RPI Consultants
RPI Consultants
All Articles
Home
-
If you weren’t able to attend Infor Connect, we’re pleased to report Infor CloudSuite users have a lot to look forward to. Three key highlights made themselves known at Infor Connect 2026. You can read about them below. -
In this special edition of RPI Tech Connect, Chris sits down with two guests who were on the conference floor: Jeremy Stoltzfus and Melissa Olson.
-
In this post, we’ll dive into the details of Infor CloudSuite pricing, including everything from customizations and user seats to the cost of installing it and the various mid-project factors that may drive up costs.
-
If you’re in healthcare and wondering whether your ERP is delivering what you were promised, this one’s worth your time.
-
As you navigate your next ERP project, here are three pitfalls to watch out for across each of these areas, and what you can do to ensure the implementation doesn’t get away from you.
-
If you work in healthcare supply chain and want to know how your peers are building resiliency in their operations, check this one out.
-
Based on interviews with nine individuals from five healthcare organizations, the report shows Yoga consistently delivers measurable gains in invoice throughput, processing accuracy, and cost efficiency.
-
In this episode of RPI Tech Connect, change management consultant Casey Gomes shares why so many large IT initiatives fail to deliver and what organizations can do differently from the start.
-
In this post we’ll talk about the importance of data quality in your supply chain, why manual workarounds are not the fix, and three steps Supply Chain Managers can take today to improve the integrity of their data.
-
In this episode of RPI Tech Connect, host Chris Arey sits down with Brianna Zink, Senior Director of Global Strategy for WFM at Infor, and Maria Hamberlin, Senior WFM Business Analyst at RPI Consultants—two former nurses who started their careers together at a long-term acute care hospital and now help healthcare organizations get real value out of workforce management technology.
-
We’re wrapping up our week of April 2026 Cumulative Update (CU) coverage with one final functional area: Tech. If you’ve been following along, you’ve already seen what’s new across Workforce Management, Supply Chain, Finance, and Human Capital Management. Each post has aimed to make clear the updates most likely to matter to your organization, so you can make informed decisions without having to dig through the release notes yourself. Let’s get into it.
-
-
As part of our week-long series on the biggest CloudSuite April 2026 CU highlights, today we’re digging into finance. Spanning everything from GL reporting and receivables automation to asset accounting and budgeting, there’s something new in almost every corner.
-
Infor’s April 2026 Cumulative Update (CU) is here, and for day two of our roundup, RPI Consultants is spotlighting the most impactful updates across Supply Chain Management (SCM)—giving you a clear picture of what’s new in the CloudSuite April 2026 release and the value it offers teams.
-
That’s where RPI Consultants comes in. This week, we’re dedicating each day to breaking down the key highlights from the April CU, one functional area at a time. Our goal is simple: save you time, surface the improvements that matter most, and help you get more ROI out of your CloudSuite investment. We’re kicking things off with Workforce Management (WFM).
-
If you work in healthcare and want a grounded, practical perspective on where to start, this discussion is for you.
-
In this post, we’ll explore what P2P process analysis involves, why it matters, and the risks of neglecting it.
-
If you’ve ever wondered whether your ERP project has the right people in the right roles, this episode offers valuable perspective on how to evaluate that.
-
In this post we’ll take a closer look at the challenges public sector organizations face, explore Infor CDR as a solution for resolving them, and discuss key considerations to ensure Infor CDR actually delivers in practice.
-
If you’re evaluating AP automation solutions and want to know what to look for beyond the demo, this episode is worth your time.
-
In this post, we’ll take a closer look at how modern AP automation solutions should leverage AI to deliver lasting value while also minimizing risks of financial error. First up? The requirements of AP.
-
In this episode of RPI Tech Connect, Senior Financial Consultant Alesandro Gargano shares what the project recovery process looks like for customers who’ve decided it’s time for a change. From the first conversation to rebuilding momentum, Alesandro explains how the right partner earns your trust, works with your team, and gets things moving again.
-
In this blog, we’ll cover when employers need to take action, what compliance looks like, and how your systems will support the changes involved with SECURE Act 2.0.
-
In this episode of RPI Tech Connect, we break down what we’re seeing in our third annual State of the Infor Community Survey, including a closer look behind the headline numbers.
-
Below are five of the most compelling insights from this year’s survey. To explore the full data set, including detailed breakdowns and visual trends, download the State of the Infor Community Infographic.
-
Listeners will learn what causes ERP projects to go off track, how strong project managers identify issues early, and what organizations should look for when selecting an ERP implementation partner.
-
The New Year is a great opportunity for businesses to review subscriptions and renewals with an eye toward reducing spend. It is one of the few predictable moments when leadership teams pause and ask where their tech stack can be simplified without losing capability. For Infor CloudSuite customers, one of the easiest places to find immediate savings is in document management.
-
If you are planning your 2026 event calendar, this episode offers a practical framework for deciding where to invest your time and why showing up in person still delivers meaningful value.
-
In this post, we’ll explore the value a client-side PM provides, as well as explore challenges that arise during ERP implementations in the absence of one. But first, the basics about what’s involved with an ERP project, and who’s responsible for what.
-
The discussion covers the next wave of CloudSuite migrations driven by the 2030 Lawson end-of-life timeline, how this second phase differs from earlier implementations, and what organizations should consider as they plan timing and resources.
-
In this post, we offer a refresher on what’s required under the Employer Mandate, outline the key 2026 deadlines for 2025 ACA reporting, and explain how Infor CloudSuite solutions can help organizations simplify ACA compliance.
-
If you are preparing to evaluate ERP options, this episode offers a grounded framework for choosing with confidence and avoiding costly surprises later.
-
Below are five things most users don’t know about Birst that shape every dashboard they open and every report they build, and why training plays a key role in helping organizations leverage these types of reporting tools.
-
ERP success often happens quietly. When the system runs smoothly, it blends into the background, even though the journey to get there is full of effort, decisions, and change. In this episode of RPI Tech Connect, ERP advisor Cindy Vindasius joins to discuss how teams can bring those wins to the surface.
-
In this post, we highlight five major themes from the Infor Velocity and TechX events, discuss why they’re important, and how you can begin weaving these changes into your business. Let’s get into it.
-
The conversation also looks ahead to AI agents and the evolving role of intelligent automation in ERP. If you’re wondering where to start with Velocity Suite or how to build momentum in your optimization journey, this one’s for you.
-
In this post we’ll take a closer look at each of the four focus areas, including when to prioritize them, what can happen when you don’t, and how they’re all connected.
-
Whether you’re leading digital transformation or planning for one, this episode offers a candid look at how to turn complex ERP initiatives into lasting success stories, and what every great project has in common.
-
So, when your business needs to tailor its ERP system, should you customize or configure? Choosing the wrong path can lead to skyrocketing costs and long-term inefficiencies.
-
At most organizations, open enrollment is a 30-day window. Within that time, HR and benefits teams must provide clear information, ensure compliance, and offer a seamless process to their workforce. To help your business prepare, below are three critical tasks to focus on as you head into open enrollment 2026.
-
If your organization is considering workforce management, or you’re already invested in the Infor ecosystem, this conversation will give you a front-row look at what’s possible.
-
At a time when financial sustainability is under pressure due to workforce shortages and volatile supply chains, automating AP with purpose-built solutions can make all the difference. Below, we break down three pain points that make healthcare AP so unique and why a dedicated tool is the best way forward.
-
In this episode of RPI Tech Connect, XM Consultant Rich Mitchell highlights the roadblocks that keep governments, universities, and other publicly funded institutions from modernizing, and how digital solutions can help.
-
These takeaways offer an actionable path forward for organizations eager to strengthen their supply chain and make the most of their ERP investments. Below we explain each in greater detail.
-
Moving to the cloud is exciting, but it’s also a big lift. And the way you prepare shapes how successful the project will be. That’s the focus of this episode of RPI Tech Connect, where host Chris Arey sits down with Ken Foley, VP of the Infor Practice at RPI, to talk through the prep work that makes all the difference once a migration kicks off.
-
Successful ERP management isn’t just about getting through implementation or stabilization but rather about having the right ERP support services to ensure the system scales with your business and remains aligned with your goals and needs well after go-live.
-
Healthcare has no shortage of data—but using it to actually improve patient outcomes is another story. In this episode of RPI Tech Connect, John Lynn, founder of Healthcare IT Today, explains why better data governance is the missing link.
-
Implementing a cloud-based ERP is an involved process that typically spans 12 to 18 months in length. With that kind of timeline and a sizeable price tag, it pays to know exactly what to expect, common pitfalls to avoid, and how you can start preparing now. That’s why we created A Guide to CloudSuite Success: Steps for a Smooth ERP Implementation—to help organizations approach the arduous task with confidence, clarity, and excitement.
-
In this episode of RPI Tech Connect, host Chris Arey speaks with Rebecca Hielke from the University of Maryland Medical System and Donny Phillips of Vault Verify about how UMMS tackled a frustrating, time-consuming employment verification process, transforming it into an automated, efficient workflow with real-time visibility.
-
A well-planned testing strategy does more than catch technical issues. It ensures your new ERP applications function as intended, integrate smoothly across modules, and support your business processes. It also builds user confidence, encourages adoption, and provides a structured way to train new staff long after go-live.
-
Whether you’re planning an ERP cloud migration or simply need a better way to manage ongoing updates, this conversation reveals how smart test management strategies—and tools like Dokimi—are transforming how organizations plan, execute, and evolve their ERP environments.
-
Whether you’re building income statements, balance sheets, or budget vs. actual reports, GL Report Designer has never been better. In this post, we’ll explore some of the latest updates to GL Report Designer, what they mean in practice, and how we’re leveraging them today with clients who rely on fast, accurate financial insights.
-
In this episode of RPI Tech Connect, longtime healthcare tech leader Brian Rosenberg joins the program to explore how AI and ERP systems—like Infor’s new Velocity platform and RPI’s own Yoga—are reshaping everything from patient scheduling to invoice processing.
-
Whether you’re implementing it for the first time or trying to get more from what’s already live, we’ve outlined five initiatives below to help you get more value from Infor TA, while laying the groundwork for long-term success.
-
You’ll hear about practical use cases, automation capabilities, and upcoming enhancements like browser-based dashboards and cloud file storage. If you’re looking to streamline your reporting in Infor, this episode is a must-listen.
-
In this post, we’ll take a closer look at the current reporting gaps across different business areas, solutions that can bridge them, and new Infor reporting advancements on the way.
-
Whether you’re navigating a CloudSuite rollout or just trying to manage your item master, this episode offers real solutions for building resiliency in your supply chain.
-
Join RPI Principal Technical Consultant Jeremy Stoltzfus as he discusses the biggest takeaways from this year’s Infor Connect conference in Dallas. From deep dives into the Velocity Suite and the latest in reporting enhancements to improved user experience upgrades and GenAI applications for frontline workers—this episode covers it all.
-
The annual showing once again unveiled key developments made to the cloud-based ERP and allowed for meaningful collaboration between partners and customers. With an active ear to the community, Infor highlighted several important initiatives—some already available, others still on the horizon.
-
In this episode of RPI Tech Connect, host Chris Arey sits down with Myles Coates, Cloud Engineer and “solutions expert” on the Yoga team at RPI Consultants. Together, they discuss the overwhelming landscape of enterprise software and explore how Yoga Flexible Software is cutting through the noise with AI-driven, tailor-fit solutions.
-
In this post, we’ll explore where the challenges associated with standard AP functionality tend to surface, different types of solutions organizations should consider depending on their needs, and the value in choosing purpose-built tools like Yoga for FSM to close the gap entirely.
-
In this episode of RPI Tech Connect, Chris Arey and Richard Leigh Stout take a grounded look at Infor’s newly released Velocity Suite, what it actually is, what problems it aims to solve, and the type of value organizations can expect to experience with the new solution.
-
You’ve made the leap. After months (maybe even years!) of research, planning, and investment, your cloud ERP system is finally taking shape. The technology is solid, the strategy is sound, and the implementation partner is ready to roll. All sounds good, right? So why do so many ERP projects still miss the mark? Here’s the hard truth. ERP initiatives rarely fail because of the software. They fail because people don’t know how to use the new system.
-
In this episode of RPI Tech Connect, Melissa Olson, RPI’s Director of Infor HCM Solutions, returns to the pod for a candid conversation about one of the most important workforce transformations of our time: the shift from job titles to a skills-based economy.
-
ERP implementations are often met with high hopes and expectations. However, the road to a successful deployment is not without its challenges. In fact, 55-75% of ERP projects either fail completely, or simply don’t meet their intended objectives. In this article, we’ll cover four essential steps that will help you navigate the complexities of ERP implementation readiness, and lay the foundation for a smooth, successful project outcome.
-
Before you sign the contract or assign resources, there’s one thing every ERP project needs, a healthy dosage of due diligence. In this episode of RPI Tech Connect, we sit down with Senior Project Manager Laura Vela to break down the most common missteps organizations make when kicking off ERP initiatives, as well as five key steps on how to avoid them.
-
Hiring the right people can be expensive. Businesses spend on average $4,700 per hire, according to the Society of Human Resources (SHRM). And those costs can increase exponentially for executive level positions. With so much involved in the hiring process, it pays (or saves) to have an informed Talent Management system.
-
Managing hybrid project teams comes with unique challenges—but with the right strategies, you can optimize both on-site and remote collaboration for success. In this episode of RPI Tech Connect, Senior Project Manager Spencer Lefevre returns once again to discuss how to go about managing different teams to ensure ERP projects stay on track.
-
Spring is in the air, and with it comes Infor’s highly anticipated April Cumulative Update (CU) the first of two major releases this year packed with new features, enhancements, and quality-of-life improvements. For Infor CloudSuite users, these updates present a valuable opportunity to refine processes, boost efficiency, and take advantage of extended functionality. However, with so many changes rolled out at once, keeping up can feel overwhelming, especially for teams that may not have th.....
-
The objective of this survey is simple: to understand the overall Infor customer experience and gain a deeper understanding of areas of satisfaction as well as improvement. We believe that by conducting this survey each year, we foster a more engaged and informed community. After thorough analysis and collaboration to identify meaningful insights, we’re excited to present the top five takeaways for our Winter 2025 survey.
-
What’s the latest pulse on the Infor community? In this episode of RPI Tech Connect, RPI Partner Richard Leigh Stout breaks down the top five takeaways from our second annual State of Infor Community Survey. From increasing confidence in CloudSuite to the ongoing push for process optimization, reporting improvements, and the persistent training gap, we uncover what’s driving change in the Infor ecosystem.
-
Staying compliant with the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) Employer Mandate is essential to avoiding costly penalties, but how can organizations ensure they’re on the right track? With ACA reporting deadlines approaching for the 2024 tax year, now is the time to ensure you’re confident in your processes.
-
Service organizations face unique challenges when it comes to managing their operations, finances, and workforce. But those difficulties are just the tip of the iceberg.
-
In this episode of RPI Tech Connect, RPI’s Michaela Fallon and Infor’s Devin Sheppard break down the 2025 event landscape, from Infor’s marquee events—Connect, focused on the services industry, to Velocity, which spans all of Infor’s respective industries, including manufacturing, fashion, and distribution. They also highlight RPI-hosted events, including hands-on Bootcamps and interactive Lunch & Learns, designed to deliver real value.
-
In healthcare, inventory management isn’t just about tracking supplies. It’s about ensuring that the right materials are available at the right time so that clinical staff can focus on delivering patient care. It sounds simple on the surface, however, effective inventory management can be a challenge for hospitals and other medical system organizations, which typically operate large, complex supply chains. Overstocking and understocking can lead to unnecessary costs and supply shortages, ...
-
In this episode of RPI Tech Connect, Adam Luff, Infor’s VP of Healthcare Consulting, shares how ERP solutions are transforming healthcare beyond the back office. Join us to find why advanced ERP tools can enhance workflows, optimize staffing, and improve clinical efficiency to deliver better patient outcomes. From using AI to predict ER demand to training internal talent, we discuss real-world examples of ERP driving impactful change in healthcare. Plus, see how healthcare can improve the p.....
-
Migrating your legacy on-premise enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to the cloud is an exciting milestone for organizations looking to modernize their back-office operations. As you prepare to embark on the engagement, there are a number of things you can begin doing now ahead of the start date to ensure the project is successful.
-
The Season 2 debut of RPI Tech Connect kicks off with the highly anticipated annual predictions. RPI’s Managing Partner, Keith Wayland, shares last year’s forecasts and broader ERP trends, before unveiling his top three predictions for Infor ERP in 2025.
-
It's that time of year again! We invite you to help shape the future of the Infor community by participating in our annual State of the Infor Community Survey. Your insights are invaluable and the survey takes just a few minutes to complete. This year, we’re looking to uncover: Key experiences and challenges with Infor products The most beneficial features Opportunities for improvements and new ideas for future releases Feedback on community engagement and support As a thank-you, all.....
-
Upgrading your Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax), Hyland, or a similar software, offers your business a significant step toward enhancing its content process automation (CPA) workflows, while also ensuring that your systems are secure. Like most software upgrades, however, a transition like this one requires careful planning, clear communication, and active participation from both your team and any consulting partners.
-
Consulting and training may sound similar but they’re actually quite different, and knowing when to leverage each service can help shape your future state ERP and overall organizational success. In the latest episode of RPI Tech Connect, Principal Consultant Cailen Myers shares insights on how organizations can navigate the decision between consulting and training for ERP project success. Tune in as Cailen discusses the key differences, how to assess which approach is best for your needs, .....
-
In 2023, the IRS issued over $990 million in excise tax penalties, including those associated with the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) Employer Mandate. With 4980H(a) and (b) penalties even greater in 2024, the stakes are high for ensuring timely and accurate filing with the 14-year-old healthcare law. As 2025 approaches, now is the time for organizations to prepare for the ACA Employer Shared Responsibility Provisions, commonly known as the Employer Mandate. This portion of the law requires.....
-
The IV fluid shortage is putting healthcare supply chains to the test, challenging hospitals to adapt while maintaining patient care. In this episode of RPI Tech Connect, Principal Supply Chain Consultant Stephanie Marquez explores the causes of the shortage, its impact on healthcare operations, and how facilities are managing the crisis. Learn how Infor SCM tools like Inventory Intelligence enhance visibility and predictive ordering, along with proven strategies from RPI to help mitigate disrup...
-
As we approach 2025, organizations have an ever-growing selection of accounts payable (AP) invoice automation solutions to choose from. With Infor being the latest to offer a new tool, businesses are now faced with even more options for processing invoices and purchase orders than ever before. Infor’s latest solution combines Robotic Process Automation (RPA) with Optical Character Recognition (OCR), offering a familiar approach that, for organizations using Infor CloudSuite, may be more b.......
-
In the final installment of our Cloud Horizon series, RPI Tech Connect dives into the drivers pushing K-12 institutions toward cloud technology. Join us as we sit down with Bob St. Ledger from Infor and Rick Laneau from Hillsborough County Public Schools, an RPI client, to uncover firsthand the impact of cloud technology on the education sector. Hear directly from Rick about Hillsborough’s journey to the cloud and how this transformation is meeting their unique needs, from streamlining oper.....
-
So, your organization successfully implemented its enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Now, before performing Day 2 post-go live initiatives, it’s time to review what you’ve just completed and you can do just that by conducting a comprehensive post-implementation audit. The purpose of such an audit is simple: making sure the new ERP system is working as planned and delivering benefits as promised. This critical step can make or break your experience with the new software, so be sur...
-
The first-ever Infor Velocity Summit showcased cutting-edge tech innovations, from Generative AI to Infor Process Mining. Join host Chris Arey and RPI Principal Technical Consultant Jeremy Stoltzfus as they recap key highlights, explore the differences between Mongoose and Config Console, and share actionable insights for getting the most out of new technologies. Plus, find out how attending events like Velocity benefits RPI’s clients by keeping them ahead of the curve. Intere...
-
RPI Consultants recently attended the first-ever Infor Velocity Summit in Las Vegas, where we gained exclusive insights into the future of the cloud-based ERP provider. As an Infor Alliance CloudSuite Specialized partner, our mission is to deliver innovative solutions that maximize the value of our clients’ Infor ERP investments. Attending events like the Velocity Summit helps us stay ahead of key developments and future prioriti...
-
The public sector is made up of many distinctly different workforces, all with a unique set of challenges—ranging from handling complex employee schedules and roles to ensuring compliance with labor laws, union agreements, and overtime rules. In this episode of RPI Tech Connect, we’re taking a closer look at how Workforce Management (WFM) solutions can tackle these issues by streamlining scheduling, improving productivity, and enhancing employee engagement. Join RPI’s Senior WFM Directo...
-
It’s no secret that the healthcare industry has been experiencing challenges as of late. From staffing and retention issues, to increasing costs for medical procedures and prescription medicine, it’s created a unique situation for healthcare providers and hospital systems alike. So, it begs the question. How can organizations manage these growing supply chain challenges and in turn provide greater patient care as a result? Last week, RPI Consultants had the opportunity to attend the As...
-
When disaster strikes, is your organization ready to respond? In today’s episode of RPI Tech Connect, Senior Technical Consultant Siva Ramamurthy shares his insights into the world of disaster recovery (DR) planning. From unexpected hardware failures to cyberattacks, disasters can happen at any moment, and without a solid plan in place, the impact on your ERP and connected systems can be severe. Tune in to hear Siva’s real-life accounts of organizations that failed to prepare, learn how c...
-
Security is, and always has been, a crucial component for organizations that use an enterprise resource planning system (ERP) to manage their operations. This is because the ERP contains the very lifeblood of an organization: “the company’s intellectual property, as well as employee and customer personally identifiable information.” Fortunately, the most common ERP security problems can be dealt with by following best practices. First, let’s take a look at the top eight risks to...
-
In this episode of RPI Tech Connect, part two of our Cloud Horizons series, we explore the unique challenges facing water utilities today. Joined by Infor public sector experts Bob St. Ledger and Bob Benstead, we discuss how cloud technology is addressing issues such as aging infrastructure, cybersecurity risks, and workforce shortages. This segment highlights the need for infrastructure investment and navigating high costs, while also emphasizing compliance with regulations like California
-
Open enrollment 2025 is coming soon. That means it’s almost time for your employees to review their benefit options and make elections for the upcoming plan year. These benefits include their medical, dental, and vision insurance; flexible spending accounts (FSAs); life and disability insurance; and more. Open enrollment is usually a 30-day period, during which employees can evaluate their current benefits, compare the plan options offered by your organization, and choose the benefits th.....
-
In this episode of RPI Tech Connect, we’re exploring the strengthened partnership between RPI Consultants and Hyland, a leader in content process automation. Joined by Chad Tucker, RPI’s CPA Practice Director, and Eric Miller, Hyland’s Associate Vice President of Sales, the discussion delves into the significance of this alliance and its impact on the Infor community and aboard. Listeners will gain insights into recent advancements in AI and learn how to maximize the value of their cont...
-
It’s generally known that enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems provide a wide variety of benefits to private sector companies, their employees, and their customers. However, the right ERP system can also do wonders for public sector entities, like local governments, and their constituencies. Today, local governments face a growing demand for the transparency around process, in addition to managing disparate data and systems, communication disconnects among departments, operational .....
-
It’s a common challenge many organizations face when implementing new ERP software: how to balance the heavy lift of developing a future-state system while keeping day-to-day operations running smoothly. On this episode of RPI Tech Connect, we’re joined by RPI Senior Project Manager Spencer Lefevre, who shares his insights on how to balance operations and ERP project development. With an extensive background in IT and project management, Spencer discusses the complexities involved in new ...
-
Whether your organization is implementing an entire enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, or just adding individual applications, there’s one person you need on your side. That’s the client-side project manager (PM) The client-side PM is a vital contributor, no matter the size and scope of your project. This role represents the client’s interests; ensures directives and priorities are kept in focus; works closely with the project team to drive work forward; and facilitates communic...
-
There’s been a critical shift in local government to embrace cloud technology. But the change in mindset didn’t happen overnight. In this episode of RPI Tech Connect, Infor’s Senior Director, Public Sector Strategist Robert St. Ledger, and Director of Public Sector Planning Bob Benstead discuss the happenings of city and county governments, the imperative to prioritize community needs, and the reasons behind the move to modern cloud infrastructure. Listen in to discover the benefits of ...
-
It’s no secret that ERP project delays can cost your company valuable time and money. But what if you could get ahead of the reasons causing such delays? In this post, we’ll take a look at some of the top causes of ERP project delays. We’ll also discuss proven ways to pre-plan for, and avoid, factors that can contribute to slowing down the implementation process. Put another way, the most cost-effective and efficient way to make sure your ERP implementation succeeds is to get it righ...
-
In this episode of RPI Tech Connect, we explore how healthcare workforces are tackling current challenges with the help of solutions like Infor Workforce Management (WFM). Join us for a discussion focused on exploring why issues of labor shortages and burnout are affecting healthcare. Plus, learn how tools like Infor Shift Bidding and Self-Scheduling can preserve and strengthen healthcare workforces. Joined by special guests Brianna Zink, Sr. Director of WFM Product Strategy at Infor, and Max...
-
Given the role enterprise resource planning systems (ERPs) play in helping organizations run their business, it’s safe to say they’re incredibly important. But what happens when something beyond your control goes wrong? This is where the necessity of a disaster recovery plan comes into play. So, if your Lawson ERP is hosted on-premise or by a non-Infor provider, you need a disaster recovery plan in place. In this post, we’ll explain the significance of a disaster recovery plan, how t...
-
On this segment of RPI Tech Connect, we’re exploring supply chain management (SCM) best practices for cloud migration as Infor’s 2030 on-premise support cut-off approaches. Today’s guest, Stephanie Marquez, Principal SCM Consultant at RPI, shares insights on the importance of pre-planning, key SCM initiatives to prepare for the transition, and the value of process optimization and data standardization.
-
So, you’ve decided to migrate your enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to the cloud in an effort to run your business more effectively. In doing your research, you’ve come to understand that this upgrade will support time- and money-saving automation in finance, HR, procurement, supply chain, workforce management, and more. Nice going! But now you have a crucial choice to make—one that’s just as important as which ERP software you decide on for your company.
-
In this episode of RPI Tech Connect, RPI Partner Stephanie Kowal shares the major highlights from Infor Connect 2024. The conference, known for its focus on innovation and connectivity, provided details regarding several key trends and updates, including the transformative role of AI in ERPs, emphasizing user needs, streamlining end-to-end processing, and the importance of connection.
-
RPI Consultants had the pleasure of attending the Infor Connect 2024 conference in St. Paul, Minnesota late last month. Infor, a leading cloud-based ERP provider shared many exciting developments and updates throughout the week, and we thought it best to identify our top takeaways from the 2024 event here. Regardless of whether you were able to attend, we’re covering everything you need to know to stay up-to-speed with Infor and its product roadmap. Read on to find out our top four insig.....
-
Cooper Health, a renowned healthcare provider in Camden, New Jersey, faced significant challenges with its outdated accounts payable (AP) system. The legacy software was inefficient, lacked visibility, and was difficult for users to navigate. With over 10,000 employees, Cooper Health needed a modern, scalable solution to streamline its AP processes and reduce costs. To complicate the situation, Cooper was in the middle of transitioning from on-premise to CloudSuite ERP, so the modern AP sol.....
-
So, your organization has gone live on the cloud. Congrats! Welcome to the critical phase post-cloud ERP implementation, known as “Day 2.” While going live on the cloud definitely requires celebration, it’s also a time to reassess your systems and identify opportunities for improvement. In this episode of RPI Tech Connect, we’re joined by Program Manager Brian Luttrell. Brian sheds light on the significance of this phase, emphasizing the need for ongoing optimization and continuous im...
-
RPI Consultants, a leading ERP implementation, optimization, and software firm recently expanded its Yoga for FSM product to include Vendor Portal, a self-service platform that allows organizations and their suppliers to seamlessly exchange vital payment information. Yoga Vendor Portal provides businesses and their affiliated vendors with the ability to communicate, as well as view invoice statuses, company profile details, and more. The new addition to Yoga for FSM also includes a notificati...
-
Organizations are increasingly evaluating when to migrate to Infor CloudSuite. Savvy employers keen on ensuring a successful implementation should take a proactive approach as the project is no easy undertaking. In fact, according to the 2021 Gartner ERP, Procurement, HCM, and Financial Survey, 42% of respondents say they “struggle with Cloud ERP strategies because of their inability to cover the complexity of functional business needs.” That same report also finds that nearly 70% of resp...
-
In this episode of RPI Tech Connect, we explore the critical role of employee engagement, a topic gaining traction across organizations large and small. Melissa Olson, RPI Director of Infor Solutions shares what it takes to foster a thriving workforce environment. Kicking off with an exploration into the shifting dynamics that have catapulted employee engagement to the forefront of organizational priorities, Melissa sheds light on industry-specific challenges and the imperative for companies ...
-
The process of requisitioning, purchasing, receiving, paying for, and accounting for goods and services received by your organization is known as procure to pay, or P2P. Traditionally, P2P has been a laborious manual process. Now, however, organizations are recognizing the importance of optimizing, and automating P2P processes. Here’s the proof—according to a recent Research and Markets report, the procure to pay outsourcing market is forecasted to reach $10.13 billion by 2028. That’...
-
ERP implementations are technical in nature, but because of how disruptive they are for business users, they’re also people projects. To help organizations manage the people-side of ERPs, we’re diving into the crucial world of change management. In this episode of RPI Tech Connect, join RPI’s Sarah Concannon and Daniel Jenab for an exploration of what change management entails and why it holds such significance in determining ERP project success. Daniel and Sarah share real-world storie...
-
It’s true that a CloudSuite implementation is an IT-based project—but beyond the technical aspects and requirements of migrating to a cloud-based ERP, it’s also a people project. With that in mind, organizations looking to reap the many benefits of moving to CloudSuite, including cost savings, increased security, and greater process efficiency, must anticipate and address the human factors that drive success. The scope and volume of the changes brought about by an ERP migration or im...
-
Dive into the world of training with RPI Tech Connect. Join host Chris Arey and RPI’s Principal Technical Consultant Jeremy Stoltzfus as they explore the role of hands-on learning in today’s rapidly evolving tech landscape. Discover firsthand accounts of organizations struggling without proper training, and the business improvements they experienced as a result of subsequent coaching. From Bootcamps to virtual workshops and user groups, find out why staying ahead of the curve is more cruc...
-
It’s no secret that in recent years, pay equity has become an increasing focal point for organizations. Demands for companies to offer fair and competitive salaries, and to be transparent about them, are increasing, as are penalties for non-compliance. In 2024, women earn roughly 84 cents for every dollar that a man earns, according to Forbes, which is a stark reminder that gender equality still has a ways to go. In fact, according to Pew Research, the gender wage gap has barely closed.....
-
Compensation has historically been difficult to talk about, and in many ways still is. In 2024, HR practitioners and comp professionals are yet again faced with challenges in navigating pay at work. From salary range disclosures in job listings to personalized compensation packages, it’s an evolving landscape. In this episode of RPI Tech Connect, we break the taboo around compensation, focusing on building confidence and embracing change. Joined by seasoned experts, Melissa Olson, Director .....
-
You’ve successfully launched on CloudSuite—congratulations! Now what? It’s a question often pushed aside until after the excitement of go-live settles. Understandably too, as your focus has been on getting everything ready for the big switch. But now that you’re live, it’s time to shift gears and think about what comes next. In this post, we’ll explore what organizations can expect post go-live and how the time after can best be utilized to enhance the system performance while ...
-
The world of accounts payable (AP) automation is dynamic. And the evolution of financial processes over the last several years has been incredible. But are organizations taking advantage of all that a modern AP solution has to offer? Join experts Sherri Nettles and Mason Auch, as they explain the transformative journey of AP automation, from its manual roots a decade ago, to the cutting-edge solutions available today. Mason sheds light on the enhancements and quality-of-life improvements that...
-
Last June, Infor announced that Portal, its new application interface, would be rolled out to new CloudSuite customers. Those customers who were previously on CloudSuite or Lawson have until Tuesday, April 30, 2024 to transition from the present interface (ming.le) to Portal. If you’re among the latter, there’s only a month left before the required switch. Are you ready? In any case, RPI Consultants can help. In this post, we’ll take a look at what’s new in the Infor OS Portal, exp...
-
In this episode, Max Fisk walks us through the current healthcare scheduling challenges and the industry’s renewed focus on retention. To help organizations create a sense of belonging and empowerment for their teams, Max offers Infor’s Multi-View Scheduler (MVS) as a potential solution. Max, a well-known name in the WFM space, explains how MVS has evolved and emphasizes the importance of mastering the application’s functionality by first understanding all that it can do. Tune in to ...
-
In today’s evolving business landscape, having the right ERP solution can make all the difference. Infor CloudSuite is a popular choice among healthcare and public sector organizations. This is largely due to its ability to assist with streamlining industry-specific operations, but also because of its compliance, scalability, and mobility options.
-
In this episode of RPI Tech Connect, we explore key insights collected from our annual State of The Infor Community Survey. Joined by industry leader and RPI Partner, Mr. Richard Leigh Stout, this episode explores customers’ experience across Infor, such as reporting challenges, cloud migration plans, and the state of the Infor Workforce Management (WFM) market. Based off survey data collected between December 2023 and January 2024, and aimed at gauging user sentiment across the Infor/Lawso.....
-
Over the last month, RPI Consultants conducted an extensive survey gauging the overall attitudes and experience of professionals using Infor ERP systems. The State of Infor Community Survey asked a series of questions, including which Infor systems users deploy, their cloud-migration plans, and where Infor can improve its services and applications the most. Our goal with this survey was to better understand the Infor customer experience so that we in turn can build a stronger, more respons...
-
New year, new events. In this episode, we’re joined by RPI’s Regional Sales Director, Chris Lang, and Director of Marketing, Michaela Fallon, for a discussion about where members of the Infor community should invest their time in 2024. From Infor Connect to regional users groups and virtual trainings, Chris and Michaela will explain how to choose the right events to maximize value for your team. Tune in to find out what goals to set for when it comes event planning in 2024.
-
Now that it’s 2024, it should come as no surprise that many businesses are putting the power of an Automated Clearing House (ACH) for accounts payable (AP) to work. In fact, a recent survey from the Association for Financial Professionals finds that 73% of organizations are transitioning from paper checks to electronic payments, which can assist a great deal in helping organizations clear an AP check.
-
In this episode of RPI Tech Connect, Principal HCM Consultant Matt Slazak, walks us through the ins-and-outs of complying with the Affordable Care Act’s Employer Mandate. Even though the reporting portion of the law turns 10 this year, organizations continue to struggle. Matt shares first-hand experience in helping organizations meet the requirements and offers steps HR practitioners can take today to ensure compliance with the healthcare law.
-
So, your organization is ready to implement an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. How do you set your team, and your entire company, up for success? First things first: you need a thoughtfully crafted implementation plan. Because whomever said, “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail,” might have been speaking with ERP implementations in mind. If you don’t set the direction, structure, and scope up front, you’re asking for issues down the road. Fortunately, following these s...
-
In the pilot episode of RPI Tech Connect, RPI Consultants’ Managing Partner Keith Wayland, shares his Infor ERP predictions for 2024 and beyond. As an industry expert, Keith analyzes the events that transpired over the last 10 years to get to where we are today. As a final value-add, Keith offers the audience sound advice for staying ahead of Infor development. Join us as we explore past developments and the impact they’ll have for members of the Infor community going forward.
-
With the end of the year approaching quickly, organizations must turn their attention to the reporting and furnishing requirements of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) Employer Shared Responsibility Provisions, commonly referred to as the Employer Mandate. As we dive into the nitty-gritty of the ACA Employer Mandate in this post, know that we’re all in this together. We understand the anxiety and confusion that can accompany these regulations. RPI Consultants is here to help you navigate th...
-
Thinking about migrating your on-premise ERP systems to the cloud? You’re not alone. In fact, according to one survey, 44% of organizations are adopting the latest cloud products as soon as they’re available. Interestingly, though, some companies are delaying the migration for various reasons; another survey finds organizations “placing mission-critical workloads into the public cloud dropped from 74% in 2019 to 63% in 2022.” Those within the Infor commu...
-
Infor recently rolled out a series of product and application developments as part of its bi-annual release schedule and the GL Report Designer has once again taken center stage in the world of finance. The news shouldn’t come as a surprise as Infor announced at the 2023 Connect conference that it would be moving to a more succinct, feature functionality schedule so that customers could have more time to explore and implement new capabilities. And Infor’s October release ensured that G...
-
A flexible cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, Infor CloudSuite provides employers with a variety of options with regard to deployment and organizational system needs. Because Infor CloudSuite lives on the cloud, it offers unmatched scalability, security, and affordability. But those benefits are just the tip of the iceberg. In this post, we’ll discuss everything there is to know about Infor CloudSuite and the value it offers organizations in the modern-day workplace.
-
Over 80% of healthcare industry executives believe that acquiring and retaining talent is the biggest risk their companies face. In fact, the hospital turnover rate stands at 22.7%. So, what’s driving this talent crisis? According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, clinicians are leaving their jobs “because they have burned out, stressed out or aged out of the profession.” The Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM) notes that challenges related to acquiring talent include a lack of qualif...
-
BALTIMORE – October 11, 2023 – RPI Consultants, a leading ERP implementation, optimization, and software firm, was recently named in Modern Healthcare’s Best Places to Work list for the third consecutive year. The prestigious award demonstrates RPI’s commitment to providing the healthcare sector with leading consulting services, as well as to creating an inclusive, empowered environment for its workforce. Modern Healthcare, a well-established and respected publisher, collaborated with...
-
Many organizations struggle to control how contracts are created, managed, and monitored. In fact, poor contract management practices lead the average company to lose 9% of annual revenue. Issues can range from not knowing which items are on contract, to what vendors are being used, or even if suppliers are charging the correct prices. The challenge with contract management stems from the fact that administrators often can’t control who’s generating contracts, where contracts are stored, ...
-
Employee expenses are unavoidable in the workplace. Whether it be for travel, software, lodging, client visits, or something else, expenses are a fundamental component of every organization’s cash flow. But what happens when expenses get out of hand? It can become a nightmare for finance and accounting teams. Without proper expense management, organizations can experience a multitude of challenges. In this post, we’ll explore what expense management involves; what the challenges and be...
-
Flexible work schedules are key to increased job satisfaction, and that’s especially true in the healthcare industry. To elevate patient care while optimizing labor costs, what’s needed is a way to more efficiently manage employee hours while also better forecasting for future workforce requirements. That’s why savvy healthcare organizations are turning to software tools like Infor’s Multi-View Scheduler (MVS) to optimize workforce management. Effectively implementing ...
-
If your organization is considering making changes to its ERP system, it’s critical that you create a reports, interfaces, conversions, and enhancements (RICE) inventory before beginning. What exactly is a RICE inventory and why do you need to create one? In this post we explore the requirements needed, how to prioritize items identified as part of the exercise, and why it’s in your organization’s best interest to design one ahead of any ERP adjustments.
-
BALTIMORE – August 15, 2023 – RPI Consultants, a leading ERP implementation, optimization, and software firm recently expanded its Infor® Workforce Management (WFM) practice to include full-service delivery solutions. RPI, an Infor Premier Alliance partner, is further developing the practice to holistically serve its clients’ needs across the Infor product line. To lead the initiative, RPI welcomed Randy Ellsworth, an accomplished consulting prof...
-
“Dirty” or faulty data is bad news for business. In fact, Gartner research found that poor data quality costs businesses an average of $12.9 million a year. An earlier survey found that 60% of businesses don’t even measure the annual cost of poor quality data. If you believe you don’t have any dirty data, you probably haven’t found it yet. Data quality is especially important during an ERP implementation. But there’s more to it than cost...
-
Managing accounts payable (AP) processes can be a daunting task for any business, especially when those processes rely on manual data entry. But with the rise of software as a service (SaaS), AP automation has become easier and more accessible than ever. Accounts payable tools automate the capture, validation, and processing of your invoices to increase ROI, reduce manual effort, free up cash flow, and streamline your business processes. One of the main advantages of a SaaS solut...
-
BALTIMORE – July 18, 2023 – RPI Consultants, a leading enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation, optimization, and software firm recently expanded the capabilities of its core SaaS solution, Yoga Flexible Software. Now leveraging advanced AI from Microsoft and OpenAI, the cloud-based platform offers enhanced functionality for finance and supply chain management (FSM), human capital management (HCM), and ERP application integrations.
-
It’s true that Infor CloudSuite hosts a number of invaluable benefits for organizations large and small. Some businesses, however, may feel that they aren’t ready to migrate their on–premise systems to the cloud. With Infor having recently extended the deadline for sunsetting on-premise Lawson systems to 2030, the choice to move has likely left many businesses immediate purview.
-
RPI Consultants had the pleasure of attending the annual Infor Connect conference in St. Paul, Minnesota this year. As expected, the industry-leading cloud-based ERP provider shared many updates that will offer enhanced value and functionality to customers for years to come.
-
NEW YORK AND BALTIMORE – June 20, 2023 – Infor®, the industry cloud company, and RPI Consultants, an ERP implementation and optimization firm focused on delivering best practices through technology, systems integration, and process redesign, have teamed up to successfully implement new business process software for the Town of Apex, North Carolina.
-
In April, Infor made available the GL Report Designer for financial use cases, laying the foundation for advanced reporting capabilities for years to come. The release arrives at a good time too, as we’ve heard from clients and prospects alike that there has been an operational reporting gap for finance and accounting. The launch of this tool demonstrates Infor’s commitment to better serving their customers while also empowering their partners to do the same. So, what exactly i...
-
Organizations are often of the mindset, “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.” And while this is true in many situations, there is much to gain from proactively enhancing your office’s back-end infrastructure. Businesses looking to improve productivity, reduce costs, and execute with greater efficiency can do so by phasing out their on-premise resource systems and migrating to Infor’s CloudSuite. Before understanding the benefits of cloud-based systems, how...
-
Organizations using CloudSuite can up-level their business intelligence using the many Infor reporting and analytics tools. Whether you need real-time metrics on your supply chain operations, or a report on the previous month’s capital expenditures, Infor has a wealth of options for generating the insights you need. And with the latest edition of Birst, organizations can take their business intelligence a step further with visualizations that easily convey data trends and patterns—but mor...
-
When it comes to Yoga Content, everything is modern, from the interface to the Azure platform. Azure benefits from the significant investment Microsoft has made to bolster its AI and machine learning capabilities, and especially its natural language processing capabilities. These language processing concepts have been prevalent in OCR systems for years, so it’s a big win to see the Azure platform make these advances.
-
If you are looking for an API automation solution, you’ll know there are a ton on the market. This is mostly due to a lack of a single e-invoicing solution, which EDI has been attempting to fix for a long time (with moderate success). EDI is prevalent at a lot of organizations we work with, but it still leaves much to be desired.
-
Let’s take a moment to elaborate on the importance of vendor portals to the AP and procure-to-pay process. In short, they are extremely important, not only for onboarding vendor purchasing information and enabling vendors to interact with payments, but also because the efficiency they provide helps your accounts payable department ensure everyone is getting paid on time, which oftentimes carries the added benefit of on-time payment discounts. Especially for large organizations, this can be a h.....
-
Let's talk about data migration. Infor does offer data migration services where they take information from single-tenant Cloud to move it to the multi-tenant. They take information from your ERP system, and if your payroll application is on a third party system that is not a loss in system, that will also be migrated from loss in S3.
-
Invoice approvals are something that we've worked on with many organizations over the last two decades. When I started at RPI, helping with the shared services and accounts payable department consolidations within the industry was a big part of the work that I did, so I'd like to explain more about this process.
-
Vendors and how they are onboarded are an interesting topic for our ongoing procure-to-pay discussion. For many organizations, accounts payable departments fall under finance in supply chain, while purchasing falls under materials management. One commonality between these two is the vendors used and how they are onboarded. Sometimes, this depends on which industry you're operating in. For example, if you are a government agency it is likely that you must undertake different types of checks for v...
-
We recently covered how you can enhance the Infor process with Yoga Content. Another guest under RPI’s procure-to-pay umbrella is our vendor portal solution made specifically for EDI image generation. EDI is a great way to handle high volumes of both purchase orders and invoices, but with many solutions it can be difficult to figure out what happened to any given record if something goes wrong.
-
Recently, we discussed why it is so important to choose the right super users for a GHR Payroll implementation. These are the people who should be involved in design meetings from the beginning of the project. Doing this ensures that everyone is on the same page and that there are no surprises once we get to parallel testing the supervisor structure. If you're using a time to tenant system, something to keep in mind is to make sure that the supervisor structure is accurate for time approvals. Th...
-
Let's talk about the technical backend and types of CloudSuite implementations. Some organizations are hesitant about a move to the cloud because they aren't in control of the underlying hardware or data center that they’re running. It feels like there's a bit of a risk in not managing and owning all the infrastructure. However, there's a false sense of security that can come with this attitude, because even organizations that have invested in a robust disaster recovery plans have discovered .....
-
Our main goal with Yoga Content is ensuring our product offerings are synergizing together and serve more than one purpose. It's not just an AP automation tool with OCR invoicing because we expanded to provide the entire procure to pay and bring in automation steps throughout that entire process. All of this complements the Infor solution – we're not trying to redesign anything that tool is doing, but there are additional areas that we can enhance to help make sure the Infor process is efficie.....
-
During CloudSuite implementations in the past, several clients have asked us to bring all of their historical data over to the new system. Obviously this is possible, but it's definitely not our recommended best practice. You can bring as much data as you want, whether the cost/benefit makes sense. If you bring over every piece of data from your old system just in case of a potential reference someday, then you’re just muddying up the reporting waters. We always have this conversation as part .....
-
When it comes to AP automation solutions, there are a variety of options available to choose from. Some of these are cloud-hosted software, which is not necessarily the same as cloud-native, and requires additional administration that your organization may not have expertise in. A lot of these applications were written for client server-based architecture, meaning that larger software companies are basically hosting their legacy systems in the cloud, which is not ideal.
-
Last week, we discussed the importance of identifying the scope and timeline roadmap for your organization by conducting a pre-planning exercise. The same careful attention should be applied to any customizations, as well as any big-ticket reporting or analytics needs that are mission critical. Hopefully, these will be out-of-the-box from CloudSuite, but you want to understand the implications if you're going to need to work through them during the project.
-
Last week, we covered what a managed services contract with RPI looks like from perspective of a longtime client. Now, let’s discuss what this contract might look like for a large healthcare organization who is also relatively new to us. Our team initially preformed a large-scale accounts payable redesign by leveraging Lawson v10, Perceptive Content, Brainware, and Yoga Flexible Software, forming a very complex and robust solution.
-
For an organization going through a GHR payroll implementation, ensuring the right people are at the table doing the work is so crucial to the success of their project. Their hands-on involvement will help you immensely during the design phase since they are familiar with the pain points and might have an idea about improving your daily business processes. Aside from having enough resources involved and making decisions, they need to have the capacity to take on what is required of them for the ...
-
Defining the business case for your organization to move onto a cloud based ERP system is not easy. The first thing you need to realize is that this type of project isn't driven solely by IT - all business areas that will be impacted by this project should have a seat at the table. This is when you start talking about where does Lawson (or your current system) meet your needs, and where does it fall short? Are there any outstanding pain points with the business applications that are in place tod...
-
A staple of the Infor user community is back again! Join RPI this December 6th-9th for a complete slate of fresh Infor webinars.
-
Recently, we discussed what a managed services contract with RPI looks like for a client who needs on-demand Perceptive Content and Brainware support. In addition to creating Learnsets, for this client our team also made enhancements to the line matching functionality within Brainware. This allows them to easily read important invoice details such as PO number, company name and address, but also automatically matches the lines of each PO, reducing clicks and manual work, overall.
-
How exactly does one make the business case for implementing the new GHR payroll solution? The first step is knowing exactly what this project entails, such as ensuring you have the right budget, understanding the requirements of a payroll implementation, what resources you will need, as well as a typical project timeline. An important question to consider is why hasn't your organization made this move yet? If there are decision makers listening to the business case, you should be prepared to ma...
-
Last week, we covered how to handle different kinds of data ahead of a conversion. Data conversions for CloudSuite are an extremely complex process and it's important to know what you can do to improve this process. One of the main reasons they are so complicated is because data is structured differently in the cloud than it is in legacy systems. CloudSuite has a lot of data integrity rules in place to ensure that business objects are complete, accurate, and can relate to the master data and oth...
-
One of the main advantages of a SaaS solution is that it’s managed, which frees your team from worrying about anything software-related, allowing you to focus on your organization’s core business objectives. Unfortunately, many enterprise solutions are limited in terms of which fields or master data you can bring into the system. This gap is where RPI’s Yoga Content solution really shines, as it is customizable to your needs and extremely flexible.
-
We’ve discussed a lot about implementing GHR Multi-Tenant Payroll on this blog, so let’s dive into some of the specifics of the system. Payroll History Import is a business class delivered by Infor that allows you to bring S3 data over to GHR. This means you still have access to historical data and the ability to review payroll, the pay employee paychecks, and other kinds of details in GHR, instead of having to access S3 data. As we have said many times before, you should limit what you brin...
-
The conversion scope and strategy that we decide on during a pre-planning engagement has a pretty big impact on the structure of the overall transition project, as does the work effort and direct cost for this implementation. Let's discuss how and what we focus on during this important phase in the pre-planning project, as well as what it means for your overall implementation.
-
We’re going to transition away from our managed services blog series for a couple weeks to discuss our Yoga Flexible Software Suite of products, why RPI Consultants decided to develop it, and what it can do for you. Yoga Connect is where this story begins, a handy piece of software formerly known as Lawson Com Object, developed by RPI Partner Richard Stout. All of our Yoga products stem from two decades of experience in software and management consulting.
-
Over the past two months, we've been discussing some of the exciting new features of Infor's Web UI Configuration Console. Our focus in recent weeks has been on how the system handles snapshot creation & validation and enables users to effectively manage changes throughout the process. When there are multiple developers working on several different things simultaneously in the same development environment, the change management tool is invaluable when it comes to keeping everything organized and...
-
What should you expect if you have a managed services contract with RPI? To start, we utilize an easy-to-use ticketing system to report and track issues. For example, one of our clients audits our changes to their production environment on a yearly basis. The reporting we provide makes this process easy - as simple as sending an email to your custom ticketing email address provided by your RPI project manager.
-
Now that we've covered why implementing GHR Payroll is different than previous versions, let's discuss defining your project team and what their responsibilities should be. Make it a priority to ensure that the functional team lead can be fully dedicated throughout the lifecycle of the project. This is not a situation where someone can only dedicate a few extra hours a week to design your new payroll system. Instead, you need to backfill & have someone handle their usual duties so that they aren...
-
Last week, we discussed how to create a snapshot of tagged items within Configuration Console. This action is similar to a CD import or import configurations utility. Once it comes up, you specify the file name and the system will pull it into a list of imported snapshots. This allows you to see a partial list of all the snapshots that are currently imported, but have not been applied yet. Each time you apply a snapshot to a configuration, they disappear from this list, which helps manage upcomi...
-
Last week, we explained how RPI’s managed services offerings can be customized by Support Tiers. When it comes to the systems we support, the most common applications our clients contract with us for are Perceptive Content, Brainware, OnBase by Hyland, Kofax solutions, and Infor CloudSuite, in addition to legacy Lawson solutions, and many others. Please reach out to us if you are wondering whether we can support your system with managed services!
-
If there is one takeaway you have from our CloudSuite HCM blog, it's not to wait until S3 is decommissioned to begin preparing for the upgrade to v11. So that you understand the level of effort required, let's use a basic company structure as an example of what a migration project looks like. Let's say the migration is for GHR Payroll with Absence Management (AM) for roughly 8,000 employees at a 43-week timeline. You could potentially cut some of that time out if AM is not being implemented alon...
-
For the past few weeks, we have been discussing how to manage tags within the Web UI Configuration Console. Once you have them in their appropriate bundles, the next step is creating that snapshot. A “create snapshot” link should appear on the bundle screen, which will bring up another screen when you click it. This is where you give it a specific name (we recommend including date and time) that will make it easy to locate among everything else.
-
Last week, we discussed how RPI empowers clients through custom managed services agreements. These can be modified in a variety of ways, including varying Support Tiers based on your needs, ranking from Tier 1 (basic help desk support) through Tier 3 (custom development, coding, proactive monitoring, and maintenance). Each tier can be adjusted or further customized to what works best for your organization. These agreements are available for any of the enterprise software solutions RPI specialize...
-
Last week, we discussed the fact that a cloud migration is not an upgrade, but rather a reimplementation. If you treat it as a straight push to the next version, you're going to miss out on functionalities that could be very beneficial for your organization. Framing this as a reimplementation means understanding that although it's the same vendor, same products, and same product line, the capabilities are totally different and require a more intense level of effort that just an upgrade.
-
Last week, we discussed how to create the business case for GHR Payroll. One of the most important questions to answer is when do you think you can implement it? Once you're on GHR, you can start looking at a go-live date. We recommend January 1 - it's the cleanest way to do payroll and payroll history, year to date payroll, and a W2 all in one system. Once a go-live date has been set, then you have to decide when you will decommission S3.
-
Last week, we covered how bundling tags makes it easy to keep configurations organized. These are easy to make changes to if necessary, but keeping up with those changes and how they impact the configuration can be overwhelming. With the Web UI Configuration Console, you can manage changes with your tags, update them, or tag other things as go without losing track of anything. Once you've gone through the import process, you can come here and see what's changed with a specific tag. The configura...
-
Now that we’ve covered the flexibility of a managed services agreement, let’s discuss how it can be customized. This boils down to how much assistance is estimated to be needed, which type(s) of assistance are needed, and which combination of resources are the best fit, depending on the systems and solutions in place. It is of the utmost importance that consultants with appropriate skills and knowledge levels are involved and actively working on client teams as a seamless addition.
-
When it comes to the Infor solution perspective for Essentials, there are certain things you'll want to take advantage of, or at the very least consider implementing in the financial component of the system.
-
You know what the end game is when it comes to migrating your payroll processes to the cloud, but sometimes it can be hard to articulate the reasons for such a massive undertaking. Is it going to save you hours a week because you'll be able to optimize your processes? No, but it's an opportunity to re-examine everything that was built decades ago through the lens of your current team. This will allow you to figure out what you need to support payroll based on where your organization is today.
-
When you're in Configuration Console working on a particular item, sometimes you may have have two user fields, a list view, and a form all together. All of those components (or however many components make up one development item) can be grouped together with the same tag. When we're looking at bundles then, it's basically a collection of tags - a tag is a collection of configurations, and a bundle is a collection of those tags. This becomes useful when it comes time to deploy or release these ...
-
Last week, we introduced some of the different ways managed services could potentially help your organization. Although we won’t go over everything that you could get out of managed services, it’s worth repeating that you get what you want out of it – the scope of your contract is totally up to you. Whatever your specific needs are, we will make sure to address them.
-
When it comes to ERP implementations, we've seen organizations struggle with more than anything is the whole change management piece. It is human nature to be resistant to change - even people who work in the software industry still complain when Microsoft Office changes the menu ribbon. Back to ERP, these are very complex systems, and sometimes the changes you need to make are non-trivial. You're basically doing something fundamentally different, especially if a customer is coming off a long ti...
-
Last week, we discussed some of the pros & cons of GHR Payroll. One of the biggest benefits of Infor's multi-tenant cloud is that the cost of software, hardware, and databases is shared across multiple organizations. It's very secure and each set is isolated from everything else, so it's not just a big soup of data in there. The only problem you might run into is not having access to the data right when you want it. Since other organizations also store their data on there, it has to be moved out...
-
Last week, we discussed how much easier it is to manage changes in the Web UI Configuration Console. Since everything is in one environment, all of the configurations are in one place and can easily be moved into a test or production environment using the Configuration Export. This feature works as an all or nothing type of thing, meaning that it basically dumps everything out when you run it, but you can also go through and piecemeal things. The easiest way to upload configurations is as that b...
-
Lately, we’ve been discussing what is not managed services, so now let’s take a moment to dive into what it is and what it can do for you. Ultimately, it’s up to you in terms of how you want to approach your managed services contract. One of the biggest features of our managed services offering here at RPI Consultants is on-demand support. Not only does this guarantee that you know who to contact for issues, but also eliminates scope concerns and the need to contact multiple vendors if you...
-
We spoke last week about ensuring your critical business processes are not interrupted during an ERP implementation. That is information we make clear to our clients by providing a staffing plan that for both our resources and their resources. We break this down by phase, position, and role so they have that visibility of who will be needed and how much will be needed, so they are prepared for the staffing replacement model that works best for their organization. This is critical to success with...
-
Since we've covered the reasons you should care about GHR Payroll, let's discuss some pros & cons. If you're on-premises today (which a lot of people are), then you own the hardware, the software, and the database. The good thing about this is if there's any kind of processing speed issues or you need to add more resources for the system to work better, then you have control over that. The flip side of that is if there's any issues, you need to buy new hardware and license the software yourself....
-
Let’s continue our discussion around the functionalities of the Web UI Configuration Console. It used to be that if you wanted to look at the LPL for a business class in Rich Client, you had to actually create either a personalization or a configuration to get to that base LPL, which was also the only the main business logic. Now, you can view the definition of the list, forms, card views, pages, menus, everything that can be configured and navigated to within the system, allowing you to see t.....
-
Let’s expand on what we discussed last week in terms of a managed services offering versus an SMSA. To be entirely honest, there’s not a huge functional difference between ad hoc support hours and managed services hours, except that the latter offers significantly more scope flexibility. Rather than outsource a managed services contract to another company, RPI resources are available to assist with whatever helps you derive maximum value from your software, be it Hyland’s Perceptive Conten...
-
Last week, we spoke about the importance of backfilling key personnel in the preparation phase of an implementation phase. We have both seen clients budget for the backfill but not execute because they thought it would be too difficult to actually follow through on that. This is a very big factor in success, and it means you need to start looking at the punch list. Is the executive leadership involved, do you have the proper resources assigned, the right project manager, and the right partner? T...
-
Last week, we discussed the console view on the Web UI configuration console. There is also a report console, which is a very easy way to track down reports that have been generated and find out who they've been shared with and who authored which report. It provides an easy way to see the filter information defined on those reports, locate the source of certain data, as well as generate and edit the orientation of a PDF.
-
As discussed last week, there are a variety of challenges that come with retaining and managing top-level enterprise software technical resources, whether for Perceptive Content or nearly any other ERP or ECM solution. It is of the utmost importance to retain either direct employees or outside resources or consultants who have the right skills and experience for the unique software combinations that form your environment. RPI Consultants’ managed services offerings are flexible and cost-effect.....
-
The Origins of ERP Enterprise Requirements Planning (ERP) systems were created to solve a series of problems organizations had 25 – 30 years ago, mainly data and process inconsistency. In the early days of enterprise applications, many organizations had systems which were centered around functional areas – Finance had theirs, as did Procurement, HR/Payroll and other teams. This application era was commonly referred to as “best-of-breed”. The applications worked for the respective func...
-
Early on in an ERP implementation for the public sector, it's important to consider three things about the team: quality, quantity, and availability of your staff. If there are any shortcomings in those aspects, the risk of the project failing increases tenfold. Although it may feel uncomfortable in the short term to reassign people's duties, putting the right people on it from the beginning will work out in the long term.
-
The console view is the first thing you see when you enter Configuration Console. Some key features are the search functionality, which means no more navigating through the tree as you do in Rich Client. It's very easy to come in here and search if you know the configuration name right off hand, or you can go by business class type and status. Some other things that we want to point out on the homepage are the edit and activate buttons, which let you edit the LPL once you find that configuration...
-
As we discussed last week, one option for filling gaps in your organization’s technical department is to purchase a managed services offering, whether for Perceptive Content or any other ECM, ERP, or enterprise software solution. It can be overwhelming and expensive for an internal team to manage and optimize these complicated solutions, or even to handle upgrades, while also taking care of other important work duties. This is one reason why RPI Consultants includes a project manager in all of.....
-
When comparing on premises and cloud implementation in terms of success criteria, the biggest criteria time & time again is executive leadership and sponsorship. What these two things do is set the vision and help people understand why you’re going through this migration, what’s in it for the organization, what are the expectations, etc. In making sure all of that is communicated to the organization, they establish governance, which is vital to the success of a project. This is a term that g...
-
Let's talk through what a CloudSuite HCM project looks like from the perspective of the implementation partner. RPI has been involved at executive management level on a lot of them, so we've seen what helps a project become successful, what the common roadblocks are, and some of the things you can do today to help you get there. We're also going to address the why, what, where, when, who, and how of moving to the multi-tenant cloud.
-
Continuing our conversation around the Web UI version of Configuration Console (which comes available with Infor CloudSuite), another widget you will come across on the homepage is Invalid Configuration. This is very helpful prior to and after CU when you're trying to verify everything to ensure whatever is coming over won’t break anything. In the event that it does, this widget will call it out very clearly so you have the ability to go through an make the necessary updates to get everything .....
-
Let’s go a bit further into how you can balance your team using managed services. Suppose your organization is in the process of upgrading to the latest version of Hyland’s Perceptive Content ECM software. Generally speaking, when RPI has supported clients through this type of project, we find that they usually need end user training and support, training, as well as custom development and system optimization or fine-tuning. Many of these needs aren’t even known until later into the implem...
-
If you can't already tell, we really love to discuss the recent evolution of ERP and its technology. As a delivery organization, something we're constantly trying to figure out is how can we best support our customers in this constantly shifting landscape. New systems and capabilities are constantly emerging, and we are faced with the challenge of trying to get our customers to change their mindset about the systems. Everything's had to change on the vendor side: the training system, the support...
-
The next thing we're going to discuss around data correction is action reversals. An example of when you would need this is to reinstate an employee into GHR who was terminated. The reinstate is a delivered action that network came out with maybe a year ago or longer and we think it's a pretty neat action. Basically, if an employee is terminated and their work assignment is inactive, this reinstate action becomes available so you can use it to un-terminate somebody.
-
Pivoting away from general CloudSuite knowledge, let’s take a deep dive into one of its most exciting features, the new Configuration Console. Of course, this application has been around for a long time in the rich client, but Infor has made it available on Web UI. There's a lot of new functionalities that we want to highlight and showcase in this tech series.
-
Supporting multiple enterprise systems, including ERP and ECM software, is a challenge for many organizations. This is particularly true when knowledge is siloed, or when it is unclear which resource to reach out to internally to solve a particular issue. While many have heard of managed services support options, there are lots of people unclear about what exactly it does or does not consist of (or how it can be tailored).
-
We've been talking a lot about feature functionality, so let’s shift gears a little bit. One of the things that's the major advantage of the cloud and SaaS is the fact that it increases vendor efficiency because they no longer need support multiple versions of the software. One of the fundamental differences about applications being sold and deployed today is that the technology and capabilities of the applications themselves are advancing fairly quickly, regardless of vendor.
-
In recent weeks, our focus has been on addressing various ways to correct data within the GHR system. Some topics have included canceling future actions and understanding the total scope of a correction, so let’s continue by looking at audit inserts.
-
Keith & I have spent a lot of time digging into the technical side of a CloudSuite implementation and detailing the various things that must be taken into consideration ahead of kickoff. The other, equally import side of the coin is the people who are involved in the migration.
-
We've discussed a lot around the Infor Government Essentials packaging for public sector and its streamlined implementation approach. The program itself is a journey - the first phase focuses on the core ERP capabilities, which is everything you need right off the bat, and then the following phases are when you can add in other applications. The good thing about deploying the Essentials program is that you can do measured enhancements or capability increases over a period of time.
-
We covered some of Yoga Content’s EDI & OCR processing capabilities last week; now, let’s look at one of the ways it can help users manage documents. When it comes to spaces where users can interact with each other within enterprise content management solutions, there are some good workflow-centric use cases that may not be handled well by Infor Process Automation (IPA) or other case management flows. Having robust options for interaction within your ECM software can help to cut out much of ...
-
We have covered several topics concerning the multi-tenant payroll system, such as handling the true scope of data correction and handling the effective dated queue. After last week’s discussion around changing an action in the future, so let’s transition the conversation to audit log updates and changing a past effective date to another past effective date.
-
Every organization is different when it comes to their data and what needs to be brought over during a cloud migration project. Although we don't recommend bringing over more than a year's worth of historical data, some may require more than that for certain business processes or legal requirements, so it's important to take stock of your data before getting started so that you can avoid the transfer of unnecessary data.
-
Our introduction to Yoga Content last week provided a brief overview of some of what this premium service can offer. EDI capabilities are another cool feature, so let’s take a look at that. Something we add when converting documents through Yoga is an EDI image generator. This allows us to send in EDI files (anything from an EDI 8.10, 8.55, 8.60) and then generate images to return those back to IDM. Not only are we getting those images back, but we can also process the untranslated images. Thi.....
-
We discussed how to properly handle the effective dated queue last week, so let’s cover canceling an action in there. If you realize that something was entered erroneously, like someone retired but then decided to come back, you have the ability to cancel this action if it's in the future.
-
Last week, we covered how you can add value to the core system delivered with the Infor Government Essentials program. For a public sector entity, the consideration should be on your resources that are outside the core system, so think something like utility billing. Where do you want to be able to start focusing more resources? Where do you want to direct someone’s time & attention who was previously working solely with the legacy system?
-
Last week, we discussed the importance of implementing change management strategies ahead of a CloudSuite migration. These projects revolve largely around the technical development, which is always one of the most challenging parts for our clients. This is partially due to the differences between interfacing with a legacy system and a cloud-based program, but also to the impact is has on daily business processes.
-
In our ongoing discussion around ECM software, we have covered how IDM, Kofax Express, and Spreadsheet Designer Plus capture documents. We’ve also introduced you to our Yoga Connect import tool, so now, let’s dive into our Yoga Content solution. It is cloud-native, multi-tenant solution that has powerful integration with Infor CloudSuite FSM, and features both cognitive services and workflow, meaning not only can you capture documents, but you can also extract data for enrichment, or bring i...
-
We have already introduced you to the Infor Government Essentials program and discussed how it encompasses the core scope of an ERP project. We’re going to dive into this further from an HCM financial perspective to explain what this “core” is and what sort of extended functionality could be implemented or deployed downstream.
-
Over the course of our conversation around pre-planning, we have emphasized the importance of prioritizing change management during an ERP implementation many times over. Handling this effectively maximizes the return on technological investments by enabling employees to successfully adapt to this change and sustain its momentum. In today’s climate, businesses across all industries are implementing new technologies, undergoing cultural shifts, welcoming new leadership, and reimagining how and .....
-
In our ongoing conversation around data correction within the multi-tenant payroll system, we discussed how the effective dated queue impacts the total scope of the correction. When you change an effective date in the queue, you can only change a future effective date to another future date – a current or past date will not be accepted by the system.
-
Last week, a group of Infor users came to our Baltimore office to attend our very first CloudSuite bootcamp. The goal was to make sure everyone left with a better understanding of how CloudSuite works and provide them with knowledge gained through our team’s experience with the product. This three-day, intensive training session was conducted by some of our Infor certified consultants (Richard Leigh Stout, Jeremy Stoltzfus, Chris Ruszin, and Alesandro Gargano to name a few) and covered topics .....
-
We discussed how we use IDM Capture last week, but we also work with Kofax Express to capture documents. Built with scanning in mind, it is a lightweight software that can be installed on a single desktop. This solution doesn’t require server administration, and it can be a great addition to some technology stacks because it has a very small footprint.
-
Last week, we introduced data correction in GHR and what some of your first steps should be. It is important to understand the total scope of the correction that you have to make. We are going to cover some things that can help you get a good idea of what the issue is that needs correction. The first thing to do is update the effective dated queue, which is done by changing an effective date and canceling a record. This is a repository for future dated approved actions. If you have a hire that's...
-
Last week, we introduced you to the 60/30/10 concept for implementing ERP systems. Let’s move on to how to approach this project from a delivery standpoint. Looking at this from an ERP SaaS standpoint, the biggest challenge we have encountered in talking to hundreds of customers before they move to the cloud is that there is a mindset shift that the customer needs to have about taking what the vendor delivers out of the box. It may not be exactly what they have envisioned, but it's going to wo.....
-
Following our discussion around inputting historical payroll data, we want to go over correcting data within the GHR system. Our general approach is to first identify all the data and subsequent actions or processes that may have been affected by this error. You might have implications down the road for absence management or benefits where somebody changed eligibility. Now you need to end their benefit plans or stop deductions out of the export. Other issues like incorrectly transferring someone...
-
Over the past several weeks, we have covered how to handle the historical data process using the IDM bulk import tool, Spreadsheet Designer Plus, and Yoga Connect. Once you've got your historical documents taken care of, it is important to consider how to optimally capture documents going forward.
-
ERP systems for the public sector have come a long way in the past two decades, so let’s go over some of the improvements that have been made. If you wanted to change the user interface on a legacy system that an AP clerk or an HR person would use, a programmer would be required to rewrite the code behind the screen to determine what fields were visible and how they act when data is uploaded. The Essentials package is more configurable through power users that write queries for their departmen.....
-
How does pre-planning for your organization’s CloudSuite migration benefit you? It minimizes the risk of the project being over budget or timeline, or even project failure all together. Having our consultants guide you through this process gets everyone on the same page as in terms of what your goals are and what resources are needed to get it done.
-
Last week, we introduced the Yoga Connect IDM importer tool and briefly discussed how it interacts with data throughout the import process. Now, let’s dive into some of the pros & cons of using Yoga Connect when dealing with historical documents. Continuing with our invoice document example, this scenario is one of the cons of using an IPA flow for this type of process – it is harder to handle data errors as you do not have the same functionalities as Yoga Connect to resolve issues.
-
In our ongoing conversation around Payroll History Import, we spoke last week about how to handle purging tables. I’d like to bring your attention to the purge process that Infor provides within the GHR system. If you find yourself in a situation where you haven't run your pending payments, or there's still an outstanding pending payment, or perhaps none of them has been processed, there is still a way to purge that data. Infor recommends you purge pending payments first, so once you click the.....
-
Over the course of our discussion around getting ready for CloudSuite, we have covered a variety of topics about how your organization can benefit from this monumental change. Not only is this an excellent chance to get everyone on the same page in terms of long-term goals, but it also presents an opportunity to clean up your master data and eliminate anything unnecessary. Pre-planning for your migration to the cloud is all about minimizing the risk of a project going over the budget, timeline, ...
-
We have previously discussed Payroll History Import and the way it processes pending payments. Let’s take a closer look at how that works within GHR. The system takes all pending payments and creates a bunch of tables, a payroll payments record, as well as a payroll register. If you process that Payroll History Import, it will prompt you to create checks (also known as a payroll registry). Once these have been created, all wages and deduction tables will be updated. This process creates the bi.....
-
Last week, we discussed the pros & cons of using Spreadsheet Designer Plus to convert historical documents for migration from a legacy on-premises system to a cloud-based environment. A second option for how to enrich data for this type of task is to use an IPA flow for data enrichment and mapping. Both of these methods will still use the Infor Document Manager Bulk Import Utility Tool post-data enrichment. For this method, first the data is uploaded to IDM and then it is important to update eac...
-
Last week, we discussed why the need for customizations is eliminated by a cloud-based system. Let’s dig into why it is beneficial to keep the version the same for all customers. There's a tremendous advantage to doing so, both for the vendors and customers. The one that you mentioned that is the most important is the vendor is the only one supporting the version of the software. Anyone who has worked as a vendor would agree that even when there was only an upgrade once every one or two years,.....
-
It takes a while to evaluate all your data before spawning a couple of queues to process all that data. Keep in mind that if you are processing like 800,000 records, it will take several hours to process that data. That's why we recommend only bringing the first 10 or 20,000 records over at first. Then you can process that load as one file and make sure that they are within the payment master before bringing up your record types.
-
Some people ask us, "If I do pre-planning, does that mean I don't have to do planning during a project?" I want to emphasize that is not the case at all – planning throughout the project is equally as important as pre-planning. This is true even during implementations where there will be a time for planning during each individual phase. You can’t prevent things from happening over the course of a project, but you can prepare for it by allotting space on your timeline from the beginning. We c...
-
When it comes to converting historical documents to IDM, the first option we’re going to recommend is Spreadsheet Designer Plus, a bulk import utility tool provided by Infor with CloudSuite. The process is a relatively manual one. First, we’re going to index data from our historical documents, and then we're going to query data from Infor FSM. We’ll manually pair that index data in Excel or an equivalent database before formatting it. Finally, we’ll export our documents out of Percep...
-
We recently touched on something that's really important about CloudSuite, which is the fact that the customizations are not really necessary. One of the principal things that happened in the ERP space over the last 20 or 30 years is a diversification of systems. It used to be that when I put a system in for a client, it was designed to work for multiple companies of various sizes and vertical industries. This meant that almost everybody who installed one of those systems would have to tweak it ...
-
We have already covered loading time & deduction records from an S3 environment to the cloud, so let’s dig into the flow we built to automate this. Essentially, this builds the email footer. Using that parameter, it extracts that data and produce a file. The key thing is the SQL, which is what RPI built to automate the whole extract and populate those three record types in the system. For each parameter, we extract the file and move it to the SFTP server for CloudSuite, and then use it again l.....
-
To be as prepared for a CloudSuite implementation as possible, one thing you can do today is your own independent research. You can definitely engage with a partner because we're here to offer our services and our expertise, but it is also beneficial to talk to other customers and ask them what their experience was like. You’ll hear about projects taking anywhere from "18 months" to "two years," as well as stories about huge projects that were really resource dependent, so you can figure out w.....
-
Last week, we introduced IDM and how it works in conjunction with CloudSuite FSM. Here, we will continue to dive into IDM, and specifically will be taking a look at indexing structures. One important thing to consider, ideally before beginning an ECM or IDM conversion process, is file type. When working with IDM, we recommend utilizing PDF images due to how web browsers natively handle them. Within IDM, clicking on an image on the right-hand side of a PDF opens a new tab where we can look at tha...
-
One of the things that Infor has done over the last several years is invest heavily in a move from on premise ERP to the cloud. Most vendors in this space are doing this and there's a couple of reasons for this. It’s profitable for the vendors and it gives the vendors themselves the capability to enhance and improve the products.
-
Recently, we’ve been discussing the conversion of historical data and how to load it into your Payroll system. Let’s bring your attention to time record date. It's common to load a period end date in there, which is something that goes for paymaster, PR time, and deduction tables as well. Some people use that to fill in time record (which is fine), but it's not the true detail of when the employee worked on that day, so bring in the actual PR time as a field called time record. S3 has a fiel...
-
"Whenever we engage with teams that have done their homework ahead of an implementation, it makes things move so much more smoothly. The level of resource that you need to bring to the project is going to be impacted by the clarity of the scope and timeline. In addition to what's being implemented and in how much time, understand that you're calibrating to how much resource you're going to need. If you're planning to implement everything under the sun in 9 to 12 months, you will need a huge amou...
-
Let’s say you're moving to Infor Financials and Supply Management (FSM), and you're planning your migration. Part of what you need to consider is your historical data. That includes your invoice transactions, general ledger data, purchase orders, and everything in your existing system today that you're going to migrate. An important consideration is how to get those images out of your legacy content management system into Infor Document Management (IDM) so you can see those transactions in con.....
-
On a recent visit to our Baltimore headquarters, Joe Hoover met with Mike Guay, a VP of Customer Success at Infor and former ERP strategist at Gartner, to discuss the current state of the public sector. Mike focuses on improving the customer experience and cloud-based operations, so he was able to provide Joe with insight onto how the Essentials program fits in to the picture.
-
Here are some tips & tricks for using Payroll History import that we have accumulated through our experience with the tool. Our team has been doing this for a while, so maybe this information will save you any trouble that may arise as you use the product. When we extract the data, we use the period end date field on all S3 records or stables. Basically, when it comes to your payment master, PR time, and pay deduction, we use this period end date(year/month) as a selection criterion for extracti...
-
Continuing his ongoing discussion around change management, Justin Braun is back to suggest some ways that leaders can support their team during a CloudSuite migration project.
-
Welcome to our Evolution of ECM Blog Series! Over the next couple months, we will take a close look at what a modern or next generation ECM software looks like, with a strong focus on Infor Document Management and Yoga Content, a couple of the leading options for this type of software.
-
Among the many governmental challenges during the COVID-19 crisis, loss of revenue and the necessary transition to remote operations have been two of the most common. Additionally, recruiting and retaining quality government workers is a greater challenge than it ever has been. In response to these ongoing issues, the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021 includes $350 billion in State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF) for state, local, territorial, and tribal governments.T...
-
For the past few weeks, we’ve been discussing how the whole process of Payroll History Import works within the GHR system. In a nutshell, you import your historical data, the system runs the conversion process, and then you can manually fix any errors that may have come up. When you are correcting these, we recommend using an ISD download and upload if you want to change anything, unless you miss a pay code name. In that situation, you want to rename it instead of purging everything again and .....
-
Last week, Justin Braun addressed how vital is it for an organization to prepare their team for the level of change brought on a CloudSuite migration project. A task that is much easier said than done, Justin has some advice on how leaders can approach this conversation.
-
All preparation for an ERP implementation in the public sector is irrelevant if you don’t make change management a priority from the beginning. Whether it's a migration or net new, change management touches everything and everyone involved in a project. It’s crucial to institute this at appropriate levels internally and consider the fallout from an organizational perspective.
-
Let’s expand on our discussion around Payroll History Import. If you have a parameter to extract eight months of historical data from 2021, this RPI tool will take it from S3 and build one CSV file per month, which you can then load that to GHR. It's a sizing control as well, meaning that you want to limit the number of records you want to move to the Cloud. You don’t want to overload the system, so be sure to test those files to make sure all your components are there. That process generate...
-
Recently, we’ve been highlighting the things that can constrain your time and resources for a CloudSuite project. It’s not just about implementing technology – what we're really talking about is a combination of functions, processes, and data that will transform your business processes for the better.
-
One of the most critical items to address before embarking on a CloudSuite implementation is making sure there are procedures in place for scope management. It’s easy to deal with scope creep where there are a lot of little changes to the solution that ultimately impact the success, complexity, and ability to test the system. Much like issue management, scope management has to be identified and resolved at the right levels.
-
We’ve discussed a lot about implementing GHR Multi-Tenant Payroll on this blog, so let’s dive into some of the specifics of the system. Payroll History Import is a business class delivered by Infor that allows you to bring S3 data over to GHR. This means you still have access to historical data and the ability to review payroll, the pay employee paychecks, and other kinds of details in GHR, instead of having to access S3 data. As we have said many times before, you should limit what you brin...
-
As Jeremy Stoltzfus, one of our Principal Technical consultants, pointed out to our readers last week, there are a lot of new tools to teach you how to develop effectively for CloudSuite. One of those tools is not a programming language per se, but rather a management technique. When you are going through a CloudSuite implementation, it's so critical to have these items built out in a short period of time.
-
When it comes to the project schedule, we love to incorporate contingency time into the project schedule without necessarily telling you about it. Hiding it is a good strategy because everyone will work towards the same completion schedule. There's two ways to do contingency planning: one is to add additional time in each of the project steps within a given phase, while the other is to give two or three weeks of time at the end of the project or phase (called a “contingency”).
-
We’ve been discussing technical development and some of the things you can get squared away ahead of a CloudSuite implementation. Getting up to speed on the various tools and technologies that are going to come into play is important, so to tell us more about that, we have one of our lead developers and principal technical consultant, Mr. Jeremy Stoltzfus.
-
One of the tricks of the trade that I have learned on the functional level is that whatever isn’t completed on time automatically gets escalated to the project management level. That's key in the sense that a functional issue may not be critical at first, but if the team is distracted or overwhelmed, that issue may become critical once it passes its due date. The same thing goes for the project management team. If there's a project management issue that's falling through the cracks, then they .....
-
In terms of technical development ahead of a CloudSuite implementation, let’s discuss some of the things you can do today to prepare. The first thing is to figure out all those technical development items that you're currently maintaining and make sure you understand not just why they're there in the first place, but also what business processes they enable. Are they going to be required for CloudSuite? Do they represent a unique business requirement that CloudSuite probably isn't going...
-
When it comes to successful implementations, one of the key things to consider is the timing resolution of project decisions, critical issues, and critical risks. There are a lot of things that might impact a project during implementation, which is why certain decisions need to be made in a timely manner with the right people in place at the right point in time. They need to be documented and not revisited because otherwise people tend to pick apart decisions that were made three months ago. Whe...
-
When it comes to user expereince in the cloud, the process is much more streamlined than it was in S3. For example, when you go through cycle processing, it will walk you through based on your payroll schedule. You go through the steps based on your payroll cycle from calculating overtime all the way through the post payroll, which means that you will need to go to your payroll cycle to access that information. As you calculate your overtime, it brings up a button to process the next one, and th...
-
Over the last two weeks, Jean provided great information about what is really going on during a conversion. Hopefully, that conversation gets you thinking about all the of work that needs to happen on the client side, as well as all of the work that's involved with data validation and reconciliation. As he mentioned, it's important to get a handle on the data conversion scope. IT leaders that are out there reading this might have to negotiate about this with the business. It’s hard for busines.....
-
If your organization is embarking on a CloudSuite journey, it's important that your IT & business teams are up to speed first. Put them in a position to guide your business through a successful transformation to CloudSuite with RPI's CloudSuite Bootcamp. This is an in-person training hosted by RPI's Infor certified consultants at the RPI world headquarters in Baltimore, MD. Limited slots are available on a first come, first serve basis so don't miss your chance!
-
Joe Hoover: The next item around projects we’d like to discuss is creating a realistic project timeline and activity durations checklist. Usually, that starts in the planning phase with a formal project plan & project schedule, which is one of those normal deliverables that are part of the planning phase. It's very important to discuss people and their availability, just as it's relevant that the project schedule is aggressive only in the sense that you want to get through the implementation a.....
-
It is the week after HIMSS 2022 in Orlando, Florida. Booths have been broken down, everyone has traveled home or is enjoying the vacation they tacked on to their travels. As we reflect back on the event that boasted attendance numbers ranging from 18,000 to 28,000, there were a lot of things to be excited about. HIMSS did a great job ensuring everyone was either fully vaccinated or had been tested prior to attendance, and as such attendees generally went without masks. It was a welcome vision ba...
-
Following last week’s conversation around the timing of data conversions, let’s dive into the data validation process. Consider this a reconciliation process, meaning that there's two types of validation you want to do – one based on the current source of data in your S3 system, and one based on what the cloud accepts. There are rules in CloudSuite when it comes to loading data, so you want to build in a validation process, which is something RPI has done.
-
Barbie Hunley: The last characteristic we’d like to discuss around projects is connected to the project itself. Joe Hoover: We've talked about the people, processes, systems, and now projects. From this perspective, one of the most important aspects or characteristics of a successful implementation has to do with the deliverables. When I say deliverables, those are the work products that are reviewed and approved formally by the project team. Those deliverables will range in design document.....
-
I’ve been working at RPI for the last three years, but I have 36 years of IT experience and specialize in data conversion. In order to have a successful project, you want to be sure you have the proper resources, so conversion is one of them. You'll need key expert on your side that knows Infor Process Automation (IPA), as well as someone that knows all the applications on the database side that can do a data assessment, data validation, and all your resources on HR benefit and Payroll. Also, .....
-
At the core of its processes, Infor Document Management (IDM) is a document repository. While it is not required to have a record in CloudSuite Financials to link to the document, we see the most value having that record in FSM linked to the and appearing in that contextual viewer. To achieve that though, what we have to do is attach that unique identifier when we upload those documents. That way the system knows when I'm looking at this invoice, it's matching to this invoice image.
-
Joe Hoover: Another thing to consider when integrating to legacy systems is whether you do a phased implementation of the ERP system, or you do a single-phase implementation. There are pros and cons on both sides. If you do a phased implementation, then you have those additional integrations between the new system solution and the existing system solution. It's really what's in the best interest or the best capabilities or the organization to figure out whether they can do a single phase or they...
-
The last element of GHR Multi-Tenant Payroll that I want to cover is the integration between payroll and finance. Once payroll has been closed, you will have a finance interface appear, which are all the payrolls that are closed. You can see they're posted and that this interface run group has been interfaced over to finance to tie them together. After this, the general ledger interface and accounts payable import into the new system.
-
Outside of cleaning up master data before a project begins, the other thing to keep in mind is cut over. We've done projects where an organization has brought a modest amount of transactional history from the financial and supply manager applications, maybe two or three years. Ahead of the go-live, the downtime needed to handle that amount of conversion is four, five days, maybe even a week in order to just process that convert version. This means the only way to do an FSM go live over a weekend...
-
Whether you have Perceptive, OnBase, OpenText, DocuWare, or MHC, these are all legacy on-premises software. They require integration to whichever new cloud ERP you're looking to migrate onto. When it comes to those legacy content management systems, integrating with S3 requires design studio customizations to put a button or URL in to call it back to a web client. OnBase has an application enabler that dynamically retrieves documents based on the current screen. Before, you would have to go back...
-
Barbie Hunley: With regards to technology, the next item we want to discuss is the existing integration with legacy systems. Joe Hoover: Dealing with those legacy systems that are not replaced by the functionality of the new ERP system or the updated migrated system has always been a challenge with ERP implementation. You have to know how to integrate the technology for that integration, but also make sure all of those touch points inbounds and outbounds are thoroughly tested when we get the ...
-
Last week, we covered some of the new and exciting features of GHR Multi-Tenant Payroll like the administrator dashboard and tax locator errors. Now let’s discuss the lock payroll feature in depth. Once you’ve calculated overtime, then you can begin this process. Once lock is on, then you would go through and calculate your payroll. When that is complete, the next one that would pop up would be print payroll, making it a very simple payroll process.
-
Joe Hoover: The next characteristic around technology we want to discuss is how much data should you convert? Barbie Hunley: Everyone wants all of it all the time. Joe Hoover: Everyone wants all of it. Barbie Hunley: And this... I can tell you, Joe, this can be one of the largest risks in a project if we aren't able to control it appropriately.
-
We’re going to discuss some of the newest payroll features on CloudSuite. The first one I would like to go over is the payroll administrator dashboard. This area provides the administrator with a quick glance at where the payroll process is at any time. In the case of a payroll that is currently open and calculating payments that are in error, there are no off cycle payrolls in process. There are some quick links to deduction alerts, BSI tax alerts, and tax errors. It also has some deduction e.....
-
Joe Hoover: We've made it through our conversations around the people and process characteristics to keep in mind for a public sector ERP project. Now let's consider the systems characteristics that help your organization have a successful implementation. The first thing to identify before getting started is the quality of your data.
-
Change can be very difficult for a lot of people, specifically for those that have been using software for a very long time and feel comfortable with it. Bringing on a new project and new tool to use new software to use can be quite scary. That is why it is so important to have an awareness of that when you are rolling something out that’s new to people.
-
Another recommendation I have for successful change management is to start thinking about who the key members of your change network are and how you can make sure that they're going to be engaged and supported throughout the project.
-
Barbie Hunley: The last item for our business processes is the organization actually accepts changes in the business processes. Joe Hoover: What helps in that area is the goal of standardization, right? The more the organization can accept standardization, the more simple and more consistent the outcomes are. When we talk about change management and accepting the business processes, there must be a reasonable balance between understanding those new processes and accepting them.
-
When your organization is preparing to embark on a CloudSuite migration, change management should be something you start working on well before the project begins. The good news is that awareness and desire, the first two elements of change management, are both things that you can get to jump on ahead of time.
-
Over the years, RPI has done several key surveys like this - we are happy to share the results so that you can see how the market is doing. Your information and answers are confidential, but all respondents will receive the trends afterwards. Additionally, all who respond will receive a $10 Starbuck's gift card. Thank you for taking a few minutes to complete this survey.
-
Barbie Hunley: Our advice to avoid discovering design issues during the testing phase leads perfectly into our next item to discuss, which is making sure the solution is ready for system integration testing. Joe Hoover: Right. What we mean by that is that when you have different modules like financial, human resources, enterprise asset, etc., you want to make sure that the components and interaction of those two modules are well defined. If you go into system integration test without the enti...
-
As a change manager and strategic services consultant at RPI, I know exactly why change management is one of the key elements you'll want to consider when preparing for the move to CloudSuite. It might be a little bit less obvious than some of the other considerations that Leigh and Keith have discussed throughout this series. but it’s actually one of the most important things you can do during a migration to the cloud.
-
Barbie Hunley: Last week, we discussed why you should try to finalize all business processes ahead of an implementation. The next item we’d like to touch on is avoiding the discovery of design issues during the testing phase.
-
Aside from ensuring your IT team is adequately supported, the second thing you can do today is start working on a change management strategy. Obviously, this should start with a look at your internal change management capabilities. Some organizations have well-developed internal OCM experts, some do not. Look into getting some support so that you can start evaluating your organization's change hardiness and potential change resistance points.
-
Barbie Hunley: The fifth item we’d like to address about business processes during a CloudSuite implementation is getting them finalized on time. This is relevant for so many reasons, one being that when we enter into design, we don't want to get to UAT when we should be accepting the system and someone tells us there was a last-minute pay structure change. Whenever that happens, we need to incorporate that as soon as possible.
-
Another challenge we have on CloudSuite projects in that they are multi-tenant, so the updates are continuously coming. If this is new to you, it requires a little bit of a change in mentality. Like Keith was saying last week, when you look at potentially doing a training video, you might want to do it two months after you go live and things have settled down a little bit to prevent it from immediately becoming obsolete.
-
Joe Hoover: Number four on our business process list is prevent complex functional requirements. Like we spoke about earlier in terms of simple business processes and best practices business processes, it's sometimes easy to want to replicate what you are currently doing because it's comfortable.
-
The bottom line when it comes to moving to the cloud is ensuring end users are engaged and involved in this project to help work through any issues in a constructive way. Although an executive might be able to talk about the value of having a cloud-based modern enterprise application that features better reporting and is always up to date, that same executive probably doesn't know how to sit down and correctly process an AP invoice.
-
We have already discussed the first two aspects of business processes to keep in mind during an ERP implementation. The third is to identify all critical business processes ahead of a project, with an eye to how they interact. Now, this view becomes more important when you have, for instance, a financial implementation along with an HCM implementation. Let's say enterprise asset management is mixed into there. It's very important to understand not only the key processes within each of those area...
-
Up to this point we've talked about how to make the business case for Infor CloudSuite and the crucial importance of careful pre-planning before under going a migration or implementation. Now we'd like to move on to cover some of the major challenges that every CloudSuite implementation needs to overcome to have a successful go-live. We will also talk through what organizations can do before they start to be best positioned to overcome those challenges.
-
Barbie Hunley: With regards to standardizing common business processes, ensuring that we have adequate documentation is so important. That's such a dirty word to some, but it's a word near and dear to our hearts, but that is because it's absolutely critical when you're going into these implementations. Joe Hoover: Exactly. We're not saying you should take the time to create new documentation, but every business process review requires the participants in those workshops to understand your cur...
-
We’ve already discussed why you need to establish your supervisor structure ahead of taking on a payroll implementation. Something else to keep in mind is that it’s not just about driving decisions makers to understand your organization and the strategies necessary to take it in the right direction. The important thing is making sure those decision makers are empowered.
-
Joe Hoover: For the past few weeks, we've been discussing the eight characteristics that we want you to consider when it comes to building your implementation team. Once you've ensured you have the right team behind you, you need to begin thinking about how your business processes will be impacted by an ERP implementation. Barbie, what's the first topic we've got on that list?
-
If you don't have a good supervisor structure in place before you start you project, that needs to be your team's top priority. This is especially true if you are using a time keeping system because they will rely heavily on your supervisor structure for time approvals. The same thing with your position structure. If you currently don't have a strong position structure, start thinking about how you want to restructure it - if you don't, it will have a negative impact on your time keeping, regard...
-
Isn’t it strange that in a time of crisis, ideas come flying in response? At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, America faced a horrifying situation – the overwhelming demand for PPE, ventilators, and other medical equipment exceeded the available supply. Immediately, potential solutions began pouring in from sources who, for the most part, weren’t even in the healthcare industry. Dyson repurposed their vacuum technology, Lego constructed a ventilator made from robotic pieces, some car ma...
-
We have reached the conclusion of our 2021 Winter Webinar Week – it has been a great success and our team has enjoyed the opportunity to present this information to you live & in-person. We have a variety of topics on the slate for today, such as document imaging within CloudSuite, multi-tenant payroll, and Birst. Below is a list of today’s presentations (12/9), along with the link to register. All webinars can be watched on-demand once registration is completed.
-
I hope everyone has been enjoying our 2021 Winter Webinar Week! So far, our consultants have covered topics ranging from keeping your CloudSuite project on track to IDM & Intelligent Automation, and we still have many more to come. Below is a list of today’s presentations (12/8), along with the link to register. All webinars can be watched on-demand once registration is completed.
-
For months now, everyone at RPI has been excited about the prospect of coming together in our new Baltimore headquarters to bring you a slate of some of the best educational content around in the format that really helps the topics shine. Yesterday, we kicked our 2021 Winter Webinar week and that excitement was only ratcheted up a notch, as the day was a resounding success!
-
The roster at RPI Consultants boasts a great deal of thought leaders, one of whom is Michael Grace. A thought leader on Infor CloudSuite, Digital Transformation, and Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Michael is a Healthcare guru who joined our team in 2019. He currently oversees Infor service delivery in the West and leads the Strategic Services team. He has been in the Infor space since 1995 and worked on every version of Infor CloudSuite since v6 and maintains his certification in CloudSuite f...
-
When it comes to having a successful CloudSuite project in the Public Sector, what do you want to know? On Wednesday (12/8) at 1:00 PM EST, Richard Leigh Stout & Barbie Hunley will tell you everything you need to know about what the Cloud means for Public Sector. If you want to know how to get ready for it and how to be successful, come listen to two of RPI public sector experts discuss projects they’ve worked on, the impacts of the clouds on an organization, and needs in the Public Sector in .....
-
Anyone who is interested in learning more about Infor Global HR is in luck – RPI’s 2021 Winter Webinar Week (12/6-12/9) will feature three presentations led by some of our most knowledgeable HCM consultants.
-
Is your organization looking down the road at a CloudSuite project? At noon on Wednesday December 8th, RPI partners Keith Wayland and Richard Leigh Stout will discuss common implementation challenges and how to lay the groundwork early to ensure a smooth project. Learn what you and your team can do now to prepare for CloudSuite. Topics include stakeholder engagement, data cleanup, technical development, and pre-planning.
-
CloudSuite migrations have been a fixture of RPI webinars for years. This year, the landscape has clearly changed a bit - Tuesday, Dec. 7 at 1:00 ET, listen to three of our most prominent experts in CloudSuite Projects, Richard Leigh Stout, Stephanie Kowal, & Theresa Nelson, on how to define your “Roadmap for Success” and avoid some common pitfalls common to these complex projects. Successful migrations to the cloud are achievable if you have the right plan, a roadmap for success, and proper...
-
Joe Hoover: Last week, we discussed how the honest assessment of your staff's ability to be involved in the project is critical to its success. Barbie Hunley: Something else that's super crucial is having an efficient and effective decision making process.
-
These are some tips & tricks for payroll implementations that came out of our first experience with this process. The payroll person for the organization I was working with helped develop these, which speaks to the importance of having your payroll person involved at all points of this process. Throughout the whole time we were doing the design for HR and benefits, payroll was involved because everything from HR and benefits flow flows down to payroll.
-
Once the project vision and the project goals and objectives have been defined, the right quality and quantity of executive support and sponsorship are established so that when we have major accomplishments, we celebrate those accomplishments with all levels of executive support. It's not a question of setting up the vision or setting up the project goals, rather it's having continuous involvement of executives allowing the project members to get the feeling executive leadership is engaged is su...
-
During a CloudSuite HCM implementation, we have two leaders with different responsibilities: the functional team lead and the super user. The functional team lead is the person that we lean on for decision making. They define the system requirements and they are responsible for signing off on configuration documents. They are also in charge of outlining what the system will look like and how we should handle configurations. This means you need to consider what the different test scenarios are th...
-
Something that's really important when we're talking about an approval process in a software solution is that the application needs to know who has the authority to approve what kind of transactions and who needs to see what kind of transactions. In the past, every approval system that's been bolted on to Lawson, whether it be IPA, On-Base, or a separate imaging system, basically has had to store the logic within its own configuration and its own way. Those systems have been really disconnected ...
-
Now let's address current and future non-ERP project initiatives. What we mean by that is really those other projects that you may have coming up, so for instance maybe you're starting a multifactor authentication while also engaging in an ERP project. Or perhaps, you're redoing your whole process for onboarding and you typically onboard 200 people a year, whatever it might be.
-
When the pandemic hit in March 2020, we had just begun the unit testing for a client's payroll implementation. So everything was from unit testing all the way through go-live was 100% remote for us. We were able to easily adapt to the project. The team lead was their only payroll person. It was her idea to have daily team calls. We had an online Microsoft Teams meeting that was just an open meeting for her and me.
-
Something we get asked by clients often is if we think that most organizations should get a preview CloudSuite Finance or GHR environment. If you mean pre-prod when we're talking preview, then no, I don't think most organizations should. I think for organizations that can put the time and effort into actually running through testing, and who might have a very large amount of configurations or custom elements in their cloud solution that are particularly sensitive to system updates, that pre-prod...
-
Here is a sample timeline for implementing GHR, although it can definitely be done in a shorter amount of time. Usually, absence and payroll together have a 43 week go-live. During this process, there's a lot of activities occurring at the same time, but the biggest thing to remember is that there will be three payroll parallels. Of course, we'd love to do 100 of them until there's no errors, but that's unrealistic.
-
In our experience, updates do occasionally break some configuration that's specific to an individual client. I don't think we've ever really seen an update break the core application functionality, but we've seen them impact configurations, meaning, changes to the screen, or business logic that a client's manager configuration console. We've even seen updates impact custom security classes and security roles that are also created through the configuration console. These are items that definitely...
-
Barbie Hunley: With regards to the people and organization, the first characteristic that we advise people is really to ensure that they have the right quality, quantity and availability of their project staff. Joe Hoover: Right, for a successful ERP implementation, it's a people project. First and foremost, you want to identify on your organization team those individuals that will be assigned to the project and the ability of them to dedicate their time to the project will directly impact or...
-
If you choose to embark on a data migration, that is something that you or your partner would schedule with Infor. Whoever is going to do that would need to get it on Infor's calendar ASAP. What we've been seeing so far is that they usually need about a four to six week lead time, so you don't need to schedule it now if you want to do something at the beginning of next year. They'll also give you a migration checklist to go over and make sure the data coming over is clean.
-
Regarding system uptime in CloudSuite, anyone that has a subscription is probably on their email notifications list. This means Infor will let you know whenever there's a service degradation across any of the apps, or within any of the CloudSuite portfolios that you subscribe to. We've definitely seen a pretty steady stream of updates lately. So, the other question is how do you prepare for CloudSuite being down unexpectedly?
-
RPI Consultants is excited to be hosting the Partner Enablement Workshop for the Infor CloudSuite Public Sector Essentials Program at our new headquarters in Baltimore. Several Infor executives will facilitate the training for select partners over the course of a few days. Hosting this workshop reflects RPI's commitment to growing in the Public Sector space in order to better serve those who serve their communities and constituencies. Keep an eye out as more information becomes available. In the...
-
Let's talk about data migration. Infor does offer data migration services where they take information from single-tenant Cloud to move it to the multi-tenant. They take information from Workday 4 for example. So if your payroll application is on a third party system that is not a loss in system, that will also be migrated from loss in S3.
-
Something that distinguishes the Infor CloudSuite Public Sector Essentials package from other systems is the fact that it comes equipped with Implementation Accelerators (IA). Built by Infor and preconfigured around the latest version of their application suites, these accelerators provide core processes for each government industry. Coupled with RPI’s implementation services, this solution will give you a straightforward approach to migrating to the cloud, while also cutting down on the time .....
-
Designed to address the evolving needs of small to medium-sized governments, Infor CloudSuite’s Public Sector Essentials package bundles HCM, Payroll, Financials, & Procurement into one integrated solution at an affordable price point.
-
We've already talked about not having to run all the infrastructure internally. This means you're spending less time and money running a data center, and on the flip side, you are able to basically operate more efficiently. We can do more with less because it takes less human power and input to do day-to-day transactions and push them through.
-
When it comes to cloud implementations, I divide them up into three varieties. One is the kind where your project goes off the rails, you spend a lot of money, and you don't get to the other side. Obviously, that’s a risk that you want to try to avoid, by planning, finding the right partner, and making sure you understand what you're about to take on, all while having a realistic budget.
-
One of the most important things to do when you're going through an ERP implementation is to outline your business processes as early as possible. Most companies or municipalities will ensure that they also have outlined their requirements in a very detailed fashion, which is a step in the right direction - a level up from that would be doing the same for your business processes.
-
Something else that's really important when you look at CloudSuite is the robustness of the reporting. This aspect of the new Infor CloudSuite solution is really driven by two major factors. First, is the ability to set up GL dimensions, which are indexed. You no longer have to work around the limitation of your account unit activity to track different information. Secondly, you can analyze this information through the self-service tools Infor puts at your fingertips.
-
Everything we’ve been discussing throughout this series goes back to the scope of the ERP. The scope of the ERP is best defined through the strategic vision, which has to take into account business transformation, goals, and objectives in the areas where the organization needs the most improvement. What are the situations? How long does it take us to issue a permit? How does it take us to complete a procurement? How long does it take a business entity to respond to a solicitation? All of these.....
-
Each Friday afternoon at 12:00 pm ET, RPI Consultants holds our familiar “Tech Talks” series. The topic for September will focus on RPA, also known as Robotic Process Automation. We will follow our usual format of Tech the 1st Friday, HCM the 2nd Friday, SCM the 3rd Friday, and Finance the 4th Friday, so there is something for everyone in your enterprise. All the sessions will be recorded and available for future playback. During September, we will also be running a Survey on RPA all month l...
-
One of the challenges in public sector is eliminating the complexity represented by an ERP implementation project. This can be accomplished by reducing the number of options an organization believes they need to accomplish or go through. As we move from on-premises to multi-tenant cloud, the solutions are more configurable and less customizable. More importantly, this means an organization has to re-evaluate their business processes because what worked previously may not make sense today. You ne...
-
I think everyone acknowledges that the concept of having a single ERP that handles everything you need has been outdated for a while. It can become difficult and overwhelming having a different solution for each piece, as well as thousands of integrations and interdependencies. This is why it's about finding the right happy medium for your organization, which is something that starts with a foundation that's going to take care of 80-90% of your needs. While it's possible that there are some thin...
-
It's amazing how all those countless projects and hours that we used to spend building things like approvals & imaging now essentially come out of the box. Another area that we're very passionate about in terms of new functionality is the benefit enrollment process - while this existed in Lawson S3 in ESS, it was ugly, clunky, and required a ton of customization work every year.
-
One of the most challenging components of an ERP implementation project is project governance. While this aspect starts with the project management, it extends to the executive sponsorship as well as the actual project team members who are implementing the ERP system.
-
Let's take a dive into invoice approvals, something Leigh is very passionate about. This area is something that we've worked a lot on with many organizations over the last two decades, and a big part of the work that he did when he started here with RPI Consultants was helping with the shared services and accounts payable department consolidations within the industry.
-
The third principle we talked about is identifying implementation constraints and objectives. What we mean by that is, is it a single phased implementation or a multi-phase implementation? It comes down to how much change management and change readiness the organization can absorb at that time. In terms of business transformation, what are those components that need the greatest impact. Is the organization having issues around the procurement process or employee satisfaction? Ultimately, the str...
-
One of the important things to note about CloudSuite is that workflows are really the core of the application, which is a pretty big change from older systems. Lawson offered infor process automation, and although that is a stellar workflow product, it runs alongside the business application rather than within it. CloudSuite applications are built from the ground up around workloads' inner role; unlike Lawson's IPA, the majority of delivered flows are a good fit for typical business processes. T...
-
Once the strategic vision for an ERP implementation is clear, it will typically evolve and be revised by the second guiding principle: establishing the strategic business transformation objectives and approach. This stage always dictates what the scope of the ERP implementation would look like. When we think about any public sector organization, somewhere there is a plaque that says your mission statement, your goals and objectives, all of which focus on constituencies and how to be a better, mo...
-
To quote our friend and tech guru Aaron Epps, "Friends Don't Let Friends Build Data Centers." This phrase is something we live by at RPI, and it leads us to discuss another plague on our current IT society: burn-up point solutions.
-
One of the questions that we're asked often from public sector organizations is how do I prepare for an ERP implementation? If you look at it from a strategic perspective and consider what the guiding principles would be, the answer would come down to three parts. The first is knowing the scope of your ERP project, the second is establishing your strategic business transformation strategies and approach, and the third is determining your ERP implementation objectives and criteria.
-
There's a unique opportunity here for the Lawson market that I want to make sure we mention. Most of these implementations occurred 20-25 years ago and a lot of them were driven by Y2K, meaning that people have had to live with the decisions they made when they first implemented the system. Now is a good opportunity to revisit if they are benefiting from the single company versus multi company, or the levels of the accounting unit and other things take a lot of effort to change, as well as other...
-
In general, Infor has incredible reporting capabilities. While a multitude of reports are actually delivered within the system, it also has the capability to extract data into an Excel spreadsheet. One of the great things about GHR is the visibility that managers have into their own employees' data, where they can run a report to see who in their group has a vaccination or has been given a face shield, ect. Anyone who is an administrator can use these company-wide reports, which would be some of...
-
The most important thing to keep in mind about Infor CloudSuite is that it's not something you have to do, it's something you want to do. This system delivers tangible benefits that will improve operations in your organization, so Keith & Leigh are excited to share some information on how to make the most of CloudSuite with you. In this continuation of the pre-planning series, they discuss some of the challenges and opportunities around current state versus migrating to a modern ERP like Cl...
-
TAKE QUICK SURVEY Over the years, RPI has done several key surveys like this - we are happy to share the results so that you can see how the market is doing. Your information and answers are confidential, but all respondents will receive the trends afterwards. Please take a few minutes to complete this survey - you will be entered for some great prizes including iPads, Rokus, and a host of Amazon devices (Echo Dots, Echo Shows, Fire Tablets, etc.) as we love Tech. The s...
-
-
Over the course of the last fourteen weeks, Keith and I have walked you through a high-level explanation of what RPI's pre-planning engagement is and how, together through this process, we can maximize the powerful features of Infor CloudSuite for your organization. Aside from discussing how this assessment helps get everyone on your team ready for a CloudSuite implementation, we also covered the project's scope & approach, how to handle different types of data ahead of a migration, ...
-
Reporting is a major factor in a pre-planning engagement and it plays a big part in how we help customers plan a forward looking strategy. Keith explains how RPI’s assessment during this stage focuses on known gaps between an organization’s needs versus what actually comes with CloudSuite, making sure to highlight big ticket items. Check out Keith’s latest post to find out more! In our new weekly blog series, RPI thought leaders Keith Wayland and Richard Leigh Stout are going to walk yo...
-
-
-
-
-
All the work that is involved in a successful pre-planning assessment culminates in the executive summary. This week, Keith takes you through the specific deliverables you will receive in our executive summary. This step is extremely important on the road to CloudSuite, so we relish the opportunity to demonstrate what we can do while providing budget estimates for your organization to consider. Check out Keith’s latest post to find out more information!
-
-
A large amount of our customers have been on Lawson for many years, which is another big factor in these pre-planning engagements and projects in general. This familiarity means they've developed very sophisticated flows, integrations, and extensions, so they're concerned about how those are going to migrate forward into CloudSuite. Today we’re going to explain what that effort and future state might look for a client in this situation. This part is actually a big component in t...
-
Today we’re going to discuss the project scoping and approach. We begin with some as-is discovery where we're really focused on understanding how this organization has made use of Lawson, or potentially other third-party systems whose functionality will impact the move to CloudSuite. This action is always taken with an eye on practical scoping, so it's not a full-blown optimization assessment. We're really honing in on those details that are pertinent to the work effort and pla...
-
A question we often get from clients who are looking to implement CloudSuite is what should an organization do to prepare for an RPI pre-planning event? While I think it’s the same as planning for an engagement, there are basically two things to consider. The first is that the better you both understand and document your current processes and pain points, the better you can articulate them to a consultant. This way we already know what you’re looking to achieve from the beginning ins...
-
I am excited to welcome Chris Lang as the newest member of RPI Consultants’ solution sales team. Chris brings over two decades of expertise in the Infor Lawson space and has provided real-world, successful solutions across the entire spectrum of clients: healthcare, public sector, retail, and others. Given the relationships he has established over the years with clients and partners alike, he is considered to be the “go-to” guy for establishing successful implementations, right...
-
Now let’s discuss the key deliverables a client might receive out of this engagement. We have a written deliverable which covers the scope and approach of our project, as well as the organizational profile. It contains everything gathered during the discovery period; this information forms the narrative of how the Lawson application is used, how well it is meeting the client’s needs, and any other noticeable gaps that we can close wit...
-
Let’s walk through RPI’s offering for a pre-planning engagement. It's a highly structured four-to-eight week engagement, meaning that we know what meetings we need to hold, we know the timeline, and we have a project plan coming into it. Customers tend to have a bit of uncertainty around the timeline and the potential outcomes, so they can convey some follow up activities around that information. A combination of workshops, stakeholder...
-
Why would you want to pre-plan for your CloudSuite implementation? In a nutshell, these projects are big and complicated and they disrupt an organization’s business processes for the better by their very nature. Since this undertaking is nothing like an upgrade, you really want to set yourself up to have a successful implementation. Remember, this venture will last the next twenty, twenty-five years – as ...
-
What is CloudSuite Pre-Planning? Pre-Planning is a service from RPI Consultants designed to assist our customers in planning for a successful v11 CloudSuite migration engagement. In this series, we’re going to talk about what it is and why you should do it, how you go about doing it, and what the outcomes are of it. Pre-planning is the exercise that we go through before starting a CloudSuite implementation project. It’s about setting up your scope and timeline, as well as the cons...
-
RPI at the MWLUG Virtual Meeting Join RPI this Thursday, March 18 for the MWLUG virtual meeting. The MWLUG virtual meeting will feature special interst group breakout sessions, a special Infor update by Matthew Bragstad, and a riveting ADDINS Session with Mr. Don Peterson! If you're not yet registered for the MWLUG virtual meeting you can register here. RPI will be participating in the HR, Technical, Financial and Supply Chain special interest groups and will h...
-
Jenny Mattson joins RPI as Director of Public Sector Solutions. For over twenty-four years, Jenny has served the Infor community as a Client Advocate, Director of Business Development, and a Contract Administrator. Now she’s bringing her knowledge, experience, and unwavering dedication to customer success to RPI Consultants. Jenny joined RPI in November. In her role as Director of Public Sector Solutions, Jenny is focused on understanding and building out solution sets that best mee...
-
Mike Gardner, our esteemed, long-time colleague, has officially retired from the RPI ranks and Infor-Lawson community. A sales superhero, Mike had a lengthy career in consulting and sales which outlasted most everyone I know. In addition to working at RPI, he previously owned his own consulting firm, Mid-Point Consultants, and some larger Systems Integrators before that. He was an icon in the Infor-Lawson market, truly a classy guy, and he certainly will be missed. I will always re...
-
From our company to yours, have a safe, happy and healthy holiday season
-
What Can you Learn About CloudSuite Today? RPI is proud to announce our next iteration of Tech Talks with our “CloudSuite Series”, which will be 15 progressive sessions on each Friday for the next several months. Continuing our series this week, is: Watch On-Demand: CloudSuite 101: CloudSuite Migrations This is your starting point to the transformative potential of CloudSuite, so let RPI help you get off to a good start with the “secret sauce.”&...
-
WEBINAR: City, County or K12-Dashboards in the Cloud with Infor Birst Wednesday, December 9 12:00 PM EST Presented by Aaron Epps, RPI Consultants Jenny Mattson, RPI Consultants Rob Krause, Infor Yasmin Barnes, Infor Cities, counties, and K-12 school districts have a variety of reporting needs requiring data from disparate sources in spreadsheets, legacy applications and cloud repositories. Visibility into government procurement spend, grant programs, talent ...
-
Watch On-Demand: CloudSuite 101: CloudSuite Migrations CloudSuite 102: v11 HCM Differences CloudSuite 103: v11 Financials Differences Future Tech Talks You Can Register for Today: CloudSuite 104: v11 SCM Differences Friday, October 2. 12:00 pm EDT CloudSuite 105: v11 Pre-Planning Friday, October 9. 12:00 pm EDT CloudSuite 106: Global Ledger Sandbox Friday, October 16. 12:00 pm EDT CloudSuite 107: CloudSuite for Healthcare Friday, October 23. 12:00 pm EDT .......
-
Some of our Playlists: * Infor HCM Webinars * Infor FSM Webinars * Infor Technology Webinars * Executive and Management Focused Webinars * Birst and BI & Analytics Webinars * Managed Services Webinars
-
The decade of Hospital 4.0 is here. So far clinical operations may have been the primary beneficiary of the innovations brought by this initiative. But as RPI director Michael Grace explains in his article for ERP News, the robust enhancements and process-driven frameworks of the new generation of Cloud ERP solutions when combined with the exciting potential of robotic process automation (RPA) promises even more transformative outcomes for the digital worker in healthcare. Read Michael&...
-
Take RPI's Inforum 2019 Survey Please take our short 10 question survey and provide us with some feedback on Inforum 2019. Everyone who completes the survey will be entered into a drawing to win a YETI cooler. Winner will be notified by 10/31/2019. RPI's Inforum 2019 Highlights
-
RPI's 2019 Spring Webinar Mini-Series RPI's Infor Lawson Spring Webinar Mini-Series will take place May 14-15, 2019. This time we'll be featuring new information on planning for v11, why you really need a business intelligence strategy and how to get one, and show you why and how managed services can still save you time and money in a Cloud-based world. Featured guests will include Infor's Todd Stratton, and Birst's John Duda. Infor's Top ...................
-
One of my favorite analogies to illustrate the complexity of planning for an analytics implementation is to compare it with setting off to climb Mt. Everest. The objective is clear, you want to climb to the top of the mountain. But that’s the easy part—how are you going to make that happen? Would you attempt this expedition on your own? Probably not. Why? Because the risks are too high; maybe even fatal. You know you’re not the first one who’s set out to achieve this ...
-
Where does your organization rank when it comes to BI & Analytics maturity? We agree that most organizations are either Basic (spreadsheet-based analyses and personal data extracts) or Opportunistic (individual business units pursue their own data and analytics initiatives as stand-alone projects, lacking leadership and central guidance); so where do you start if you want to improve your maturity? Don’t reinvent the wheel and make the same mistakes others have, lean on the experts at R...
-
RPI’s Aaron Epps on why data-driven initiatives fail “Here's my take: Harvard Business Review says that most data-driven initiatives that are failing fail not due to technology, but to organizational resistance to change. If you've attended one of my talks, you know one of my favorite phrases is "Methodology over Technology.†A successful implementation relies not only on working with a team that understands the tech, but also has a comprehensive methodology...
-
Take a Tour of the Infor HCM Evolution (& Revolution) Join Infor's head of HCM Product Management, Amy Ihlen, and RPI's Richard Leigh Stout on a tour of what's new, where Infor is headed, some industry trends, and the technology in Infor's HCM (Human Capital Management) Evolution - it's a revolution.  Infor's Next Gen Payroll is Coming: An Update & the Evolution  Join Infor's head of HCM Product Management...
-
Check out Some of our Most Anticipated Webinars RPI's Infor Lawson Winter Webinar Series is officially in full swing. Join us for over 30 practical, educational webinars focused around Infor's CloudSuite v11 and beyond. Below, we've highlighted some webinars that we're most excited about, including two webinars with a special visit from Infor's head of HCM Product Management, Amy Ihlen. Don't forget to register and join us for these exciting we...
-
As the current year winds down, RPI is pulling out all the stops for our Winter Webinar Series. We're bringing you topics from HCM, GHR, SCM, and Finance focused around CloudSuite FSM v11 and beyond. Some familiar faces, some new faces and a few special guests will be popping by the studio to help us out. So amongst all the hustle and bustle that the month of December entails, take a little time to join us for some new and informative presentations!
-
The AHRMM 2018 Supply Chain Week is here! We at RPI love the opportunity the week provides to shine a light on those folks who play such an important role and touch so many different levels in their organizations. It's also an opportunity for us to call attention to the real Lawson Supply Chain superstars out there and that's why we're hosting another Lawson SCM Elite Challenge. We're encouraging all Supply Management professionals to take this short quiz to test your k...
-
We still have a lot more prizes to give away so don't miss your chance to win! Complete RPI's Infor Lawson community survey and you'll be automatically entered into the drawing for a YETI cooler, an Amazon Echo Show, an Amazon Tap and Starbucks gift cards. You will only be able to take the survey until November 2, so don't wait to participate. RPI Consultants administers this survey to gauge the progress and perceptions of the great Infor Lawson community. The survey cap...
-
Speed Session #1 Lawson v11: The WHY in 20 minutes Before you learn HOW to go to v11 of the Lawson ERP system covering CloudSuite Financials & Supply Management and HCM, learn WHY you should. Join RPI leaders to learn and understand the WHY of v11. Tuesday, Sep 25, 1:30 PM - 1:50 PM  Presented by Keith Wayland, Managing Partner, RPI Consultants Mr. Wayland, RPI's Managing Partner and a certified Lawson Financials and Supply Chain consultant, has worked on Law...
-
Free Coaching Sessions with RPI at Inforum 2018 - Schedule Your Session Today! Schedule a 30 or 60 minute meeting with RPI while at Inforum. Talk about specific topics or just sit down and have a general conversation with one of our consultants about where your organization is now and where you want to be tomorrow. You've seen our webinars, now spend time with those same RPI experts as they provide coaching on the topics that matter to you most. There is no better way to spend your t...
-
Inforum 2018 is September 24-27 in Washington, D.C. Have you Registered? Inforum 2018 is coming up in September and it's not too late to register for this amazing opportunity. Inforum is about connection with Infor executives and product experts, industry experts, colleagues, and peers. What idea will you get that could transform your entire business? What knowledge might you share that could help someone else achieve their goals? Inforum gives you endless opportunities to find ...
-
Time is running out to register for the MWLUG IPA Symposium. In this video, RPI’s Richard Leigh Stout and Jeremy Stoltzfus discuss about what you can expect to get out of the event. Check it out here! The IPA Symposium is a collaboration of developers, users, thought-leaders and other community members focusing on how to get the most out of IPA. It is a unique opportunity to share your experience and expertise around this powerful tool as well as to further your knowledge and understand...
-
RPI's Summer Sizzler Webinar Series Replays Are Ready to View This past week’s Summer Sizzler webinar series was a huge success and we would like to thank each and every one who attended for taking time out of your busy schedules to join us. If you missed any of the presentations or you’d like to watch again, they’re posted here. We would like to give a big thank you as well to our special guest stars this week. Skye Duckett, Chief Human Resource Officer for...
-
RPI's Infor Lawson Summer Sizzler Webinar Series begins on June 4th! As we count down the days until the practical, informative webinars, we're also here to count dow the top 5 things you need to know to make sure you're prepared to experience every bit of value that these webinars have to offer.  5. Log on Early! This may sound a bit underwhelming, but we've all been there — you log on to your webinar and experience the dreaded "technical difficul...
-
Summer's in full swing, and RPI is setting the table with a full spread of of your favorite Lawson topics. Covering Human Capital Management, Global HR, Imaging, Supply Chain and Finance including the new v11, RPI's Summer Sizzler webinar series is the place to be this June!
-
RPI at the KLUG RPI Consultants is proud to sponsor the Keystone Lawson User Group (KLUG) Meeting being hosted at the Wyndham Garden Inn in York, PA on Friday, April 27th. RPI will be the exclusive sponsor of the 2018 KLUG Meeting with over 20Â subject matter experts in attendance and 8Â sessions to present. Attending from RPI will be Business Analysts, Senior Consultants, Practice Managers and Partners. For more information or to register for the KLUG 2018 Spring Meeting, please visi...
-
RPI Consultants is planning a symposium on Infor Process Automation (IPA) on Tuesday, June 26, 2018. It will be a collaboration of developers, users, and the community focused on how to leverage, use, and get the most out of IPA. It is being held in conjunction with the 2018 MWLUG Summer Meeting and will take place at the same location one day before the MWLUG begins. Join us on June 26th in Northfield, MN to learn, discuss and collaborate on all things Infor Process Automation!
-
Again this year RPI Consultants is excited to sponsor the 2018 Infor Winter Showcase in St. Paul, MN. For those attending, we would like to help you get the most out of this important event. RPI and WorkOutLoud have teamed up to produce our 2018 version of the Infor Winter Showcase Visitor’s Guide. In this visitor's guide, we’re highlighting some of our favorite restaurants, bars and destinations to visit while attending the 2018 Infor Winter Showcase.
-
RPI's Infor Lawson Winter Webinar Series was the week of December 5th, but if you missed it, don't worry! We've recorded all of our webinars and they're available for you to view here. Enjoy our webinars and if you have any questions, please email questions@rpic.com!
-
Register now for RPI's Winter Webinar Webinar Series! As current year winds down, RPI is pulling out all the stops for our Winter Webinar Series. We’re bringing you topics from HCM, GHR, SCM, and Finance including AP Automation plus several presentations on CloudSuite FSM v11. A special guest will be popping by the studio to help us out, so amongst all the hustle and bustle that the month of December entails, take a little time to join us for some new and informative presentations! ...
-
If you haven't taken the RPI Lawson SCM Challenge, there's still time! The quiz will stay open until the official end of Supply Chain Week 2017 on Saturday, October 7th. Next week we'll tally up all the scores and find out how you did! I want to give a  big thank you to all our participants, and all those who celebrated Supply Chain Week this year in other ways with their own teams. Every year Supply Chain week is a great opportunity to recognize those professionals who tou...
-
During the Southeast Lawson User Group on September 18th, RPI Consultants matched the donation by the SELUG board to aid the victims of hurricanes Harvey and Irma. The partners, staff and family at RPI Consultants very much appreciated the privilege of being able to match the generous $1,000 donation made by the SELUG to the United Way for hurricane relief. Managing partner Keith Wayland was on hand with VP Sales & Marketing, Bill Geddy, to present the donation to SELUG’s Tanya an...
-
RPI is really thrilled to have to opportunity to be the Diamond Sponsor of this year’s Southeast Lawson User Group MEGA meeting next week in Charlotte, North Carolina. SELUG being one of the most active and robust user groups in the Lawson user community, their MEGA meeting is without a doubt a premier event on the calendar every year, and is absolutely one of our favorites to sponsor and attend. As in years past, we will be bringing more than a dozen of our functional and technical supers...
-
Why take the time to respond? 1. Prizes! Who doesn’t love prizes? 2. Every respondent will get a copy of the survey results when completed. Get the low-down on what’s happening in the community and see where you stand in comparison to your peers. 3. RPI’s goal is to be the premier source for knowledge-sharing and enablement for the Infor Lawson community. To do that most effectively, we need to know what’s important to you and what you’d like to see in the future educational initiat...
-
Heading to Inforum this July? Then maximize your investment in the biggest event of the year. RPI Consultants can help you plan the best course of action for your organization's future and how RPI can assist in the process. Schedule your free coaching session below and enjoy all that Inforum and RPI has to offer. Not going to Inforum17 or don't have time? Then schedule a virtual meeting with RPI by contacting Logan Miller at lmiller@rpic.com.
-
-
If you haven't heard, RPI Consultants is planning a symposium on Infor Process Automation (IPA) on Wed., Sep. 20th in Charlotte, NC. It will be a collaboration of developers, users, and the community focused on how to leverage, use, and get the most out of IPA. It is being held in after Southeast MEGA User Group fall meeting in Charlotte. You don't need to be a SELUG member to participate in the IPA Symposium and in addition, SELUG has opened their meeting to anyone from outside the group who wo...
-
-
-
FLUG Spring 2017 Meeting The FLUG Spring 2017 meeting will be held at the Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, FL. Date: Friday, April 21, 2017 from 8AM - 3:30PM Where: Hillsborough Community College Brandon Student Services Center 10414 E Columbus Dr Tampa, FL 33619-7822
-
The 2017 Infor Winter Showcase begins this week in St. Paul, MN. There is no doubt that the event will be a great educational experience for all who are involved, but what about after hours? Well, luckily RPI Consultants has you covered. With help from our friends at WorkOutLoud, RPI presents our very own Infor Winter Showcase Visitor’s Guide. Check out our brochure and learn about our favorite bars, restaurants and destinations for you to enjoy during your trip to St. Paul. Additionally, you...
-
This Friday February 24th registration will end for Infor’s Power Training and Winter Showcase taking place March 6th and 7th and then March 8th through the 10th respectively. The Power Training will cover Landmark Security, Process Automation, Technology Foundation, and Infor Security Services. These are some of the most requested training classes and they’re going to be led by some of Infor’s leading instructors. If you’ve had your eye on any of the courses, I can’t recommend strong...
-
This past week, I spent three days in New York City at Infor’s Executive Offices. It was a great visit, and the weather ranged from 30 to 70 degrees, sunny and rainy, and ready to snow as I left. What diversity and what a time in the city that never sleeps. I attended Infor’s Inaugural HCM Partner Summit where they updated us on the latest products, strategy, and marketing in and around the entire HCM Suite. It was great to get a status update on the global payroll strategy and v11 Landmark ...
-
It happens way more often than organizations realize. Invoices get coded directly to the inventory account – which is no bueno when we are talking about a balance sheet GL account that is purportedly supposed to tie to a sub system (and that system is IC, not AP!)
-
As the cold and snow sets in over RPI HQ in Baltimore, the webinar crew is packing up and heading to the Tampa offices to bring you the best in informative talks for the holiday season. We hope you’ll join us as our functional and technical experts serve up some holiday treats. From Monday December 5th to Thursday, December 8th, we’ll be bringing you 18 webinars on some of the most current and useful topics for you and your organization. And just like the season, there’ll be something for...
-
The following is a clever workaround for receiving a substitute inventory item.
-
Join Senior Perceptive Content Consultant Jeff Jones as he walks you through how to build views in ImageNow / Perceptive Content.
-
We’ve all gotten the request before…. What was our spend on item 11111 last year? Where do you go to provide them the data behind the request? PO54, MM280, or maybe you get a little crazy and start pulling records directly from POLINE?
-
Did you know RQC has a configuration file that controls additional global settings outside of IC01, RQ04, etc.? It’s true! The RQC config file has a lot to offer your organization and often times is easily forgotten.
-
It happens way more often than organizations realize. Invoices get coded directly to the inventory account – which is no Bueno when we are talking about a balance sheet GL account that is purportedly supposed to tie to a sub system (and that system is IC, not AP!) So why do we see directly Coded Invoices and Credits for Inventory Items in the first place? Don’t inventory items need to come through a PO to be received in as Inventory in the first place? Yes, they sure do!
-
The AP Invoice eForm product for Perceptive Content offered by Lexmark Enterprise Software provides for a streamlined data entry process for many Accounts Payable departments. One pain point many people have experienced is its use of the “Virtual Tablesâ€, a method used by this Perceptive eForm for storing Vendor, GL, and PO data. While these tables have satisfied the requirement of allowing the eForm to store and retrieve data for years, they aren’t perfect. Some of the issues we see i...
-
RPI Consultants Lawson Candy Apple Webinar Fall Festival! Register today and take home all of your Lawson Festival goodies. www.rpic.com/webinars
-
RPI Consultants will be attending the Midwest Lawson User Group (MWLUG) in Northfield, MN. RPI is a gold sponsor at the 14th annual MWLUG summer user group which will take place August 24-25 at St. Olaf College. Schedule a meeting and meet with RPI at MWLUG. Maximize your investment in MWLUG by attending RPI's session on 10 awesome things to do with your HR/HCM 10x.
-
Pack up your lunchbox and hit the books on August 18 to learn everything you need to know to ace Lawson 10.
-
Mrs. Kowal, certified in Lawson's Procurement Suite, has over five years of experience working in materials management, process improvement, and project management, including three years in system administration. At heart, Mrs. Kowal is a self-directed learner and creative problem solver. She challenges constructs to identify and exploit the capabilities of a given process or system. Combining a degree in Communication with her natural aptitude for leadership and mentoring, she is an ideal reso...
-
Schedule a meeting with RPI's HCM Practice Manager, Melissa Olson. Melissa is a senior Infor/Lawson Human Capital Management applications consultant with origins in the technical side. She is experienced and certified in Lawson Global Human Resources and Talent Management as well as the Lawson S3 HR applications. Schedule a meeting with Melissa today. www.rpic.com/inforum
-
Perceptive Content 7.1 introduces a departmental security model where each department exists as if it were its own instance of Perceptive Content (ImageNow). There are two types of manager roles available in Content 7.1, Perceptive Manager and Department Manager. The Perceptive Manager role has replaced the owner account from previous versions.
-
We often provide the recommendation to clean-up your users in LSF before running an ISS synch, other than identifying and deleted orphaned records here are some pointers on running an ISS synch.
-
In December of 2024, RPI Consultants conducted an in-depth survey to assess the experiences and perspectives of service industry professionals using Infor ERP systems. Our second annual State of Infor Community Survey explored key topics such as the Infor solutions organizations rely on, their cloud adoption strategies, and areas where Infor can strengthen its products and services.
-
If there is one takeaway you have from our CloudSuite HCM blog, it's not to wait until S3 is decommissioned to begin preparing for the upgrade to v11. So that you understand the level of effort required, let's use a basic company structure as an example of what a migration project looks like. Let's say the migration is for GHR Payroll with Absence Management (AM) for roughly 8,000 employees at a 43-week timeline. You could potentially cut some of that time out if AM is not being implemented alon...