Finding Duplicate Items in your Item Master

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If you find duplicate items in your item master and want to reduce clutter, here are some tips:

  1. Items can have multiple ways of being identified. Many items are manufactured by different companies and they really are the same inventory item as they are interchangeable in your warehouse.
  2. Use the main manufacturer information on your item master – or the manufacturer information that your main supplier uses for the item.
  3. If different vendors provide different manufacturers items for the same item, then on PO13- Vendor Item, indicate the vendor and their item number and their manufacturer information there. This information will default onto a PO when ordering from one vendor vs. a different vendor.  This allows you to have a single item that could be manufactured or supplied by multiple vendors and manufacturers.
  4. If there are multiple manufacturers or vendors for the item, then having a way to compare those is also important. Lawson does provide the ability to store manufacturer information in multiple ways – on the item master, on the item location record if a particular item for a location was being purchased from a different Vendor , and on the Vendor Item record. That means there are potentially multiple ways to store and find the manufacturer information for a particular item.
  5. POs are another place where manufacturer information for an item is stored so even if you are not storing the manufacturer information on the item master, you might still be able to create a cross reference by looking at your PO line data as well.
  6. Once all the options for manufacturer information are exhausted, then the remaining items will need to be matched item by item by description. This can be very time consuming especially since Lawson has a small description field which often requires considerable abbreviation of words in the description.
  7. Some additional considerations are to use the any of the other ways items might be classified This includes: generic name, Inventory classes, GL Categories, commodity codes and possibly SKUs if any of these are being stored.

 

6 Things To Look For When Choosing An Online Collaboration Tool

The current pandemic has forced many of us to work remotely from home. While we use many online meeting tools to connect with clients on a daily basis, online meeting for collaboration with your team needs a bit more thought put into it. Kat Boogaard at Trello shares an interesting read on how to choose the right online collaboration tool to work remotely with your team. Technology alone won’t solve your team’s remote workspace. Boogaard stresses that you must choose the right tool for your team as one program may not fit all your items on your checklist. You must be mindful of the accessibility, communication channels, transparency, productivity, and accountability of the tool you select. Below are 6 things to look for, according to Boogaard, when choosing an online collaboration tool for easier remote working.

  1. Cost – When it comes to figuring out which tools might be a fit for you, money is important criteria to consider. How much are you willing and able to spend on a collaboration tool? Before you start exploring different platforms, ask yourself: How many people will actively use the tool? What’s your maximum monthly spend for this tool?
  2. Customization – Search for a tool that’s highly customizable so your team can use the tool in a way that works best for them.
  3. Integrations – Your goal is to streamline and centralize your team’s work and conversations. Connect with your team to understand what tools are used on a daily basis. From Slack to Google Drive, there are probably a number of apps that you won’t need or even want to eliminate.
  4. Automations – A collaboration tool that has workflow automations can take repetitive tasks off of your team’s plate. Whether it’s automatically creating a project timeline when somebody fills out a form or triggering a team email when a task is checked off, these types of actions eliminate busy work, reduce the potential for error, and keep your whole team moving forward.
  5. Security – Especially in industries that frequently deal with sensitive information, security needs to be high on your list of must-have features. Even if your team doesn’t work with highly-confidential details, you still want to know that things like your goals, projects, and future plans don’t get hacked, compromised, or leaked into the wrong hands.
  6. Ease Of Use – If you want employees to actually use the tool you put in place, you need to look for one that’s easy for them to get up to speed with. Every new app has a bit of a learning curve, but you can ease that burden by looking for one that’s as intuitive and user-friendly as possible.

Boogaard concludes that having the right technology on your side can increase transparency, centralize communication, and make collaboration a lot less stressful.

 

Original post by Kat Boogaard from Trello.

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What to consider when converting to a new ERP for Open POs

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Many people are moving from one enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform to another.  There are many pieces to an Open PO that need to be considered when converting to a new ERP.

  1. How much history do you need to bring over to your new system? How often do you clean up your open POs in your current system?  Do you need all of your open POs or only certain ones – for example, only those for active vendors?
  2. Cleaning up your old POs – closing out old POs that probably will never be finished at this point is a great idea before starting the conversion process.
  3. Locations – how will you deal with locations in your current ERP that will not be in your new ERP? Is there a default location that can be used to process the conversion? A memo or user field can be used to store the original information.
  4. What about inactive requesters – how will you address these? Providing a default or generic requester when the old ones won’t be in the new system is a good way to handle this.  A memo or user field can be used to store the original information.
  5. Vendors – what about open POs for vendors who are inactive in your current system. Are you going to be converting those?  The vendor will need to be added to your new system if the answer is yes.
  6. Make sure to have the most current chart of accounts and cost center mapping.

 

Storegga Selects New Financial Management Solution to Support its Growing Project Portfolio

Carbon reduction pioneer Storegga has chosen a suite of Infor applications to be implemented by Infor gold channel partner Progressive TSL for its development of net zero infrastructure. Privately invested, Storegga is progressing a range of multi-partner, net zero infrastructure initiatives, including as lead developer of the Acorn Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and Hydrogen Project in north east Scotland. Per the press release, Storegga selected Progressive TSL to implement the Infor SunSystems, Infor EAM (Enterprise Asset Management) and Infor OS (Operating Services) platform. Infor SunSystems and Infor EAM will provide Storegga with a powerful financial management and procurement solution, Progressive TSL will also configure Infor EAM to include other features such as Asset Maintenance as Storegga’s operations develop.

 

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Consolidating Two Item Masters

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Looking for reduction of your item master by identifying duplicate items? Here are some tips to consider when consolidating two item masters.

  1. Different ERP systems can have multiple ways of identifying an item. Many items are manufactured by different companies and they really are the same inventory item as they are interchangeable in your warehouse.
  2. Use the main manufacturer information on your item master – or the manufacturer information that your main supplier uses for the item.
  3. If different vendors provide different manufacturers items for the same item, then using a vendor item cross reference can assist with keeping track of that. Lawson does that on PO13.
  4. If there are multiple manufacturers or vendors for the item, then having a way to compare those is also important. Lawson does provide the ability to store manufacturer information in multiple ways – on the item master, on the item location record if a particular item for a location was being purchased from a different Vendor , and on the Vendor Item record. That means there are potentially multiple ways to store and find the manufacturer information for a particular item.
  5. POs are another place where manufacturer information for an item is stored so even if you are not storing the manufacturer information on the item master, you might still be able to create a cross reference by looking at your PO line data as well.
  6. Once all the options for manufacturer information are exhausted, then the remaining items will need to be matched item by item by description. This can be very time consuming especially since Lawson has a small description field which often requires considerable abbreviation of words in the description.
  7. Some additional considerations are to use the any of the other ways items might be classified This includes: generic name, Inventory classes, GL Categories, commodity codes and possibly SKUs if any of these are being stored.

 

CAF Selects Infor to Power Parramatta Light Rail Project

CAF Australia has selected Infor Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) for the Parramatta Light Rail project. Infor EAM will help CAF, a market leader in the design, manufacturing and implementation of comprehensive transport systems, manage and maintain a diverse portfolio of assets. Per the press release, the Parramatta Light Rail will create new communities, connect great places and help locals and visitors move around and explore what the region has to offer. It will connect Westmead to Carlingford via the Parramatta central business district and Camellia, with a two-way track spanning 12 kilometers and is expected to open in 2023. The deal is a long-term contract spanning 11 years for which Infor will provide a range of cloud-based asset management solutions. Infor EAM will help CAF establish a centralized asset strategy encompassing asset acquisition, control and maintenance to comply with the contractual requirements of TfNSW. The deployment will ensure FRACAS (Failure Reporting, Analysis and Corrective Action System) processes are followed appropriately, using system capability for ensuring overall asset performance and cloud technology such as automation, Internet of Things, and telemetry integrations.

 

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The 8 Latest Trends Of CRM

Customer relationship management (CRM) has become a vital part of a company’s competitive advantage. It is an opportunity to stay in the know about CRM trends for your business to manage relationships with their customers. An article on Modern Diplomacy written by Newsroom showcases the latest trends in CRM that give businesses the competitive edge.

  1. AI Is Becoming A Key Part Of CRM Systems. “Artificial Intelligence continues to disrupt businesses across industries. As a result, we continue to consume more AI daily for business and at home.”
  2. Social CRM Keeps Rising. “By looking at CRM and social media together, businesses seem to gain a more powerful overview of what customers post about them on social media. As a result, managers can access first-hand information on their brand sentiments.”
  3. Voice And Conversational UI Will Start Integrating With CRM. “Voice technology is key for the evolution of SaaS tools. It makes accessibility easier but also supports tech by making it easier and enjoyable to use. CRM will continue the adoption of voice assistant technology to support processes and interfaces.”
  4. CRM Automation. “In 2021, automation and CRM are going to be more synonymous. Automated email and the use of chatbots to communicate will be on a steady rise. Automation helps businesses to enhance business efficiency by offering high-quality services to customers.”
  5. CRM Is Interweaving With IoT Technologies. “There is going to be a continued rise in IoT devices worldwide. The use of cybersecurity scanners, smart home devices and wearable health monitors continues to grow. The technology helps businesses monitor and serve their clients in better and proactive ways that have been unimaginable for many years. The data that is generated from IoT devices are used to improve customer experience.”
  6. Consumers Expect Companies To Know More About Them. “Today, business-to-customer relationships become more and more important, just like any other human relationship. Companies need to remember their conversations with clients, understand their expectations, needs, and be able to adjust communications accordingly.”
  7. CRM Growth Will Come From New Markets. “In previous years, over 50% of CRM buyers were from real estate, distribution, consulting, and insurance. However, this market is shifting in 2021, and the growth will be in healthcare, manufacturing, insurance, and finance.”
  8. Mobile CRM On The Rise. “In the COVID era more and more businesses demand CRM solutions that are compatible with mobile UIs. With this CRM trend, sales teams can work beyond office hours and will be able to access customer data even from deep in the field without having to get back to the office.”

 

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Delete Lawson HTTP Endpoints

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This article will walk you through the process of deleting endpoints in Lawson.  You may need to do this if you decommission an external server and need to add a new server as an endpoint, or if there is an issue with your endpoint and you need to redo it.  First, you will unassign the endpoint from all its services, then you will delete it.

 

From LID or a command line window (with the environment variables set), type ssoconfig -c.  Log into ssoconfig with the appropriate password.

 

First, unassign the endpoint from all the services to which it is attached.  (You can see which services it’s attached to in ssoconfig Manage Lawson HTTP Endpoints > Export HTTP Endpoints and HTTP Endpoint assignment to Service).

 

Go to Manage Lawson HTTP Endpoints > Unassign HTTP Endpoint from Service

Enter the FQDN of your endpoint, the HTTP port, and the HTTPS port.  These are identifying values, and must be entered exactly as they are stored.  Enter the service name that you are unassigning (this will typically be either SSOP or the service you use for the thick client login).

Repeat this process with all the services that this endpoint is attached to.  Some examples are IOS, BPM, and LSADMIN.  Again, you can find out for sure by exporting the endpoint/services configuration.

Next, select “Delete existing HTTP Endpoint”

Enter the FQDN of your endpoint, the HTTP port, and the HTTPS port.  These are identifying values, and must be entered exactly as they are stored.

You must recycle Lawson after making these changes, as these types of security configurations are stored in the security caches.

 

The Top 3 Benefits of Using AI-Enabled ERP Systems

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems have becom a staple to modern business models today. The digital revolution has given it an even greater boost in capability and necessity. What’s next for ERP? Two words: artificial intelligence (AI). The need for AI-enabled ERP systems stems from the many advantages in automation and decision-making from modern AI systems. AI can be used with ERP as an tension to the system’s applications. Prangya Pandab shares an article on EnterpriseTalk.com highlighting the top 3 benefits of using AI-enabled ERP systems for your business. According to Pandab, using AI-enabled ERP systems has various advantages, all of which stem from the following three characteristics:

Reduced Data Entry. “Businesses can automate almost any interaction that involves manual data entry with the implementation of AI-enabled ERP, enabling employees to focus on activities that have a greater impact on the company. These AI-enabled ERP systems can decipher data from various sources, such as online invoices and order types, using natural language processing (NLP), without requiring employees to type in data from various sources. This also reduces the risk of incorrect entries.”

Intelligent Data Processing. “ERP systems are ‘intelligent to a degree and can perform small calculations. AI-enabled ERP systems can use data from one module to make a decision in another module autonomously. This means that humans aren’t required to perform repetitive calculations or make repeated references to various ERP modules.“

Data Analytics. “While most ERP can only produce reports based on historical data, AI-enabled ERP can conduct predictive analytics to improve the certainty of decision-making processes on both an operational and strategic level. This greatly improves business agility and allows them to solve problems based on reliable data.”

 

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Alva Industries Chooses Infor CloudSuite Aerospace & Defense

Alva Industries has chosen Infor CloudSuite Aerospace & Defense as its enterprise resource planning (ERP) system running on AWS, and will be implemented by consulting partner Midport Scandinavia. Since 2016, Alva Industries has established itself a visionary Norwegian company that develops electric motors and generators for electric propulsion applications. They also produce motors for the industrial drone market. Per the press release, Midport Scandinavia uses Infor’s implementation methodology where process owners at Alva Industries, together with Infor and Midport, go through the processes that end up with a fit/gap analysis. This means that the solution can largely be activated at an early stage in the process. Tommy Andersen, chief financial officer at Alva Industries, says of the collaboration, ” Both in the defense industry and aviation, there are strict and absolute requirements for subcontractors, and it is a clear advantage that Infor can deliver a cloud solution that satisfies these requirements.”

 

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