Epicor Kinetic Archives - Page 2 of 4

Overcoming Epicor Cutover Challenges: A Tale of Cryptic Errors

by Brad Feakes | Oct 26, 2023 | Epicor, Epicor 10, Epicor Administration, Epicor Kinetic, ERP, Hosting, Managed IT Services

Epicor Admin Quick Tip: Regen After a Refresh

I once had an Epicor go-live brought to its knees by an administrative snafu – as cutover weekend neared, the Epicor admin refreshed the Epicor production environment with a copy of the Epicor Pilot database. Such a step is not uncommon in an Epicor cutover. But this had not been the first time that a production refresh had occurred, and there had been subsequent customization activities developed since the last Epicor database refresh. As such, there were several Epicor user-defined fields that were present in the Pilot database but new to Production. This small discrepancy created unexpected hardship to all involved.

Chaos to Resolution in Epicor

The net result for the Epicor core team that was cutting over to the new system over the weekend was a litany of cryptic Epicor error messages, abysmal system performance, and a near mutiny by the Epicor user community. After roping in a few Epicor administrative experts, we were able to discern the discrepancy, regenerate the data model, and move beyond this hurdle. But the memory of that small Epicor system administration rule-of-thumb gone wrong stuck with me, long after the project had wrapped up.

One reason for this latent memory is that it finds itself refreshed by new instances – just recently, I found an end user reaching out to me over some cryptic errors in a test environment, an Epicor environment that had just recently been refreshed from a seed database. My first question: “Did you regenerate the Epicor data model after refreshing the Epicor database?” Problem solved, albeit this time, without the pitchforks and torches.

Echoes of CRC Errors

Does this issue sound familiar? For those of us whose Epicor administrator duties go back to Epicor 905, Epicor Vantage, or some earlier Progress-based version, these issues might be likened to the familiar “CRC errors” that once plagued our Epicor custom solutions. In that case, a field had most often been added to the database, and that field caused an existing Progress-based compiled assembly to malfunction. The table structure at the database level did not match the table structure at the application level, and chaos ensued.

Sometimes, the resolution to an Epicor issue is simple. In this case, a simple Epicor admin policy would be to regenerate the data model when refreshing an Epicor environment. This ensures that you will not have any mismatch with your Epicor UD fields, and that the users can jump in without issue.

This is especially true in an environment where custom solutions are being developed, as is the case with many Epicor implementation projects, where changes are most often occurring. This can also be the case in Epicor projects that are heavy in the use of the Epicor Product Configurator module, or longtime Epicor customers who have undergone a significant amount of Epicor customization.

Post-Model Regen

Now that you’ve regenerated the data model, don’t forget the subsequent step of retrieving a copy of the Epicor database’s data model, so that the application server in question can store it locally, for use by the application itself. At a minimum, the Epicor admin should recycle the application pool for the application server instance in question – this is accomplished from the administration console. Now, I’ve had some administrators tell me that it is preferable to start and stop the ERP application pool, rather than simply recycle it. The difference between stopping and recycling an IIS application pool demands its own article, so I will stop at mentioning this controversy for the time being, without discussing its resolution.

Epicor Cutover Success

The art of efficient Epicor system administration often boils down to steering clear of preventable pitfalls. The instance described here serves as a prime illustration of a minor adjustment that can avert substantial issues. By ensuring the proper regeneration of the data model and taking the necessary steps to maintain database consistency, ERP administrators can fortify their systems against disruptions.

Do you need help with your Epicor cutover or are you looking for more admin tips?

If you find yourself seeking guidance in the realm of ERP administration, don’t hesitate to reach out. Our Epicor Kinetic consultants can assist you in navigating the intricacies of your ERP environment, ensuring smooth operations and enhanced productivity for your organization. EstesGroup brings your company functional, technical, and custom solutions for Kinetic ERP. Manufacturers will benefit from our full-suite of services and solutions, including on-premise expertise and 24/7/365 IT and ERP consultants. From third-party integrations to private cloud and hybrid cloud managed services, Estes provides everything your team needs to succeed before, during, and after go-live.

REACH OUT NOW FOR A FREE CONSULTATION

Best Practices for Evaluating a Next-Generation B2B Platform

by Brad Feakes | Oct 23, 2023 | Distribution, eCommerce Consulting, Epicor, Epicor 10, Epicor Kinetic, ERP, ERP Consulting, ERP Implementation, Manufacturing Innovation

How to Think about E-Commerce as a Manufacturer

E-commerce continues to be a pivotal topic in the manufacturing world – distributors caught on to e-commerce comparatively quickly, as the demand for streamlined processing became a core competency. But in the manufacturing world, where product complexity is many times greater than the items delivered over traditional distribution channels, the acquisition and fulfillment of complete, complex, and high-dollar products becomes much more complicated.

Manufacturing companies that successfully leverage e-commerce as part of their overall go-to-market strategy do so in a variety of ways and seek to achieve a variety of benefits. That said, I thought it would be beneficial to cover some of the ways in which manufacturing companies are successfully leveraging e-commerce solutions to the benefit of their bottom line and their strategic initiatives.

Expanding Your Spare Parts Business

As a consultant, I once noticed an interesting trend when it came to system configuration – customers routinely spend an inordinate amount of time configuring their ERP system around their finished goods. And then they go live, and we all realize that the vast majority of their orders are not for finished goods but rather for spare parts. In many organizations, these orders amount to a significant revenue stream. Why is that? The margins achieved by service parts, replacement parts, spare parts, and related value streams are generally much higher than they are for finished goods. When a customer is in a bind, their machines are down, and product is not getting out the door, the demand for simple components goes way up, and as a result, the asking price similarly climbs.

To that end, e-commerce systems can streamline the process for finding the right part you need and expediting the fulfillment process, getting the order in the queue, without the need to chase down a customer service rep.

Expedited Warranty Processing

The flip side of the spare parts business is the world of warranty. In these cases, customers need some form of service part to address an issue covered by the original product’s warranty, often at no cost. Deploying your warranty parts to your e-commerce system allows your customer base to get a hold of the parts they need as soon as possible and helps cut down your own warranty costs by reducing the degree of human interaction. The net result is a better overall service offering, without the increase in overhead.

Finished Goods Acquisition

While our discussion has thus far centered on the acquisition of component parts, many manufacturers have extended their e-commerce offerings to include finished goods. I’ve seen customers readily deploy their highly standardized and stocked finished good products to their e-commerce systems, and in doing so, provide another avenue for customer service and order taking. This can be of great value to organizations that cater to both a B2B and B2C community. It can also service the lead-time needs of existing customers – in cases where companies are short-staffed on the order entry / customer service front, an e-commerce connection allows your customer base to get “first in line” when placing an order. In many industries, such a priority can shorten order-to-deliver lead times, which can be of great value to a given customer.

Customer Portal

The ability to stay on top of your orders has become of increasing importance to customers in B2B relationships. This includes but is not limited to orders that were placed online. When a customer places an order, they often expect online status information, to be able to track their orders through the fulfillment process. This can be important both for quick-turn items, where delivery timing is of the essence, or for large, long lead time items, where status at various stages becomes critical to know. E-commerce solutions provide a natural way to provide customers with updates to order status, whether the order was placed online or through a customer service representative. This allows you to provide an easy means of constant status to your customers while saving your own team.

Dealer Interaction

One important customer channel for many manufacturers is the dealer-distributor network. Dealers and distributors are a strange blend of outside sales and end customers, and their needs overlap the two. A goal for many organizations is to make their dealer-distributor network as much an extension of their own organization as possible. How is this done? Through seamless communication, often fostered by an e-commerce-enabled dealer portal. Dealer portals often combine elements of traditional e-commerce with elements that betray the intimacy that dealers need and expect from their manufacturing partners. Are you looking to better service the needs of your dealers and distributors? Give e-commerce a try.

24/7 Customer Service

As you might have noticed, many of the above circumstances have referenced difficulties in getting your order placed. This is surprisingly common, and I am forever shocked and surprised by the challenges many companies have in finding reliable customer service and order processing resources. Customer service is a difficult business, and many workers who might have posted for these roles have found other options. That said, the time it takes for your customers to get their orders into your system and “into the queue” can be a deal maker or a deal breaker.

Providing an easy means to enter orders and get them immediately into the fulfillment cycle can be an enticing option. Also, in our increasingly remote world, where employees routinely look to get tasks done at odd hours, the ability to provide 24/7 customer service can be of great value to many organizations. When your customer is in a pinch due to an emergency or machine downtime, the ability to immediately get in front of you can be of immense value.

Separating the Best from the Rest

As you can see, e-commerce has grown in breadth and depth over the years to cover an increasing number of avenues and solve a variety of problems for customers. But now that we know what a world-class e-commerce solution can do for you, the question remains: what are the best practices for evaluating a world-class e-commerce solution? In our webinar on October 25th, 2023, our friends at Parttrap can help you see what you need to look for when evaluating an e-commerce solution.

License to Go Live: Accessing Epicor License Info

by Brad Feakes | Jan 9, 2023 | Epicor, Epicor 10, Epicor Kinetic, ERP Consulting, ERP Implementation

Manufacturing a License to Be Different

No two Epicor implementations are quite the same.

One of the primary reasons for the differences between the configuration of two Epicor® Kinetic environments has to do with licensing. The Epicor® application has a broad suite of licensed modules, and most customers do not license the exact same Epicor® modules. So, how do you decide how to drive your Epicor® license?

Epicor License Info Epicor Kinetic Data Management

Considering the complexities and capabilities of manufacturing and distribution companies, Epicor® has created ERP systems for these industries that are ready for the unique challenges business owners face, from office to factory to customer. Each Epicor® application is a many-headed hydra, and with each head comes different modules and different capabilities. The number of heads determines the character of the monster.

If you are an enterprise resource planning (ERP) consultant, it is important to understand which modules are licensed, as this affects your options for helping a customer solve its many business problems.

If you are an ERP system user, it is similarly helpful to understand which Epicor® Kinetic modules are licensed, when working with support and troubleshooting unexpected behavior.

As you will see, the modules you license impact the behavior of the system, and unexpected behaviors might actually be explained by the underlying Epicor® license.

In the past, accessing Epicor® licensing was a bit of a pain. You needed to be able to access the Kinetic application server’s admin console to be able to gather licensing information. This required additional access levels and many additional steps.

Epicor Admin Console Epicor License Info

Now, as a function of Epicor’s more recent versions, you can access licensing information directly from the application.

When logged into the application itself, you can access Epicor® license information through the Epicor® Company Configuration module by simply navigating to the “License” tab and clicking the “Retrieve License Info” button to load the Epicor license information that would previously be retrieved via the Epicor® Admin Console:

You no longer need access to the Epicor® Application server to extract this information. All you need is the appropriate Epicor® security permissions to access the Epicor Company Configuration screen.

As with any Epicor® grid, you can also export the license into a spreadsheet format, using the “Copy to Excel” or “Copy All Include Labels” commands.

This new functionality makes it much easier to get licensing information at the tip of your fingers, when working with Epicor® support or your customer account manager.

Do you need to get your Epicor® Module list in a hurry? Are you chasing down an issue with support and need the details now? Look no further than the Company Cig screen, and be on your way to fast and good answers about your system.

GET HELP WITH YOUR EPICOR LICENSE & MORE NOW

Common Epicor Project Terms You Should Know

by Rob McMillen | Jul 21, 2022 | Epicor, Epicor 10, Epicor Kinetic, ERP Consulting, ERP Implementation, Prophet 21

It seems that every discipline has its share of jargon.

You see it when accountants throw around terms like “EBITDA”, engineers speak of “TQM”, and I.T. staff reference “API” or “DMZ”.

These are the words and phrases used by specialists as they discuss their work. The beauty of this insider jargon is that it allows greater efficiency in communication, but it comes with the trade-off that it creates an ingroup and an outgroup who struggle to understand each other. And those in the ingroup are rarely aware of how it limits communication with those on the outside.

So, with that in mind, let’s consider six terms that are often used with Epicor projects. I’ve sequenced these common Epicor project terms, so they are linked together logically.

Test Scenario

When we implement new versions of Epicor, there is always a set of tests done to validate that the application is correctly supporting business functions.

A Test Scenario is the set of instructions, steps, and expected results used to do that. A “test scenario” might include who will do the testing, the objective of the testing, the sequence of steps to follow, the data entered the application, and the results that should be expected.

This information should always be available in printed form so that it can be reviewed and used by those doing the actual testing.

So, when you hear the term “test scenario” it is important to ask several questions. What is being tested? Who is doing the testing? What is not being tested? How will we know the test is comprehensive? What sequence will the testing be done in?

With test scenarios, there are several ways they can be applied, and it starts with our next term.

Unit Testing

In an Epicor project, there are two general types of application testing. The first is “Unit Testing” which is focused on validating stand-alone functionality that accomplishes a single task.

It answers business questions like “Can I enter a new vendor in Epicor and include all necessary information without issues?” or “Can I create a new Customer Payment Terms record?”.

So, we see that Unit Testing is always focused on a simple process that is relatively self-contained. It is simpler and usually easier to do but because it is so focused, there are usually dozens of unit tests required in a project.

But unit tests are not enough to accomplish the goal of thoroughly testing the Epicor application.

Cross-functional / Integration Testing

The second type of application testing, seen in Epicor project is “cross-functional” or “Integration testing”. While “unit testing” is focused on simpler processes, this type of testing is more complex.

It will involve testing transactions that process through Epicor from start to end. This could include accounting transactions, customer order transactions, manufacturing transactions, purchasing transactions or payroll transactions. Each of these involves multiple steps involving multiple departments to work well.

A common example of “cross-Functional testing” is testing all business processes required to move from a Quote to Cash Received from the customer. Within these two endpoints there are many distinct business processes involving multiple business areas (finance, order entry, engineering, customer service, purchasing, production, receiving and shipping).

This type of testing ensures that multiple business processes are supported completely by Epicor and that each business area in the organization can complete their work, validate the results, and manage exceptions that occur.

Together, “unit testing” and “Integration testing” provide the most thorough validation of the system. Which leads to our next term which describes how these tests are created and monitored.

Subject Matter Expert

A Subject Matter Expert (SME) is a person who is the most knowledgeable about a particular business process. They might be the Purchasing SME and understand each of the steps and requirements for successfully purchasing materials in the organization. That person would be able to describe the details and process for Vendors, Purchase Orders, Lead Times, Inspections, and Receiving of purchased goods. They literally are the expert on this area of the business and often have years of experience to back up their knowledge.

And SMEs are critical to the success of any testing done on a project because they know the business processes very well and can quickly spot gaps where the Epicor application may not be working well.

Typically, SMEs are responsible for specifying the requirements for how application software should function to best support the organization’s needs. And SME’s either build or review “test scenarios”.

This ensures there are no unexpected gaps between organizational business processes and the way Epicor operates. Ideally the “test scenarios” are designed so that application testers simply work through the steps, gather feedback and in the process, validate the needed functionality in the application. The Testers shouldn’t need to be experts on Epicor or all the business processes. Their skill should be in following the steps and verifying results.

When it comes to “cross-functional” testing, multiple SMEs are often outside their area of expertise. So they will collaborate with other SMEs to design an integration testing process that includes the best scenarios to support company needs.

All this testing and effort is usually grouped into specific timeframes in the Epicor project. One of those is User Acceptance Testing.

User Acceptance Testing

User Acceptance Testing (UAT) is the phase in a project where the application users work as a team, to verify that Epicor changes support all their business processes. Typically, the UAT is several weeks in length. During this time, selected application users will use multiple test scenarios (usually created by SME’s) to verify that all business processes are supported by Epicor. This will include both changes made and other areas that might be impacted. Both unit and cross-functional testing will be used.

All the results will be logged, and any exceptions will be documented and reviewed. The logged exceptions will become a list of issues that must be resolved before the organization can continue using the Epicor application.

The list of issues is then prioritized, and work is assigned to resolve them. They fall into these categories:

1. Modifications to Business Processes to better use Epicor capabilities

2. Modifications to Epicor to better adapt it to business needs

3. Some combination of #1 and #2

The purpose of the UAT is to fully test the changed functionality of Epicor to verify it meets the requirements for supporting the business in its new form.

This leads to a common question about the differences between User Acceptance Testing and the term “Conference Room Pilot”. Both terms are often confused.

Conference Room Pilot

A “conference room pilot” (CRP) is focused on testing the functionality of Epicor with the intention to identify the differences between it and the needs of the organization.

This means that it can be done at two points.

One point is before the system is chosen and when the organization is still in the procurement steps of purchasing an ERP.

The second point is at the final point of implementation when the focus is to confirm that the needed business process functionality of the organization is fully supported by the data, configuration and customizations made to Epicor.

If the answer is “yes” then the system is moved to Production status. In this situation, the CRP is the final “gate” before the Epicor application is used for company operations.

The CRP does share similarities with a UAT. Both look at Epicor from end-to-end, both include demonstrations of functionality, and both often include non-functional testing (such as performance).

But they differ in that a Conference Room Pilot is measuring where Epicor meets the business needs and where the gaps are, while User Acceptance Testing is confirming any changes made are working as specified.

When upgrading Epicor from one software release version to another there is usually several User Acceptance Tests that verify that the Epicor application has no errors. Then as a final step, there is a Conference Room Pilot to confirm that Epicor supports the full business functionality needed.

Time to talk Epicor project terms with the experts? EstesGroup’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) consultants can save you time, money — & maybe even a trip to the dictionary!

Chat with us now to begin a conversation about Epicor project terms, ERP implementations, business management, cloud migrations & cloud ERP services (and everything else in ERP)!

Low Code or No Code: Citizen Developers on the High Road

by Rob McMillen | Jun 6, 2022 | Epicor, Epicor Kinetic, ERP, ERP Consulting, Prophet 21

I’m a project manager. So I was looking at some Project Management information on the web. And something caught my attention. I noticed that there is a new certification for a “Citizen Developer”.

Hmmm. What’s that about, I wondered. I found that this is a new persona that is being recognized in many organizations. And it ties neatly into something I recently blogged about. In my last blog entry, I discussed the trend of offering “low-code / no-code” options. These support creating reports, forms, workflow, adding new data tables, and application connections. But they don’t require knowing a coding language.

Instead, application users can use them to directly customize the application to simplify processes and improve their productivity. And they are supported by the IT department at the same time.

Consider this common application life cycle.

Your organization implements a new business application (Epicor, Prophet 21). There are lots of customizations to fit the business need. Everyone is excited when it happens. Fast forward several years. Customizations are slow to appear, yet the organization processes continue to change. The screens and reports work but there are many changes needed. And there is a backlog of work for the IT developers to complete. Frustrated users look for options.

They begin creating custom systems outside the application to get their work done. Excel spreadsheets are everywhere. Users rely on tools like Microsoft Access to get their work done. Everyone works with multiple tools to do their job.

Then someone decides it’s time for a change. Let’s do a new business application! So, the cycle repeats itself. Ugh. This isn’t very efficient, is it?

But what if the customizations were faster and easier to do because more users knew how?

And the application evolved along with the business changes, not behind them?

And there was less frustration and more productivity?

In the past there was always this “Superuser” who showed up in most organizations. They were the person in the organization that learned how to tweak things that were frustrating and repetitive. They weren’t IT staff. But they were quick to see things that could be improved and were willing to invest extra time to figure out a better way. You may be this person or know one because they are in every organization.

But there was a downside. Often their work would be discouraged by the IT department. Why? Because the changes were not documented, or the data wasn’t included in backups. Or worse case, that person would leave the company, and no one knew how to maintain their changes.

What was initially a great solution would slowly become unsupportable and out-of-date. It was a natural process. The organization was always changing. And there were only a limited number of people who could customize things. So, the problem continued.

We should all agree that business applications need to change so we can stop this wasteful cycle. We need business applications to:

Be simpler to customize/adapt to meet changing business needs
Be customized in small ways all the time, not only during initial implementation
Not need more and more IT staff to do all the changes
Allow those persons closest to the problem to have more input on the solution
Ensure that customizations are documented and integrated into the application for future-proofing
Allow users the greatest freedom to adapt, without damaging the integrity of the application data (security, quality, access)

And that’s where the role of Citizen Developers might contribute to a better future. But what is a Citizen Developer?

A good definition would be the right start. Here’s one I found on Gartner: “A citizen developer is an employee who creates application capabilities for consumption by themselves or others, using tools that are not actively forbidden by IT or business units. A citizen developer is a persona, not a title or targeted role. They report to a business unit or function other than IT.”

So, let’s visualize this persona in your organization.

There is this employee who likes new challenges and knows the business process well. This employee is willing to learn how to customize the application. They get started by watching some videos and learning about a new development tool.

The development tool doesn’t require a coding language or week-long classes. It supports drag and drop changes which focus on what is to be done, not how it is done. The tool supports validating that information before it goes into the system.

And just as importantly, the customization works when new releases of the application are installed.

This user can always experiment with this new tool and try things in a testing environment. They can show other users the results, using their feedback to fine-tune the change.

And when it is time, they can coordinate with everyone to release the new functionality to other users who immediately benefit.

The result is that certain processes are now simpler and faster. Users do less manual work and communication (Trackers / Reports) is improved.

This is the future we are looking at. And it’s not that far away. In fact, some of these features are now available in Epicor Kinetic and Prophet 21. But we aren’t yet recognizing the persona of Citizen Developer and encouraging it because we are stuck in the past ways of working.

For example, in Epicor Kinetic, users can adjust column layouts on and save them according to their preferences. That’s a start.

And those who want to delve deeper can explore Business Activity Queries, Dashboards and BPM’s. These take some time to learn but are powerful and flexible. Plus, they are part of Epicor and upgrade with it. And the learning process is becoming simpler because of videos and support sites.

There are a growing number of examples on YouTube of how users can do customizations. And a growing community of users that are willing to share their questions, knowledge and examples.

So, what do you think is needed for your situation, to increase the Citizen Developer persona? How could the concept help in your organization? Let me know your thoughts!

Rob McMillen is a Senior Project Manager and Principal Consultant with EstesGroup, the premiere cloud provider for manufacturers and distributors. He has worked in the manufacturing industry for over 30 years supporting multiple implementations of new ERP systems and leading projects. Because his mom was an English teacher, he grew up with a love of writing. Combined with his working experience, he has written articles for LinkedIn and User Groups, and has published numerous blog posts. He is also a co-author of a book on technology and working collaboratively. He currently lives in the DFW area.

Are you still wondering “what is a citizen developer?” or have other questions about new low-code or no-code platforms? Chat with us now about citizen developers (or any other topic on your mind)!

Introducing Epicor Automation Studio

by Rob McMillen | May 27, 2022 | Epicor, Epicor 10, Epicor Administration, Epicor Kinetic, ERP, ERP Implementation, Prophet 21

There’s always something new with Epicor Kinetic and P21. And here’s something new that is coming!

At the annual Epicor Insights conference, in Nashville, there was an announcement about “Epicor Automation Studio”. The word “Automation” caught my attention because it is a popular term right now. It can describe everything from complex machinery in the factory or warehouse to event-driven even software that runs on the desktop (like the inbox rules in Microsoft Outlook).

All these automations are designed to reduce the mindless tasks that we humans often do, so we can ideally spend more time on ~~Facebook~~ work and being more creative/human! For hundreds of years we’ve automated the physical world (washing machines). Now we see increased automation of our digital worlds to better fit our personal needs.

So, how does Epicor Automation Studio help?

Here’s what we heard.

It is a low-code/no-code toolset for P21 and Kinetic
It will support integrations between Epicor and other applications

This sounds interesting. We all know that there are significant needs for “integrating” various applications. I discuss this topic of “integration” with Epicor Kinetic and Prophet 21 clients weekly.

Often the need is to integrate EDI, e-Commerce, scanners, shipping packages, factory floor vending, or third-party applications so that they work seamlessly with Epicor and P21. So, anything that would simplify that effort would be great!

A quick “google” check helped me find an Epicor article about Epicor Automation Studio, here. It is just an introduction and discusses, in a video, how “Citizen Developers” will be able to use this new tool (I will discuss these Citizen Developers terminology in another article!).

This Epicor article adds more information about what Automation Studio does.

Helps bridge the business / IT gap
Connects Epicor / P21 to thousands of applications
Allows Epicor users to share and store automation “recipes”

What is Epicor Automation Studio?

At first glance it sounds like an Epicor version of Zapier. Zapier has been around for many years. It’s a subscription cloud service with pre-built connectors that allow a non-developer to link applications, so they share information. This involves picking two software products from a list on the screen, determining what actions you would like them to do and selecting it.

The beauty is that it focuses on “what” you want to do without requiring you to know “how” it is done.

Each Zapier process starts with a Trigger and is then followed by multiple steps to complete it. As a user you just click on options to define the one or more steps. It’s intuitive and flexible.

I’ve seen Zapier used to send texts every time you get an email in your Inbox from a key customer or open a help desk ticket if a message has certain words in it or send updates from your Contacts to Salesforce or load new information onto a website page.

However, Epicor Automation Studio will need to handle more complex situations that involve Orders, Customers, Parts, User ID’s, Jobs, Vendors, and Purchase Orders. And to do all of that, there will have to be underlying processes that likely use Application Programming Interfaces (API’s).

Today, it would take a good C# developer to integrate an application with Epicor using API logic. That skill involves knowledge about the plumbing between the two applications and also the time to fully test it.

And that’s why Epicor is moving this direction. They realize that automation is a growing trend. Particularly the trend to involve Epicor users in more of the work that has traditionally been an IT function.

We’ve already seen some of this where Epicor allows users to customize their menus, favorites and screens in Kinetic and P21. For example, in Kinetic, users can rearrange data columns when displaying information. Then they can save the format for future use. Every time they access this data, it appears in their preferred column sequence.

Another area, we see, is the use of Business Activity Queries (BAQ’s) in Epicor products. BAQ’s do require more technical knowledge than a screen customization but have opened the door to some end users creating custom dashboards and reports (SSRS). For those who are not developers they offer a simpler way (point and click) to display information and improve productivity.

What is interesting is how widespread this is. In almost every organization there is at least one non-IT person, that has decided to invest time learning how to create BAQ’s, Reports, Dashboards and even BPM’s. I’m always amazed and grateful for their skills because they are the real changemakers!

With Epicor Automation Studio, the trend continues where we see several business changes that are merging.

The first change is the widespread use of point and click interfaces (who doesn’t have a cell phone?).
The second change is the introduction of low-code/no-code tools to automate and accomplish more without having to know the details of the system.
The third change is the sharing of information (“recipes”) with others, so they don’t have to start from scratch.

While there will always be work for those who are highly technical you should expect to see more of the application customization shifting to tech-savvy end users who know what the business needs and have better tools to implement those changes. So get ready.

Who knows? Maybe someday you will start a new job and use a “studio” to design your digital workspace to your personal preferences. That would be interesting, right?

Ask the Author About Epicor

Rob McMillen
Principal Consultant / Project Manager at EstesGroup