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RorySome of the stuff here may be deserving of a separate thread, to go after the finer points of some of the programs and features.
Before we implemented BPCS the first time (BPCS/36 in the late 1980's) a bunch of our people went on a tour of another factory that was running on BPCS. We had factory manager, purchasing manager, inventory people, accounting, customer service, etc. talking to their opposite numbers ... in BPCS can you do this or that, can you show us how you do it? This was an incredible educational experience.
In my earlier post, and also here, I trying to outline several considerations that you need to be aware of ... in the nature of gotchas in a quicksand of minefields. I am speaking from memory of a 1998 conversion. Our CFO did the General Ledger accounts setup in the environment created for that purpose.
You need to understand environments. They are like totally separated sets of BPCS files. You can set them up using some of the same software, since the programs used to execute BPCS are in one set of libraries, and the files in another set, but there are some objects that dictate the glue, so you have to be careful there if using shared pieces.
I sign on to the live production environment as AL. I sign onto the test environment as ALE the "E" means educational testing environment When we had the accounting setup environment, I signed onto it as ALA This applied to everyone using the multiple environments. Live: AL MIKE TIM JERRY WHOEVER Test: ALE MIKEE TIME JERRYE WHOEVERE Accounting setup: ALA TIMA WHOEVERAIf your background is primarily in accounting, you ought to get some of the UPI manuals, perhaps starting with the Guidebook for BPCS Auditors, that describes common misconceptions of people setting up and using BPCS, such that there is grave risk of shooting your company in the foot, with so many holes all fall down. http://www.unbeatenpathintl.com/bpcsmanuals.html
Journal entries only go into the one environment, the same environment that is the active live test pilot whatever. The purpose of our general accounting environment was for the CFO, and his helpers, to get the General Ledger Chart of Accounts structured the way the company wanted them. Some key files were copied in there from the developmental environment, to help see how the different files interconnect, but the purpose of the Accounting setup environment was just that, to get the General Ledger main files manually ready.
BPCS has rules that are overall, and rules by application, in which many rules sets are shared by different applications.
I suggest you get IT to print you all the screens of SYS800 for your reference, then you go trackdown the documentation on what that stuff means, and the significance of the different choices. It not much matter what you do with rules other places if you mess this up, since this is the rules of the rules, you start here.
Then you can look at rules by individual applications. What goes into the General Ledger is not dictated by the GLD rules, but by the applications that send info to the GL. The GL rules are just what to do with the data after it gets there.
See if you can find Inquiry into Inventory Transaction Effects. On BPCS 405CD the path is INV / 15 / 2 / INV355 Pick any effect, such as an early one on the list. Cast your eye down to the bottom of the screen. Does this transaction post to General Ledger? If not, do not change the rules until you understand why not.Page down to another transaction, page down again, or page up a few times if you did not start at the top.
Notice how some post to GL and some do not.When post to GL see how it spells out what GL account it goes to, but it is not the whole part of the account. Also that the Journal has a tracking system, dictated here.
The O transaction is what updates inventory from a Physical Inventory.I have argued, unsuccessfully here, that this transaction should NOT change date of last activity. We have parts that we have not used in YEARS, that have date of last activity being the last time we had a physical inventory. This is an example of how these rules can be critical to your operations.
Now take a look at Item Classes. On BPCS405 the path to this is INV / 26 / INV160 We not changing anything on this trip, just looking. If you do not know any item classes to look at get to command line and CALL QCMD will get you some elbow room, then RUNQRY *N IIC and it will dump info to your screen ... F20 (upper F8) to move to rightNotice here is another part of the puzzle that defines how activity with different items ends up in the General Ledger.
It is a combination of the transaction effects (ITE) file, information about the nature of the item (IIC file), and other files in the INV module.
Many other applications have similar stuff, rules to determine how things work, and where the General Ledger is to be notified of activity here, via Journal Entries, or what activity is to be invisible with respect to the General Ledger. Hopefully it is now obvious to you that Computer Security for changing these rules is an important element of your implementation. Otherwise, someone could change the rules to make some financial activities invisible from the General Ledger, walk off with a lot of loot, then change the rules back to normal again.
If in the future, you need to alter your chart of accounts, it stands to reason that you also need to change the rules in the various applications that post stuff to the chat of accounts, which also means you need to know how to navigate the BPCS documentation to find out where all those rules are.
A big help here is understanding the BPCS naming conventions, so you know where not to look. Also with future modifications, it helps if they are consistent with BPCS naming conventions without running the risk of creating something that is same name of a future something from SSA, when you upgrade to latest version or release.
When I started on our current version of BPCS = 405CD, I was coming from BPCS/36 ... OS/400 in many ways was like an alien world seen darkly through the rose colored glasses of the SSP background. I had to have some education in many aspects of OS/400.
I had to have tech support walk me through SSALOG00, and answer a LOT of questions that I had about the content. I read SSALOG00 from cover to cover, many times, and some sections countless times. I asked lots more questions. If you are new to BPCS or the 400, this is Advanced stuff, but if you not know it thoroughly, your implementation is headed for a serious fall.
There are also significant migration documentation resources that come from SSA that are not part of BPCS. Don't ignore them. Some of them are absolute life savers.
Do you know what an IBM Redbook is?The White Books are for people who are working with a particular programming language, screen design, web design, new logical files, whatever ... and how do we do this or that esoteric function? Look it up in the White Book manual on that topic. White Books are written by the developers of the particular product that the manual is about.
The Red Books are for people working in a generic area where many tools might apply, and we need to know the best tool for the job. Red Books are written by people in the field who are familiar with all the tools involved, but the content is not for the beginner ... you need to have a working knowledge of some of the tools before you can get anything out of a Red Book. IBM has a Red Book on implementing BPCS. http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg245410.html
Warning ... if you are not an IT person familiar with a large chunk of the 400, this book will be total Greek to you. It has nothing about the individual applications such as Inventory and Accounting. It is all about getting your implementation to work efficiently ... productively, have good computer security ... a computer administration text book, what the choices are with the different kinds of BPCS realities available.
I see from the headers on your e-mail that English might not be your primary language. Be aware that there are tech support places with staff who are proficient in both BPCS and various languages like Spanish. Be aware that BPCS has multi-lingual features.
For example ... 3 workers all looking at the same screen worker in your factory in Mexico sees the data in Spanish worker in your factory in Quebec sees the data in French worker in middle America sees it in English this is setup BY PERSONso you can have laborers in a factory whose primary language is other than that of the factory, and they see the data in their primary language.
You can also do it BY REPORTSsuppose you want to send something through customs, with another nation ... you might want reports in the primary language of that nation or perhaps you have a trading partner in another nation ... it might be nice if information you sent them does not need to be translated to be usable to them.
If you doing the multi-language stuff, you may need some modifications, since there are some holes in how BPCS has implemented it.
Al,Thanks for the comprehensive information. I guess I'll ask for a stronger support from our IT team and involve SSA earlier in the process.Can you give me more information on how you worked with the the separate environment, how was the setup of the accounts and rules and how did you manage to have both environments receiving all the journal entries ? Your experience and dificulties will certainly help us to avoid pitfals that could jeopardize this project.Rony On Fri, 15 Jul 2005 06:16:13 -0500, Al Mac <macwheel99@xxxxxxxxxxx> escreveu: > De: Al Mac <macwheel99@xxxxxxxxxxx> > Data: Fri, 15 Jul 2005 06:16:13 -0500 > Para: "SSA's BPCS ERP System" <bpcs-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx> > Assunto: Re: [BPCS-L] Implement new chart of accounts > > The computer trade press used to be filled with stories of failed ERP > implementations. This is a much easier scenario to get into than a > successful implementation. >> A company can fail by going it alone, not using tech support, not budgeting> people resources appropriately, doing lots of work THEN getting the > education in how to do it right, or not using consultants that specialize > in helping with such projects. Now I have worked with different BPCS > consultants, and I love them, but there is a definite conflict of > interest. They make money by helping you with a variety of things, so if > you have a conversion project that is needlessly long, with massive excess > expenses, has lots of things done wrong that you will need their help to > fix later, this is great for their pocketbook. So watch out, some> consultant advice is not neccessarily in your best interests, and some will> mean a successful implementation that is much more expensive than it needs > to be. > > One of the great features that can be underutilized, or messed up, is for > tech support to connect to your system thru the ECS line. Thanks to group > jobs, a bunch of them can be signed on at the same time doing different> things. Management "saved money" by putting the ECS line at the end of our > switchboard collection, so that it was the last line used. This meant that> when we got real busy, the normal phone use knocked off the ECS crashing > whatever the consultants were doing, and we were paying a LOT of $ for > their time. So whatever was "saved" by not giving the ECS a private line, > we paid several thousand times over by crashing our own emergency tech > support a lot. If your ECS cannot be a private line, you too can pay > thousands times more cost by having consultants at your site for weeks on > end, who could have done the work much more inexpensively over an ECS > private line. There are some scenarios where it pays to bring BPCS > consultant personnel to your site. There are many where it does not. > > Ask your BPCS tech support about BPCS classes. Several places offer them, > mainly focused on the workings of various applications, but also include > the process of BPCS implementation. > > Most implementations is done with a modicum of help from BPCS consultants > and/or BPCS tech support, or a lot of such help. One of the tools they > provide is a flow chart of BPCS files showing the sequence in which they > need to be setup, and the names of the programs with which to do so ... > codes into this or that file defined before they are utilized into that > other file. Do you in fact have that flow chart? Ours is long gone. It > was a wall chart that we marked in grease pencil, then wiped later. The > good part about that was if we needed to add more stuff later, the chart > again was a great guide to that function. > > See if in your BPCS library list you have a file called BPCSDOC. > Each member in there is a separate document about some aspect of > BPCS. Start with SSALOG00. > > The documentation that comes with BPCS is comprehensive but poorly> cross-indexed. There are good manuals. Ordinarily I suggest UPI's because> they do a great job of explaining how BPCS works and how the pieces > interconnect, but I think what you most need may be the BPCS Overview > Reference manual from DS Solutions > http://www.dssolutionsinc.com/OverviewManual.asp >> Remember the archives of this BPCS_L go back for years, and can be searched> for past posts on some given topic. > > I not updated my weblog in years, but most of these links still valid > http://radio.weblogs.com/0107846/stories/2002/11/08/bpcsDocSources.html > > When we converted, it was a nightmare, even though we were going between > two versions of BPCS, because we had done things so differently on an > earlier version that did not support facilities. We ended up abandoning > the SSA conversion tool and using other tools to convert contents of files > of older system to BPCS. >> In the case of General Ledger, we had a separate environment setup with the> new Chart of Accounts and other Accounting rules entered manually with a > series of Pilot environments receiving from there and from the converted > files, until one fine day when the leader of the Pilot Team declared this > was Good Enough, we are going to go live with what is in this latest > Pilot. Thus our library names are non-standard, based on the Pilot naming. > > Conversion to BPCS comes with a sizing questionairre ... what do you need> on your AS/400 iSeries to support BPCS once it is up and running. A fly in> this ointment is inadequate provision for what is needed in transition to > get there. We got stuck various places in the conversion, so we had > intermediate files a lot longer than originally projected. We typically > had several environments going concurrently testing various software. We> also had M36 which OS/400 i5 no longer supports. Upshot, we ran out of 400> disk space, and some very weird stuff happened. This is a scenario I > urgently suggest other people avoid like the plague. > > >Hy Guys, > >> >We're designing a new chart of accounts for our company and I'm defining a> >project schedule for this task. From my small experience with SAP (I've > >never worked with BPCS before), It's not going to be simple. Since you > >guys have more experience, can you help me with a list of steps that I > >have to do in ths system in order to get things working ? > >> >I believe I'll have to have a paralel system running with our actual system> >for at least 2 or 3 months, reset all the accounts and accounting rules... > >But I don't know the details. > > > >Thanks for the help, > > > >Rony > >-- > > - > Al Macintyre http://www.ryze.com/go/Al9Mac > Find BPCS Documentation Suppliers > http://radio.weblogs.com/0107846/stories/2002/11/08/bpcsDocSources.html > BPCS/400 Computer Janitor at http://www.globalwiretechnologies.com/ > > -- > This is the SSA's BPCS ERP System (BPCS-L) mailing list > To post a message email: BPCS-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change list options, > visit: http://lists.midrange.com/mailman/listinfo/bpcs-l > or email: BPCS-L-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx > Before posting, please take a moment to review the archives > at http://archive.midrange.com/bpcs-l. > > Delivered-To: rony@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > > > -- This is the SSA's BPCS ERP System (BPCS-L) mailing list To post a message email: BPCS-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change list options, visit: http://lists.midrange.com/mailman/listinfo/bpcs-l or email: BPCS-L-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx Before posting, please take a moment to review the archives at http://archive.midrange.com/bpcs-l. 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