Epicor Archives

Epicor Data Fix Workbench: Balancing the Balance

by Brad Feakes | Dec 13, 2020 | Epicor, Epicor 10, Epicor Administration

The Weight of the ERP Data World

My old friend Thanos was a big believer in the principle of balance. In an ERP context, data integrity is the epitome of balance. But sometimes unexpected issues corrupt data and throw this precious balance askew. Read further to understand how to use the Epicor Data Fix Workbench to restore data balance with a snap of your fingers.

Fundamental to the successful management of an ERP system is the management of its data.

An ERP system is only as good as its data. If the data gets dirty, the ERP system will similarly suffer. But the sources of data discrepancies vary. In many cases, they are due to inadequate policies and procedures surrounding the entry and maintenance of ERP information. In other cases, the system itself is responsible for problems with its data. In these cases, Epicor ERP supports its customers through the development and delivery of data fix routines. These routines resolve specific data-related issues with the application’s data, allowing for smoother system operation.

When a customer encounters a data-related issue, Epicor support may provide a “.df” file to resolve the issue. These data fix routines need to be correctly installed and ran. The following document describes some of the steps involved in the installation and processing of data fix routines:

Upon receiving a data fix, save the .df data script file to a location accessible from the application server.
Log into the application server and open the Epicor Administration Console.
In the left tree view, navigate to the “Database Server Management” nod, and locate the database to which you intend to deploy the fix.
Select the E10 Database in question, as accessed through the admin console.

Once selected, click the “Import DB Health Scrips(s)” selection in the right “Actions” window:

This will raise a selection window. Click the ellipsis to search for the data fix script in question:

Epicor Data Fix Screenshot Select Scripts

Locate and open the data fix file in question:

Once selected, click the “OK” button to load the fix into the database:

Once loaded, you can now log into the application and run the fix. Navigate to the System Management > Upgrade/Mass Regeneration and open the “Data Fix Workbench”:

Once the “Data Fix Workbench” loads, click the “Data Fix…” button to search for and select the desired fix:

The fixes available will be limited to the number of fixes you imported using the above procedure. Locate the fix you wish to run. Select the fix and click “OK”:

The process for running the fix in question may differ according to the specific fix itself. That said, there are a few general principles to running a fix routine that are consistent across fixes:

Enter any needed parameters
Click the “Report” button to return records in the database needing correction
Select the records you wish to correct
Run the routine to update/delete the selected records

The ongoing maintenance and management of an ERP ecosystem is a critical responsibility for Epicor administrators.

With challenges to server performance, network connectivity, database optimization, and endpoint security, administrators cannot afford to allow the system’s data to unravel. Every ERP system will encounter data issues at one point or another. Understanding the process to load and run a given fix in Epicor is a key step for ERP administrators, assisting in the important task of ERP data management.

Epicor ERP Database Upgrade Considerations

by Brad Feakes | Nov 2, 2020 | Epicor, Epicor 10, ERP Implementation

Technical Considerations for an Epicor Upgrade

As more and more Epicor users moved from Epicor 905 to E10, the new world of upgrade challenges leveled off into old world reflection. As a customer, I once watched my company implement Epicor’s Vantage 803 platform and flirt heavily with a disastrous 904 release before upgrading to 905.600B. They finally settled on 905.702A. Since then, they’ve been in a holding pattern, and their jump to E10 is now, essentially, a ground-up ERP reimplementation.

If you’ve made the decision to upgrade, you need to consider everything from old data to new cloud-based servers. Because I’ve seen Epicor consulting on both sides of the give-and-get (as a customer and as a consultant), I’ve collected quite a few answers to questions surrounding your Epicor ERP database and your decision to upgrade.

Epicor ERP Database Technical Conceptualization

The Epicor ERP Lifecycle

For customers already on E10, the burdens of keeping your system up to date are much less worrisome. Epicor’s release cadence is now a metronome of consistency. New versions address the bugs and bothers seen in earlier iterations. Epicor consistently provides new functionality to the software and enhances existing capabilities. To this end, it is important to understand Epicor’s support cycle, and the difference between active support and sustaining support. To begin with, active support relates to the full breath of assistance provided by Epicor, and is reserved for versions that have been released roughly within the last two years. Epicor produces a new release (for example, from 10.2.600 to 10.2.700) every six months. That means if you are four releases behind the current release, you’ve moved into sustaining support.

Epicor System Support: Version Control

For an example, let’s say you implemented Epicor on version 10.2.300, and Epicor’s most recent release is 10.2.700. This means active support for your old version expired, just as the new version became generally available. As of release .700, Epicor would now only provide active support to versions 400-700. As such, release 10.2.300 would now be on what Epicor refers to as “sustaining support.” Sustaining support significantly limits the level of assistance Epicor will give you, whether it be support through their help line, bug fixes, the ability to purchase new ERP modules, and even the ability to obtain ERP consulting support. To make the most of your support fees, it is normally a good idea to keep your application’s version current.

Epicor ERP Upgrade Q&A

For companies falling behind on release upgrades, we can (with minimal angst) get the systems updated. First, we can ask a number of questions regarding the mechanics of the upgrade itself. Then, we can work from the solid foundation of a successful upgrade plan. With this all in mind, I collected some of the questions we normally ask a customer during the consulting process when helping form an Epicor ERP database upgrade plan.

Detail Your Current ERP Environment

App Server(s): How did you deploy your production application? Is it deployed on a single server or on multiple servers? Are your test environments deployed on the same server as the production environment, or are they deployed on separate servers? Is your environment deployed onto a physical server, a virtual server on physical hardware, or to a cloud-based VM? What is the version of your operating system? Is it up to date? What are the physical properties of your application server environment(s)—RAM, CPU, hard drive?
SQL Server: Is the SQL Server installed on the same server as the application or to its own server? What version of SQL Server Management Studio are you using? Is it up to date? What are the physical properties of your database server—RAM, CPU, hard drive?
Epicor Applications: What version of Epicor are you on? To which version of Epicor do you intend to move? Is it supported by your OS and SQL Server versions?
Epicor Extensions: Which Epicor extensions are currently in use (Web Access, Mobile Access, Enterprise Search, Social Enterprise, Education, Information Worker, Data Discovery)? Do you intend to utilize the same extensions when you upgrade?
Third-Party Tools: Do you have any third-party tools or integrations that will need to be in use when you upgrade (CRM integration, External Configurator, Ecommerce, etc)?
Client Installation: How is your user community connecting to the application? (Client install? Terminal Server? Web access, etc.)? Do you intend to utilize the same installation methodology when you complete your Epicor ERP database upgrade?
Backup Policy: What is the current backup solution and disaster recovery policy? Do we need to carry this forward, or will we make changes to this as part of the upgrade?

Clarify the Future-State Server Map

Live Server: Do you ultimately intend to deploy the upgraded Live environment onto a new application server or utilize the existing server?

Test Server: Will you be using a new Test server or utilize the existing server, with the intent of running two versions concurrently during the upgrade phase?

Database Server: Will you be deploying to a new database server or using the existing server?

If a new server, have you procured your additional SQL Server licenses?
If a new server, who will we be installing the SQL Server application?

Roles and Responsibilities: For all new servers, what tasks will be the clients responsibility?

Provisioning new servers
Providing new OS licenses, installing operating systems and enabling RDP
Providing the agent-based backup solution
Supplying any anti-virus exclusions

Server Access: What is the preferred method of attaining server access?

Remote connectivity agent
VPN/RDP
Virtual Desktop
RMM

Order of Operations: What does the upgrade and verification process look like? Are we upgrading test application first?

Verification Plan: Is there a testing qualifications checklist? Have you identified the scenarios, products, and business processes that you wish to use for testing? Finally, have you identified all the customizations, dashboard, and reports that you will want to verify as part of testing?

A New View From an E10 Upgrade

So far, we’ve looked at questions surrounding primarily technical considerations. However, with all the discussions of feeds and speeds, it’s not uncommon to have a customer come to us asking, “What does an Epicor E10 upgrade actually look like?” To begin with, answering the above questions will go far to understanding the shape of the upgrade. Next, moving beyond the technical considerations, we can identify a basic flow of activities. Moreover, this flow can help customers understand just what needs to be accomplished and in what order.

While each upgrade looks a little different, based on the specifics of the organization, most upgrades follow a sequence similar to the following:

First, spin up any new servers and install operating systems and SQL Server as required.
Then, install a new version of the Epicor application to a designated application server and/or upgrade the existing Epicor application on an existing Test server.
Meanwhile, take a copy of the production environment database to create a Test environment database on the SQL Server.
Next, upgrade the Test environment database from the Admin Console on the application server.
Perform testing activities to determine whether the new version works as anticipated. Perform remediation where gaps or issues are found and retest.
Once approved, schedule live upgrade, client deployment plan and communication plan.
Then, focus on upgrade production application and upgrade client deployments.
Support end users during post-upgrade period.
Finally, decommission any old application install and/or servers that are no longer required.

An Epicor Database Ace

Beyond version support, you can find many good reasons to keep an up-to-date Epicor ERP system on your side. Primarily, updating to the current version of the application allows you to leverage the cutting-edge features of the system for your users. So give some thought to sprucing up your data with an Epicor ERP upgrade.

Do you have a question for an Epicor consultant? If you need an answer to an ERP question, please fill out the form below, and we’ll talk to you soon. Likewise, you can use the chat to ask your questions, and we’ll talk to you within seconds or minutes. For more Epicor consulting advice, read one of our ERP white papers. If you’d like to know more about hybrid and private cloud ERP, watch a webinar on virtual office cybersecurity. Then read about our managed IT solutions that are perfect for any ERP system.

Epicor System Monitor: Canceling a Hung Task

by Brad Feakes | Oct 24, 2020 | Epicor, Epicor 10, Epicor Administration, ERP Consulting

Epicor’s System Monitor is a handy ERP tool that can be used for one of many purposes in working with the background processes and reports that Epicor’s Task Agent orchestrates. The Epicor Task Agent handles all server-side tasks for a given application server. These can be scheduled tasks or “immediate run requests” that are triggered by end users. Additionally, these can be SSRS reports or long-running processes like MRP or PO Suggestions. Whatever the tasks may be, the Epicor System Monitor is the perfect tool for viewing their status as they run, and their history once they complete.

Chalkboard Sketch of Planning Steps Including Tasks

On occasion, a task may hang or get stuck such that it prevents further processing. Imagine that a process such as PO Suggestions hangs up and stops processing, for one of many reasons. Tasks are stored in Epicor’s SysTask table, and if an active task such as PO suggestions is stuck in the System Monitor, it will prevent any subsequent attempts to run PO Suggestions. This can be a great problem to a company that needs to get new suggestions in the hands of its purchasing department.

Epicor System Monitor Generate PO Suggestions

Fortunately, there are a number of steps one can take to cancel or complete a stuck task.

When troubleshooting a stuck task in Epicor, look to address it in the following order:

Cancel the task in the System monitor
Bounce the Task Agent
Bounce the AppServer instance
Update the rogue SysTask record directly in SQL

Cancel the Task in the Epicor System Monitor

The simplest way to kill a task is using the Epicor System Monitor itself. This can be done by navigating to the “Active Tasks” tab, selecting the task you intend to cancel and clicking the delete (“X”) icon. If successful, this task will fall out of the “Active Tasks” queue and fall into the “History Tasks” queue as a task with a status of “Cancelled”:

Bounce the Task Agent

If the task will not cancel through the System Monitor, you can try to bounce the Task Agent itself, which may free up the task and allow it to cancel. This is a relatively noninvasive method and will generally go unnoticed by the user community. From the AppServer, launch the Epicor Administration console, and from the Admin console, launch the Task Agent Configuration utility. Select the task agent you wish to cancel and from the “Actions” menu, select “Stop Agent…”:

Bounce the AppServer Instance

If a Task Agent bounce is ineffective, bouncing the AppServer itself may work. This is a much more invasive solution, so it should be done when the user load is low, or else at a prescribed time such that the user community will be prepared. From the Admin Console, navigate to the server you wish to bounce, right-click the server node and select “Stop Application Pool.” Once stopped, right-click it again and select “Start Application Pool.” In my experience, this will normally shake loose the stuck task:

Epicor System Monitor Admin Console to Stop a Hung Task

Update the rogue SysTask record directly in SQL

If all else fails, your last recourse is to update the SysTask record through SQL Server. Opening an instance of SQL Server Management Studio, navigate to the Database in question and create a new query. Enter the script below, adjusting the SysTaskNum to reflect the specific task number as found in the System Monitor. Run the query to update the record. While I am never a fan of direct SQL updates, this is one case in which such an update may be necessary.

update ice.SysTask set EndedOn = GetDate(), TaskStatus = ‘Complete’, History = 1 where SysTaskNum = 55228
delete ice.SysTaskKill where SysTaskNum = 55228

The Epicor System Monitor Lets You View, Manage and Cancel Tasks

At times, Epicor tasks need to be stopped. Hopefully, this article helped you understand the steps to take when trying to kill a task. This Epicor screen shows you which tasks are active, and it enables the initial steps for task resolution. You might even use this ERP feature daily. Due to its usefulness, the System Monitor is a classic. If your ERP system is a labyrinth, then your Epicor System Monitor is a golden thread, helping you navigate the maze and kill the wrongful task. As I’ve always said, it’s better to monitor than to minotaur…

For more ERP tricks from our Epicor consulting team, ask us for a case study on CTO and ETO implementations.

Or click here to watch our Epicor Summit to learn about Planning Workbench, SQL Server Administration, and SSRS Reports.

How to Update Multiple Tables in Epicor DMT

by Brad Feakes | Sep 27, 2020 | Epicor, Epicor 10, Epicor Administration, ERP Benefits & Features

Multi-table updates for Epicor implementation and beyond

As part of Epicor ERP’s overall implementation and optimization toolset, the Data Management Tool (DMT) is a fundamental aspect of a successful implementation strategy. It gives you the ability to load, update, and even remove data. These capabilities allow you to cleanly load the setup and master file data as part of an environment build activity prior to go-live. When a user imports data, DMT keeps upload and update behaviors in check so that data migration is efficient and effective.

Multiple Table Updates Data Management Tool Epicor

Epicor DMT also enables you to load live transactional records such as sales orders and purchase orders. These are essential to a successful cutover. Better yet, DMT possesses the ability to maintain records and improve the system’s data integrity long after the system is live. This allows an Epicor admin to efficiently clean up and even optimize the master file. This benefit also applies to transactional files in the live environment.

The Epicor ERP “Part” Routine

Within this context, one especially helpful capability involves the ability not only to update multiple columns of a table but to also update multiple related table records at once. For example, DMT’s “Part” routine allows for the creation and maintenance of records existing in the “Part” table. But DMT’s “Part Combined” routine allows not only for the creation of Part records. It also provides the ability to simultaneously add and/or update related Part Site (PartPlant), Part Warehouse (PartWhse), and Part Revision (PartRev) records. One could update these records individually, but Epicor provides the ability to perform multiple row updates in a single pass.

Sometimes DMT necessitates a multi-table setup in order to load and update data

For instance, the Resource table requires that you utilize the Resource Group routine to make updates to the Resource table. Let’s assume that you are the Epicor admin for your company. What if your operations manager decides to forgo using Epicor’s finite scheduling functionality? As such, you need to run an update to uncheck the Resource.Finite flag on all active resources. Should you search for a routine in DMT to update the “Resource” table, you will discover that none are available. Only the “Resource Group” load program is available:

Fortunately, you can utilize the Resource Group load program to update the Resources related to all Resource Groups. Within Epicor’s Data Management Tool, multiple table update routines utilize a specific field naming convention to differentiate the primary table from its child tables:

Primary Table: The field names are sufficient—given that the program knows the table context, the parent table (in this case, the “ResourceGroup” table).
Child Table: Epicor utilizes a [ChildTableName]#[ChildFieldName] convention when defining the fields for the child table to be utilized.

For example, should you click the “Required” fields button for the “Resource Group” load, you will discover that to update the “Resource” table, you will need a number of key Resource Group fields but also the “Resource#ResourceID” and the “Resource#ResourceDescription” fields:

multiple table updates in Epicor DMT resource group required fields

This is also evident when using the “Template Builder…” functionality to create a load template.

Given the above scenario, I opted to include the “Resource#Finite” field when creating the load template:

To perform the ResourceGroup-Resource parent-child table update to the finite-scheduling field that I had intended, I now have a load template with the following fields, named as follows:

Company
Plant
JCDept
ResourceGrpID
Description
Resource#ResourceID
Resource#Description
Resource#Finite

As is the convention with Epicor’s Data Management Tool loads, I entered my data into a spreadsheet:

Finally, by loading the spreadsheet file into DMT, I can now perform the necessary update. The file, as defined below, loads without error:

Multiple Table Updates in Epicor DMT Resource Group Finite Update

Epicor’s Data Management Tool is replete with capabilities.

However, these features that are not always well documented or communicated. But with a little foreign key fiddling and a few Epicor consulting friends, DMT can be of great assistance to your Epicor ERP implementation.

Learn about Epicor cloud

Epicor Supplier Relationship Management 2020 Trends

by Brad Feakes | Sep 16, 2020 | Epicor, ERP Benefits & Features, Manufacturing Innovation

In March 2020, before the shutdown, I traveled to a few customers and had an opportunity to talk supply chain with some of their commodity managers. Given the centrality of China-based supply chain sourcing, I wondered if pending restrictions on material movement between countries and potential productivity downturns overseas would affect these clients. At the time, the impact was uncertain—many of these companies had placed forward-buys on key commodities, such that they expected to have a bit of a buffer to ride out the ensuing uncertainty. Strategic supplier relationship management proved to be the ideal way to weather 2020 supply chain challenges.

How do supply chains keep up with demands?

During the subsequent months, strange things abounded. On the home front, demand patterns changed drastically, trimming back the need for auxiliaries and tertiaries, leaving much of the stockpiled inventory pushed to a corner, waiting for needs to level off and go back to their old ways. In other markets and verticals, demand for certain products and services had gone through the roof, and companies struggled to realign their supply chains to support the fulfillment of surging demand.

This resulted in a great deal of wheeling and dealing, including searches for alternate suppliers. Local companies took on the manufacturing of components that had long been outsourced. These activities are ongoing for everyone balancing new supplier relationship management trends.

As situations continue to evolve, folks immersed in the supply chain community continue to try and understand just what can be learned from this strange turn of events. One point of interest has to do with the actual dynamics of demand. Strangely enough, it was not the downturn in supply that created the many supply chain challenges, but rather, it was the spiking nature of demand. Product and service demand did not decrease uniformly. Rather, it scraped bottom in certain product categories, markets and verticals, and sky-rocketed in specific niches.

As a supply chain manager, predicting such strange peaks and valleys would be a fool’s errand. Rather, the successes in Epicor SRM that I’ve encountered have had more to do with the ability to rapidly react to challenges than to anticipate them. This ability to react is normally due to a few key capabilities:

The ability to develop a broad supplier base. This means locating multiple potential sources of supply, in the event that one source of supply goes dark.
The ability to leverage alternate parts and methods to manufacture high-demand finished goods, in the event that primary components become unavailable.
A highly capable supplier relationship management toolset that can closely monitor and maintain incoming supply, as to ensure that incoming supply will meet the company’s needs and provide maximum reaction time, in the event that supply will not make it in on time.

SourceDay can assist in this final capability, which is the ability to organize supply in order to ensure that Epicor customers can support the shifting and shifty demand patterns of their own customer base.

Has 2020 changed your supplier relationship management strategy?

See how companies like yours respond to supply chain disruptions.

Watch a webinar to understand 2020 industry trends:

Covid-19’s Impact on Your Supply Chain

Presented by our partner SourceDay

On September 17th, 2020

Covid-19’s Impact on Your Supply Chain

Watch the webinar now

Epicor ERP Event: EstesGroup Fall Summit 2020 (Video)

by EstesCloud | Sep 15, 2020 | Epicor, Epicor 10, ERP Consulting

An Epicor ERP Event to Begin a New Season

Are you ready for change? In June, we gathered friends and strangers together at an Epicor user event covering everything from master file setup to security to embedded customization. To further support this ERP community, we’re meeting again on October 7th for another Epicor event that will raise awareness of new techniques for manufacturers and distributors using ERP software solutions. This fall summit will serve to assist Epicor users with customization and optimization steps that are often overlooked by ERP project teams.

Epicor is a large and complex application and can be configured in a multitude of ways. Depending on how you’ve configured your application, different capabilities and different issues present themselves, and understanding how other Epicor customers have addressed these issues is often a great way to add perspective to your own challenges. On the technical front, the tools available for super users often span the skillsets of multiple roles, so for those of you who wear multiple hats by necessity, a better understanding of some of Epicor’s key technical foundations can assist in better maintaining and optimizing your installation. If you’ve experienced work culture shifts because of the pandemic, you might benefit from new Epicor consulting techniques that can address challenging project checkpoints (like conducting an Epicor CRP remotely, for example).

Making the Most of the Planning Workbench

Job management and scheduling are critical to any ERP implementation, but no two companies manage the work orders passing though their factories in quite the same way. Not surprisingly, Epicor offers a number of planning and scheduling tools that often go underutilized. Epicor’s Planning Workbench is one such tool, and integrating it into your suite of management tools can take a little fiddling, and its tendrils extend into Epicor’s part master setup, into its Time Phase and MRP programs, and even into Epicor’s underlying PartDtl table. In this session, we’ll be working though the logic underlying the Planning Workbench and demonstrating how it can be leveraged to keep ahead of quantity and timing issues on your shop floor.

SQL Server: Tips and Tricks For the Epicor Administrator

For those in the user community with Epicor experience that dates back to the days of 905 and earlier, the challenges of working with Epicor’s legacy backend are long remembered, like bad memories from another place and time. With the advent of Epicor’s E10 application, Epicor moved to an entirely Microsoft-centric stack, resulting in a much more stable, robust and scalable platform. And now that Epicor’s E10 ERP platform is built upon Microsoft’s SQL Server database engine, there are many new tricks and techniques that can be applied to best leverage the capabilities of the SQL Server RDBMS, while avoiding the common pitfalls of SQL Server administration. Understanding the principles of configuration, tuning and optimization at the database level can have a significant positive impact on your Epicor application’s performance and stability. In this SQL Server session, we’ll provide key insights to keeping your database server running smoothly.

SSRS Reporting: Modifying Standard Reports

Speaking further along the lines of Epicor’s Microsoft-centric stack, Epicor’s use of Microsoft’s SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) as its primary reporting platform allowed for tighter integration across the different elements of the application. But the move from Crystal Reports to SSRS was a significant one, given that SSRS differs significantly from Crystal in its fit, form, and function. For users unfamiliar with the paradigms underlying SSRS, simple things like adding a logo or a field to an existing report, in order to address the needs of a given company, are not always self-evident. In this SSRS Reporting session, we’ll provide some steps that will allow you to make basic modifications to standard reports to help fit them effectively into your business.

Watch this ERP event

Watch the Epicor summit recording

Watch our Epicor ERP fall event preview to begin a new season of ERP solutions.

Planning Workbench

Presented by Brad Feakes

SQL Server

Presented by Daryl Sirota

SSRS Reporting

Presented by Joe Trent