As an Infor Gold Channel and Alliance Partner, we have our finger on the pulse of the latest Infor features, as well as what will soon be coming down the track. We want to highlight some of the new features of Infor CloudSuite that have caught our eye.
One of the great things about the Infor CloudSuite is that it automatically updates, meaning many of these features come down automatically with no patching required, or just require enabling via toggles. There is no requirement for significant downtime or installing the latest version, as is common with on-premises ERP solutions or systems that are not truly SaaS. This means the ERP solution is constantly improving, and many of the things highlighted below are significant improvements to the solution that our customers can enjoy.
Here are some of our highlights…
New Infor OS Portal (V2)
One of the most significant recent features is the new user interface, or Infor OS portal that replaces the Infor Ming.le portal. This is also known as V2 of the portal. Whilst the navigation in M3 remains much the same, having multiple applications open at once and being able to better utilise the in-context panel on the right–hand side, including popping it out and putting it onto another screen, has significantly improved the user experience in our opinion. Many of our customers prefer the new portal as things are more logically grouped to make them quicker and easier to find. The transition from the previous one is also straightforward (with generally just scripts to worry about) and we can help you with that transition. Please click here to find out more about making the move from Ming.le to Infor OS
Experience Designer Application
We were particularly excited to see the release of the Experience Designer Application, and shared the view with Infor that over time this will significantly improve the user experience. It is a bit of a slow burner, although we have brought into our tenant the ones available from the Infor Marketplace for free.
We are starting to use the tooling to build custom screens for particular project use cases and no doubt will use it far more as time goes on. We are also looking forward to the expected improvements that are coming in, with personalisations due to be delivered shortly and fewer limitations on the record counts of list sections. Over time, it is no doubt that many transactions in M3 will be performed via these applications, and not the traditional functional panels that we have been used to for many years.
Capacity Planning Workbench
After the benefits we have seen from Inventory Planning Workbench (IPW), it was great to see a similar tool coming into the Infor CloudSuite for M3 but for capacity planning in the October 2023 release. Capacity Planning Workbench (CPW) is designed to give you a visual view of manufacturing capacity, and quickly alert you to capacity issues so you can do something about them. For some customers, M3 Scheduling Workbench (SWB) is overkill and too complex, so this offers a more basic tool that is easier to implement, although it does miss much of the automatic scheduling functionality that SWB has.
Like IPW, this tool is highly configurable to get the data and views on manufacturing capacity you need, and you can save your configuration via Favourites. We are hopeful that further releases will make the adjustments of orders slicker – for example moving a manufacturing order to an alternative routing that does have free capacity.
Infor MES
For many of our customers, particularly those in Food & Beverage manufacturing, accurately reporting on the production machinery for things like downtimes and disturbances, along with seeing a real-time picture of its status is especially important. So, to see Infor acquire a best of breed Manufacturing Execution System (MES) in Lighthouse and integrate it to M3 has been fantastic. This helps fill the gap that ERPs often struggle with – it knows what goes into manufacturing and comes out of it, but the status is often only as up to date as the last pallet of stock produced. It is also often very difficult to analyse exactly why you are not producing as much as planned. This application is designed to improve all of that via its direct connections to the factory PLCs. It is likely that Infor MES will be implemented alongside M3 on several of our projects going forward, or as a second phase implementation.
Other Notable Highlights
There have been a stack of new features released into the Infor CloudSuite recently, other notable mentions include:
- M3 Supplier Portal
- M3 Issue Management Portal
- Central Procurement
- Discount Model Extensions
- Factory Track Android App
- M3 DMP Multi-Tenant (no client or server install!)
- Configuration Management Tool
- Many Data Fabric Improvements
- Many Outputs Management Improvements
Our close relationship with Infor means we stay aware of recent and future product features and updates. We are privileged to be able to share this knowledge with our customers so that they can stay informed and get the best out of their investment in CloudSuite M3.
For more information on any of these highlights and how they can be implemented in your business, please feel free to reach out to Anthesis at m3@anthesis.co.uk or contact us here and find out how we can help you release the value of Infor CloudSuite.
