18 Feb 2008 04:33:57 | J. C. Melo
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Do you want your own fully programmable ERP? - Part 1
By J.C.Melo
We are in a transition phase in the Managerial Administration
models of any company or Government, because three factors are
summing for that:
1. The new powerful business Information Technologies and its
more and more smaller costs, like ERP, CRM, BI, etc.,
2. The creativity of the new MBA to generate value and its
corresponding engineering - for example, Feedback Control System
- in the administrative and managerial fields,
3. Several different layers in the companies in what refers to
its managerial and administrative automation levels.
This created not very orthodox solutions, and one of them is the
installation of a Front-End System above the Transational System
already existent in your company that - by any reason - cannot
be substituted by a "pure" ERP System.
Inside the existent tools and for reasons that will be exposed,
we choiced the IBM Lotus Notes software for that purpose,
briefly Notes as it's widely known.
The Notes has the following programmable structures that can be
used to change and to use in a Front-End System of any online
managerial or accounting System that already exists in your
company, like ACCPAC/SBT, Macola and others 150 companies:
- It can be integrated into the Internet, to enlarge the area of
the DAS/DDC functions at the regional, national or world levels.
- He has the so called Replication, that allows the Head office
of a company in New York to change an only field in its local
database, and automatically and in Real-Time that same field
assumes the same value in the local database of a Branch in
Chicago or Tokyo. And vice-versa. That means to have a national
database - or regional or world - and not only local. This
Replication can be programmed, a field or a group of fields can
be Replicated or not, in agreement with the goals of the
company.
- Theoretically that would create problems - for example,
simultaneously an operator in New York change the content of the
local field "m" and an operator in Chicago change the content of
its same local field "m" - but Lotus Notes will solved this
problem in a transparent way to both users with the use of the
Replication, and the conflict doesn't exist.
- Therefore, concisely we are speaking about an only online
national database and in Real-Time.
- He has an own Intranet e-mail System and/or through the
Internet. This e-mail System differs from the traditional ones
because he could be integrated automatically with the Notes
database. For example, he can be programmed to send an e-mail to
other operator, if - a condition - the field "m" of the database
reach the value of "x". Or any input/output field of any
mathematical model.
- It allows to create sophisticated electronic Forms, to be used
by its Workflow. The whole operational flow of a company -
besides at the national or world levels - can be executed
through this electronic Forms - freely created and scheduled -
which can also be integrated in the e-mail System.
- The whole management approvals flow can be programmed through
the Notes Workflow.
- Its Agents automatically can detect operational conditions in
order to generate the corresponding actions. By corresponding
actions understand any administrative or managerial functions in
Real-Time, DAS or DDC or both.
- He has its own methods to acquire data and/or information from
the Back-End Transational System using any ODBC System and also
it's possible to use several Add-Ons softwares for that purpose.
Evidently if Notes will be used as a Font-End System above the
Transational System of the company, he obligatorily should have
means to acquire/send data from/to the Transational System, in
Real-Time or not.
- He has its Script Language, for general programming of its
commands, its functions, etc.
- He has a hierarchical Password System for controlled accesses
to its Views, Forms, Agents, etc.
- Through its Views can transform the original data of the
Transational System into high level information.
- Its Views are totally programmable - its columns are similar
to the used un the spreadsheets - and they can be scheduled to
have relationships with any other Views.
- Its Views are very similar to the Visual Basic Views - as a
matter of fact already exists Add-Ons for the interconnection
between Notes and Visual Basic.
- Its Views allows you to integrate in a column any mathematical
functions or logical combinations as AND, OR, equality, larger
than, smaller than, etc., and several other functions.
However is possible to use any System with the same capabilities
of the Notes - specially with ODBC, Replication, Views and
integrated e-mail - as a fully programmable ERP System.
In this first article we mentioned some capabilities to be used
in a Front-End and in the next we will explain how to do your
ERP Front-End.
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