Sure and if you are taking a non Epicor Centric approach you would evaluate other tools and use the best one to solve your business need.
You also would try to learn what others have done instead of debate semantics.
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Of course that always makes sense.
āSemanticsā the crafty way of saying Iām wrong, I get it, but Iām not going to admit it. Very passive aggressive I like it. You from the midwest lol? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHISDsmSsDg
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Yep. It does make sense.
WTF - nice personal attack
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Iām not mad, you mad? Nothing I wouldnāt say to your face if you were standing in front of me. Words matter and misinformation matters. If someone sees āItās Epicor Centricā they might think oh we would really like something outside the eco-system and never look at it again. And that wouldnāt be a fair shake for the Workato product and to your point
It falls under āother toolsā.
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I was enjoying watching that until I heard āGo Packersāā¦nope.
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Again with the personal arguments.
I would strongly encourage folks to look outside the Ecosystem on everything they do. Do the legwork. You should be working for your company to provide them the best solution possible - taking into consideration your investment and Ecosystem and how Epicor fits in. Automation tools are a GAMECHANGER.
So this presentation is about Epicor Automation Studio. That is an Epicor rebranded product. It was presented with integration into BPMs. So yes, I see this as possibly Epicor Centric and thatās why Iād want to dig in. You can do other things, but for me, AND Iāll restate - I want to make sure it works as good for me as what Iām currently using. It uses Workmato - looks good and you can use this for all kinds of interfaces (Knack, Salesforce, Aftership all work it) (right mr giese?). There are other tools Jitterbit, Mulesoft, Boomi. Salesforce has selected the last two, and the list goes on. I started with Zapier - limit but easy to use and free to get started.
Perhaps the presentation should start with what is possible with automation tools - some examples of what has been done and how it impacts business. This is where I started.
The disservice to the users here, the Epicor community is not telling them what to think on whether a tool is or isnāt Epicor Centric - itās failing to engage on what might be done with such a tool.
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I donāt believe anywhere in here anyone said this is the tool you have to use. And how do you define what an integration tool like this can do? For the most part you can do anything you want assuming Workato has a connector for it. If they donāt then no itās maybe not the tool for you, agreed.
This is a new tool and this presentation was specifically about that new tool. Other automation and integration tools forthcoming, but up till now in our short 5 episodes havenāt done it.
Most of those are cost prohibitive, barrier to entry is low on this tool which makes it a great option as well.
Agreed great way to get your feet wet with little risk.
Again no one said anyone has to use this tool. Simply a matter of keeping it straight that this IS NOT an Epicor product. āCentricā would imply that, and misleading the user base is a disservice. Again words matter.
Put ribs (workato) in an Instant Pot (Epicor), add a crap ton of liquid smoke (style/branding) and call them BBQ I dare you LOL
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The thing I like most about the Automation Studio solution is that Epicor will support it. Finding support, guidance, and professional services without asking an outside integrator make this the first place I would start when considering a solution.
Glad to see service connect is finally being replaced with real solution.
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Actually, salesforce has invested in Workato by creating a very robust connector into Salesforce (one of the strongest examples in Workato).
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Lets add to the Advantages:
- If you were to go to Workato and purchase directly, your costs would be significantly higher. Workato has two different marketing teams. one is direct, the other is Embeddedā¦ the embedded offering allows companies like Epicor to embed the product into their software, and sell it at a substantially reduced price.
- Cloud support. Fact: Service connect is an old product and is not able to be loaded into your cloud instance. if you move to the cloud, you must still find a place to run service connectā¦ BUT Automation Studio is a cloud native product, and supports both Cloud and On-Prem customers.
- LOW CODE / NO CODE: Nobody has mentioned this factā¦ yes you CAN do just about anything with a BPM (for OUTGOING integrations) but you still have to write code. YES, you can access APIs in a BPM, but you have to know how to format things. But with Automation Studio, you can do quite a bit without knowing what JSON is, or how to spell āAPIā. BUT ALSOā¦ you can use this same low code/no code solution to do INCOMING transactions. Workato can monitor both Epicor AND 3rd party products for changes (similar to Data BPM triggers). it can also support Time based triggers, WebHooks, and you can create your own Workato API with parameters that can be called from outside or inside Epicor (Epicor Functions use these)
- Embedded: There has been lots of discussion/argument on this threadā¦ I donāt want to get into semantics of whether it is āEpicor Centricā or āEpicor Friendlyā or just a front endā¦ the fact is that Epicor has made a big investment to:
A: Create a robust connector into Workato,
B: Embed Workato into Epicor,
C: Enable BPMs and Functions to easily call Workato Recipes (similar to Service Connect),
D: Enable the Connector to be able to call Epicor Functions.
E: Build (and still building) some āIndustry Templatesā for customers to
E: all secured through the single sign-in into Epicor.
I believe that this investment shows that we believe in the Workato Platform as a great service. We spent well over a year studying a great iPaaS solution and choosing Workato. We have never hidden that it is powered by Workato mainly due to the fact that we wanted to release a product that would be seen as a mature solution for doing Automation & Integrations. But the way that we integrated and embedded the workato platform into Epicor products (more than just Kinetic) is an industry differentiator for Epicor. We are the only ERP Vendor to embed Workato into their platforms.
Workato has been a great partner. The release of Automation Studio has been one of the strongest new product releases that Epicor has had. We have only been āliveā with Automation Studio for a little over 4 months, but have seen great adoption from our customers.
Besides, it is fun tooā¦ (sorry if I got too wordy)
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thank you all for NOT locking this thread when it got into the healthy debate stage. I learned a lot and as our company is investigating this platform, some of the arguments here contributed to that. Iām part Italian and part Australian so the robustness of conversation is all good. @timshuwy thanks for outlining the guts of it, very useful as always. Epicor is a better supplier than they were 5 years ago.
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YW, We try to moderate with a light touch, only lock stuff when it really gets out of hand 
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dude, youāve locked some where me and the lads hadnāt finished placing bets
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Now itās time to lock it
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Looked at this a little bit more. What I would need is the following. A mail parser.io interface/plug-in. I use this plugin in the majority of my scenarios - that be ārecipesā for workmato/Epicor Automation.
If this is something Epicor could use its influence with Workmato Iād love to move to it provided its cost is within a reasonable multiple.
I would also request some engagement on the types of solutions Iām building.
Tim - this technology is very important to what I do every day and game changing. Iād love to engage and share how Iāve used it over the last two years and how it can be exploited. Iād love to move to an Epicor Supported product and overall Workmato looks great.
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Workato can parse emails on its own it doesnāt need a 3rd party to do it. Looks like mail parser is just another integration tool.
But Iām sure @timshuwy can look at it for you.
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Sure but now I have to rewrite all integrations right and maybe it doesnāt parse as well which is what I ran into with Zapier. So yes, for me to rewrite stuff not worth it especially since I donāt think they can meet the price point. Again Iād put a premium on Automation Studio / Workmato because of the support and the user community
Iāve got something that works fine today, so my entrance to this is from a different viewpoint.
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Price point is 250/month per connector
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