ERP LX Webcast

Hi All,

FYI, On 05/26/06, 2PM EST, SSA is having a one hour web cast on their
latest ERP LX release; designed for all their BPCS clients...
(something I've been wanting ~for quite a while..)

http://www.ssaglobal.com/erplxfp1/ 

Best Regards,

DeeDee Virgei
Project Leader

Nelson Stud Welding, Inc.

-----Original Message-----
From: bpcs-l-bounces+deedee.virgei=nelsonstud.com@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bpcs-l-bounces+deedee.virgei=nelsonstud.com@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Dennis Basiner
Sent: Thursday, May 18, 2006 3:56 PM
To: SSA's BPCS ERP System
Subject: Re: [BPCS-L] BPCS reports

Thanks for the very helpful info !

Regards,
Dennis Basiner
Information Systems Manager
Cains Foods L.P.
Tel. 978.772.0300
Email dbasiner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx


-----Original Message-----
From: bpcs-l-bounces+dbasiner=cainsfoods.com@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bpcs-l-bounces+dbasiner=cainsfoods.com@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of
Al Mac
Sent: Thursday, May 18, 2006 2:55 PM
To: SSA's BPCS ERP System
Subject: Re: [BPCS-L] BPCS reports


1. Suggest you check MIDRANGE-L archives.  There is a wealth of
information on people transferring data from AS/400 reports to EXCEL,
that is independent of BPCS ... it can be done with ANY reports.  If you
cannot find it there, perhaps I can dig it up ... there was an article
about how to put SQL/400 inside of Microsoft Excel Macros so that at the
time of opening an Excel, it grabs the latest data out of BPCS or
whatever your AS/400 application source is.

2. Suggest you take a look at the CUSTOM options of Ops Nav setup.  If
it is installed with all the DEFAULT options, all you get is Operations
Management type stuff ... spool files, jobs, performance etc.  But
through Custom install, there is a wealth of additional programmer tools
and direct access to DB/2, which adds to security headaches depending on
your version of BPCS.  This way you can go direct between 400 and other
computing world.  I was just at an IBM seminar about this, not yet
digested my notes or pursued the urls handed out at it.  Remind me in a
month or so, and perhaps I will have a better answer for you.

There's a way to do this with Client Access, which I have not encouraged
exploring at our site, because we are on a version of BPCS with obsolete
security settings.  We need to do the BPCS security upgrade.  i studied
it and figured the best solution was to buy the security upgrade
package, but management has not approved the purchase.  Thus I try not
to encourage co-workers to go into the areas that give them the
capability of trashing BPCS.

3. I operate in an environment where management wants us to get the
biggest bang for the buck ... what can we get out of the NATIVE tools.
What I have been doing is making what I call EXCEL FRIENDLY REPORTS ...
modifying the output on the 400 to just have the data the EXCEL person
wants, and eliminating control breaks so that the control break data is
repeated all the way down the columns.  I then use Ops Nav Windows short
cut on PC desk top (a technique I learned from Rob on MIDRANGE-L) to get
the modified report from spool to PC desk top folder, then from there to
e-mail to the EXCEL person who uses Visual Basic to combine multiple
EXCEL columns for his final objectives.

I guess I send reports from BPCS to my end users by this means on the
average of 2 reports a week, with occasional spikes in volume.  A few
years ago our auditors would tell us in advance what reports they needed
to see.  We would e-mail them those reports in advance of their visit.
There are a bunch of reports I run in association with end fiscal, where
certain people get their end fiscal info in this form.

The commodities challenge that I recently asked about ... looks like we
will be sending our customers a monthly spreadsheet listing the items we
shipped them last month (BPCS sales quantity totals for last month), how
much copper is in there (derived from BPCS BOM and a new file for Guage
conversion), multiply the increase in copper price from base quote.

Currently my report is page break by customer, which is not EXCEL
friendly, and I also have another version that is EXCEL friendly.  It is
not yet finalized what we will be doing, but I expect this will go into
EXCEL and have some other massaging going on before it gets split by
Visual Basic into separate attachment for each customer.

>Does anyone know of an inexpensive way to convert a BPCS report to an 
>EXCEL spreadsheet ? Don't get enough requests to invest in expensive 
>software but every time someone requests it, it's a challenge. Any 
>recommendations would be greatly appreciated.
>
>Regards,
>Dennis Basiner
>Information Systems Manager
>Cains Foods L.P.


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