Just curious as to which measures has your business taken bc of COVID-19 that have leveraged Epicor (or technology in general)
We are in the middle of a 41 plant + 7 company implementation and are only live on 1 plant in Epicor while the rest of the company is still paper based and using a dinosaur of an ERP System written in COBOL and accessed via Telnet…
We got the mandate form Executive Management to go paperless so we can all work remotely. In a little over a week we were able to leverage Epicor and Rest to put together a solution that replaces our paper based flow.
We wrote a customization in Epicor that communicates directly with our old ERP System via TCPSockets (Telnet) and we basically are able to pull the “paper” form from the old ERP System into Epicor by sending remote commands via telnet which cause the old ERP System to produce a
PCL (Printer Control Language) this old ERP System doesn’t know how to generate PDFs or any electronic documents this file would normally have gone straight to the printer.
Instead we pull that file in, process it, turn it into a PDF, attach it via REST into DocStar and Display / Render it on the screen in Epicor with CEF
Which then allows them to make notes, enter information and process the file via Dashboards and Workflows through the company. Which normally would have been a physical piece of paper moving through the company.
Here’s our Epicor (Telnet) Interface… this thing is using TcpSockets to communicate with an ancient civilzation straight from a customization LOL
We were able to do all this in less than a week and are going live Monday with it everyone remote, replaced a paper based system in place for approx ~30 years. It isn’t perfect but it will allow us to continue to operate.
This is why I love Epicor so much, it is so flexible.
Both Client and Server - I think learning the HTTP Protocol using Sockets is the best thing ever, especially if one has a few hours to build their own Web Server.
Also some larger business use robotics tools to create macros to eliminate time consuming tasks, lets say - you have to download over 500 invoices from various city/state localities, utility companies. Then OCR them… So you could record the macro to login and download invoices.
Employ software robots to automate repetitive tasks and manual processes, enhancing the work of human workers by enabling them to focus on innovative, customer-focused initiatives.
Delegate time-consuming manual tasks to a digital workforce, and elevate employees to more strategic tasks―all while leveraging your existing IT infrastructure.
Our provincial government just decided that all manufacturing companies must close their operations as of tomorow for the next 3 weeks. Only companies that will be open are the ones manufacturing essential products… (for healthcare, food etc… ) the list will be known later today…
Some of our manufacturing is for the healthcare and food industries so we will be running operations but at a limited scale. (probably close one of our plants for sure) Which means some workers will be asked to stay home…
I am so far unsure what will happen to our IT group…Awaiting for more input…
All this seems drastic measures… but it will surely slow down the progress of the virus…giving a better time to arrive to a vaccine…
I am dazzled by the pictures a saw on some beaches and other US gathering as people think they are invicible…Why don’t they understand the gravity of the situation???
Our offices are all working remote since last week until corporate tells us otherwise. Our manufacturing spent a few days reworking flows to better do social distancing while keeping production going. So far we’ve not had any cases in our plants so hoping we can ride this out.
I think the US has the mantra that in order to ensure citizens have something to come back to after climbing out of their quarantine bunkers, there needs to some semblance of an economy waiting there for them with arms (and pockets) wide open. The solution should never be more destructive than the problem.
brought back memories.
