Re: Best place to store notes and attachments by item number? -- MAPICS-L

Bryan

You first statement is the one assumption that starts many down a wrong
path: "XA doesn't lend itself to lengthy notes on service part items
numbers...."

XA has supported unlimited notes against any business object since R7.7
(circa 2006) This includes service parts or any other object. And before
that, in green screen, with OfficeVision integration going back as far as
MAPICS/DB (Circa 1988). In fact there is even conversion code supplied
that will migrate your officevision notes.

Infor XA also delivers a full CRM solution that includes incident reports
and solutions with XA CRM, which can be integrated to Salesforce.com (SFDC)
with Inforce. SFDC with XA is a killer combination that enables world
class incident tracking and resolution.

In addition, XA supports workflow that permits tracking incidents in real
time using mobile devices such as iPad or iPhone that permits real
time communications between you and your customers no matter where you are
at.

In addition Infor XA with ION would support the complete integration of
your various applications: ARI Partsmart catalog with RightnowCRM
(integrated to XA). And if you want you could integrate track-it, although
you might find it very redundant. Yes, XA can easily integrate with native
Infor/XA tools to any JDBC compliant databases.

[BTW: funny note about ARI Partsmart customers...many are Infor XA
customers I know because I recognize my customers.]

Announced last month at Inforum 2013, you can even add Infor's Social Space
product: Ming.le. which permits you to communicate with your internal
staff and if you desire your customers/vendors in real time using robust,
secure and industry leading products.

I'd suggest you discuss all this with your channel partner. I'm certain
they would be happy to demonstrate all of these features to you and your
staff.

XA may have the longest history of any ERP system but that only means it is
the most reliable and lowest cost system to own. However, it is not "old".
It's technology is best in class in every way imaginable.

Enjoy!

On Mon, May 20, 2013 at 6:15 AM, Burns, Bryan <Bryan_Burns@xxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:

XA doesn't lend itself to lengthy notes on service part item numbers and
I've asked I.T.to look into solutions and also volunteered to see what
service departments in other companies use.

Often, hours of investigation are done on a service part and the
resolution ends up in someone's email file on a PC, or in a word document
filed who knows where. Sometime later, the same issue is investigated again
(the wheel re-invented) because the resolution wasn't stored in a central
database and the investigator didn't know there already was a solution in
place. Because we have 50,000 service part numbers (roughly just half of
them active), I believe we need some type of solution for service parts
notes.

Based upon my experience working a help desk, I believe a ticket tracking
system (e.g. Track-It) would lend itself to storing notes and resolutions
by part number. Since we already use

* RightNow CRM
* Track-It
* Dell Kace K1000
* XA for ERP version 9.0 (green screen, but we're implementing Thru-put...)
* ARI PartSmart

software, I'd like to know if any of you have used one of these for
service parts notes, or if you have a recommendation of some other
approach. There are also a lot of free tracking system apps out there that
may be players.

At the moment, I'm looking for something for internal use, not something
to be shared with our customers. It should have the ability to add a record
by item number and be able to accept an attachment for the item number
record. The simpler the better; as a grand, full scale solution
encompassing not only spare parts (item class xx) but production parts that
can be used by all XA users (I would think our buyers have similar need) is
not what I'm looking for because that would take years.

Thanks in advance.

Bryan Burns
Parts Analyst
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