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?

 

 

 

Get Business Class and Field Names for Landmark Applications

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When setting up Landmark queries for IPA or Spreadsheet Designer, it helps to know which business class and field you are working with.  You can get these values in any Landmark application form (web-based or in Rich Client) by typing ctrl+shift and clicking on the field.

Transitioning Open Receipts from one ERP to another

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There are things to consider when transitioning your open receipts from one ERP to another:

  1. How old are the receipts before you will not move them to the new ERP?
  2. Are the POs still open for the open Receipts?
  3. Is there a new PO number that needs to be used for cross referencing purposes in the new ERP?
  4. How about the vendor number – did it change in the new ERP?
  5. What about your item numbers? – Do you need a cross reference between the old and new item numbers?

Transitioning Open AR from one ERP system to another

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Things to consider:

  1. Do your addresses need to be cleaned up?
  2. Do you have duplicate customers that need to be consolidated?
  3. Do you currently have abbreviations in your addresses that you don’t need in your new system?
  4. OR – do you not have abbreviations in your current ERP and need them in your next one?
    1. Create an abbreviation cross reference to easily make the abbreviations needed
  5. Cleaning up the addresses is often very time consuming and can be expensive when waiting until the last minute paying a consultant to do it. Hire a temp now and get it done early and much less expensive
  6. How much history do you want to bring over to the new ERP system?
  7. If you are moving off Lawson, are you using National Accounts? If so, make sure to apply all open payments at the National Account level unless you are sure the new system will allow this same functionality.
  8. Is there anything special about your AR processing that needs to be considered when moving to a new ERP?

SQL Server Copy Database Wizard

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An alternative to a SQL database backup & restore is to use the Copy Database Wizard in SQL Server.

Right-click on the database, and select Copy. The source and destination can reside on different servers. You can opt to copy without taking the source database online. It will take longer, but it doesn’t require downtime. You can also copy to an existing database if you select the option to drop the database before adding if it exists. This tool is especially useful if you are trying to copy data from a new version of SQL Server to an older version such as 2008. We have come across that configuration many times in Lawson PROD to DEV environments.

Transitioning Open AP from one ERP to another

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Things to consider:

  1. Can you pay off all your existing AP prior to transitioning to a new system?
    1. This is preferred whenever possible and start your new ERP with fresh AP
  2. Consider the length of the address fields in your new ERP
    1. Do you need to come up with some abbreviations that work throughout your addresses in the new system?
    2. Have you used abbreviations you no longer need to use and therefore want to undo your abbreviations and make them full words in your new system?
    3. Do you have duplicate addresses that need to be consolidated prior to transitioning? If you are moving off of Lawson, Vendor locations often have duplicate addresses which other ERP systems can’t accept
  3. Cleaning up of inactive Vendors or addresses
    1. This is work that should be done now instead of waiting to the last minute. Paying a consultant to clean up your addresses is expensive.  Hire a temp now and get it done early and less expensive.
  4. Is there anything special about your AP processing that needs to be considered when changing ERP systems?

 

BL vs. BR What are the major differences?

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BL vs. BR What are the major differences?

As a summary, BR allows for different billing options that are not only item – Quantity times Price to invoice.

BL allows for creating automatic recurring invoices by running a job that creates the invoices.

BR has jobs that will book the revenue recognition as defined for the contract

 

Feature / Module BL

(Billing)

 BR

(Billing & Revenue Recognition)
Using IC for item tracking Y N
Can bill ad-hoc Items Y N
Can Set up Products for billing Y – in IC Y
Can you Print an Invoice to send to the customer Y Performa only
Interfaces to AR Y Y
Requires Activity Module N Y
Auto Create Revenue Recognition entries N Y
Uses Allocations to create Revenue Recognition Entries Y N
Has an Invoice Entry form that looks like an invoice Y N
Create Recurring Invoices Y for various intervals N
Cost Plus Billing Y – based on pricing Y
Pass Thru Billing Y Y
Time and Materials Billing Y Y
Units of Production Billing Y Y
User-Defined Billing Needs to have an item with Quantity times rate associated with invoiced lines Y
Milestone Billing Y- if there isn’t a system generated trigger for the milestone, any invoice item quantity*Price invoice can be created Y – needs to be triggered by something

 

Custom Scripting in IPA

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Sometimes complex IPA flows can become cumbersome to maintain, or they can experience degraded performance for large record sets. One way to combat these issues is to create custom scripts within your flows to do the “heavy lifting” of the process. Our favorite scripting language to use is Perl, because it is simple, doesn’t have to be compiled, and is already installed on your Landmark and LSF servers. We use a File Access node to create the script at runtime. This works best because it is more secure and subject to versioning (remember, Perl doesn’t have to be compiled), and you can put flow variables right into your script. To do this type of scripting, you will create your script in a File Access node, and then run it in a System Command node. It is important to note that this will not work in a cloud multi-tenant environment, because system command nodes are not allowed.

Landmark Security Access

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To maintain Landmark Security (classes and roles), in the Gen environment in Rich Client, go to Start > Configure > Security.  If you don’t see the Security or Configure, you will need to have your Security Administrator give you access to it.  The Infor delivered role for this is “ConfigConsoleSecurityadmin_ST”.  Have that role added to your account and wait about 30 minutes for the sync to complete.

IPA Dynamic Commands

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One way to control the “clutter” on your more complex IPA processes is to utilize the concept of “Dynamic Commands”.  Many times your flows will follow a pattern of reading some sort of data, validating/manipulating the data, then taking action on that data.  You can move much of this work into Stored Procedures and set up a configuration table to tell your flow which command to execute next.  This method also allows for more granular error handling and logging.

Here is a sample configuration table and flow.  The flow will read this in and follow each step in order, and use a SQL Query node to get the command text.  The Action field shows what type of action will be completed once the stored procedure brings back the command.