RE: Getting started with BPCS -- BPCS-L

1. Review the BPCS_L archives because this is a recurring topic in which
many people have commented on many variations of what passes for decent
documentation.  Search for "Doc" to get posts where people abbreviate
"Documentation"; "Manual"; other words culled from this thread.  In fact
the BPCS_L archives have a wealth of info on most any BPCS topic imaginable.

2. In your Corporate Memories, identify what company or companies provide
you with BPCS Tech Support and continuing BPCS education.  Learning BPCS is
not easy for any one person at a company.  Each company ought to have
something in place for continuing BPCS education for all the
employees.  Find it and avail yourself of it.

In all probability there are hand-outs from classes that former co-workers
attended.  Your company might even have some BPCS Manuals and BPCS
Newsletters.  There are many companies in the BPCS Consulting Biz and
almost all of them publish some kind of BPCS Tips Newsletters, or BPCS
Manuals.  SSA-GT and several other firms offer BPCS Classes, and there are
also BPCS User Conferences.  You can find out about a lot of this stuff in
the BPCS_L archives now that you know what to look for,

3. In your BPCS Library list, locate the source file BPCSDOC which has many
members aimed at different aspects of BPCS - the first member you want to
be looking at, if you are a software person is SSALOG00 (the Logic
Manual).  BPCS is setup to access this through the DOC menu (you need SYS
security or other arrangements to get in) but as a programmer I am more
comfortable accessing it through PDM.  This stuff is poorly cross-indexed
but there is a wealth of information there.

Depending on your version of BPCS, you may be able to locate the source
code for much of what BPCS runs.  Many of my users have found value in
having printed out for them what the help screens show for the programs
they often run ... a user sometimes wants to know how to navigate to a
particular screen.

4. UPI has excellent manuals from the perspective of end users and managers
of the applications, that provide you with the big picture of administering
each application, and how they fit together.  This is one possible starting
place for learning about BPCS and BPCS applications, but not optimal for
learning how to modify it.  Most of the manuals are around $250.00 each and
cover clusters of modules, such as everything to do with how BPCS costs
work, or all the Planning modules.  One we do not have, but I would like to
have, is BPCS Guide for Auditors, that lists the gotchas where people often
have misconceptions or liable to make mistakes because of those
misconceptions about how BPCS works.

5. Nexgen has a BPCS newsletter, and you can download back issues from
their web site, with several articles in each issue that focus on how to
get the best value out of some sub-set of some BPCS Application.

6. When BPCS was installed, or any conversion done, or upgrades added,
there should have been media (we got it on diskettes for PCs) with
extensive documentation that went far beyond what is on-line with
BPCS.  See if you can find that stuff in your Company.  This info was not
much help to someone trying to end use BPCS, but it is big help to
programmer type person.

7. There are BPCS User Groups and User Conferences around the USA, and I
would not be surprised if also around the world.  Check the BPCS_L archives
for info on the one held regularly in your part of the country.  If you
want to fly into USA to visit one of these shows, I think the best are
those associated with SSA GT, NOBUGS (Northern Ohio BPCS User Group),
There's one co-sponsored by an Illinois and Wisconsin BPCS User groups, the
one at Purdue University, and the one in New Jersey.  Check BPCS_L archives
for specifics which I do not have handy.  In some cases you can find
seminar handouts from these conferences off the Internet.

8. IBM and SSA co-authored a Red Book on BPCS Performance, which tells you
nothing about the applications or what the software is actually doing.  You
can download it for free from the Internet in PDF format.  We put ours on a
CD Rom and printed selected pages into a binder.

9. DS Solutions Manual explains what all the fields are for in all the
files, so it really is a life saver for programmers and query/400 developers.

10. Someone on this list (check the BPCS_L archives) has a directory of all
BPCS files and fields in Excel format.

11. ISA out of Indianapolis, has a list of the most popular modifications
that people make to BPCS - since they webified it, I think the quality went
seriously down hill.  See if you can get one of the old dead tree copies.

12. A lot of companies use Robot for automatic scheduling of their 400
jobs.  There is a forum on Help Systems specifically to help sites that
have both Robot and BPCS for scheduling BPCS jobs on Robot.

13. Last but not least.  Find another BPCS user company in your neck of the
woods and seek their help and advice.  Since I got downsized I now have
time to help someone off-line from this list.

I am in the same boat Krystriana is in, in that I am trying to learn BPCS.
So Krystriana if you find something please let us know. BTW thanks DeeDee.


Juan Robledo
Programmer Analyst

Before posting, please take a moment to review the archives
at http://archive.midrange.com/bpcs-l.

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