message.  The job log said that lacobrts failed due to a timeout, but latm.log presented a more detailed error.

Thu Jun 17 18:55:55 2021: latm (jeeStartComponent): netexpress not found

Thu Jun 17 18:59:21 2021: latm: Monitoring turned on

Thu Jun 17 19:01:16 2021: Timeout on opening application, removing application

Thu Jun 17 19:01:16 2021: Pid=-1, Program Code=CU01  DataArea/DataID PROD       

Thu Jun 17 19:01:16 2021: Possible causes: Insufficient NetExpress licenses or

Thu Jun 17 19:01:16 2021:      not enough database users configured in ladb.cfg.

Thu Jun 17 19:01:16 2021: latm (PrcTPCrash): Received death notification of lacobrts, Uid=-1, Pid=-1

Thu Jun 17 19:01:16 2021:                  Program Code = CU01 , DataArea/DataID = PROD         

Thu Jun 17 19:01:16 2021: ERROR:    Exited with error code 0

 

The Microfocus COBOL licenses were definitely not an issue, so we started trying to track down the “netexpress not found” error.  Running “echo %COBDIR%” in LID revealed that the COBDIR environment variable was not pointing to the correct location.

This variable is set by the system, and is not something you can override in the Windows system environment variables.  After some troubleshooting, we discovered that the Lawson system value “LAUNCHER” was not correct.  We ran the command LaMgmtCmd -r <envname>, which showed the LAUNCHER value as “NetExpress”.  We compared this to another (healthy) environment that showed the LAUNCHER value as “run.exe”.

Some of these values can be modified using laconfig, but this specific value had to be updated using the update option on the LaMgmtCmd command.  First, we created an XML file with all the values (including the correct launcher), then ran LaMgmtCmd -u <envname> <filename>.

After the update, we rebooted the system, and ran lamgmtcmd -r <envname> to validate.

The value was correct, and we were able to start using the forms again.