“In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.” – Sun Tzu
“Success today requires the agility and drive to constantly rethink, reinvigorate, react, and reinvent.” – Bill Gates
Following a year of unprecedented challenges, the JD Edwards community came together to share innovative customer stories of resilience & success with JDE, along with educational sessions & Oracle updates around mobility, automation & digital transformation, 1on1 networking with new & longtime friends, virtual exhibit experiences, latest product & service innovations and so much more during #IFEnvision last week. What a fun & inspiring experience! ✨
Continuous Innovation with JD Edwards
The Oracle JDE teams kicked off the week with some exciting announcements. First, Premier Support for E1 9.2 has been extended through at least 2032, providing JDE customers with another 10 years of rolling product development, features & innovations 🎉
This is great news, as 77% of JDE customers (and growing!) are already running 9.2 (source: JDE Keynote), further illustrating Oracle JDE’s commitment to E1 9.2, a future-proof ERP platform with an unmatched ~17 years of Premier Support.
Lyle Ekdahl also announced the availability of Apps & Tools 9.2.5.3 which includes enhancements in the areas of application optimization, user experience, system automation, security & digital transformation that make JDE easier to use. And with all that’s been delivered so far, I’m looking forward to the next 10+ years of innovation 😊
Plus, this also means a new version of 9.2 Capabilities Whitepaper is available which highlights of all available tools, features & technologies within the 9.2 Apps & Tools sets. Request the latest version here.
The keynote also showcased several customer success stories:
- Printpack adopted an agile mindset to automate transactional data & business processes wherever possible while maintaining strong internal IT controls & a solid foundation to stay current with 9.2
- Treasury Wine Estates automated business processes to eliminate 440+ hours of manual effort while reducing human errors during their busiest seasons
- Worthington Industries mobilized & modernized with Orchestrator & mobile apps to improve user experiences and manage processes in real-time
- Carr Properties realized a digital strategy involving artificial intelligence & machine learning to simplify their lease management process while maintaining data integrity
- Blattner Company embraced a Cloud culture by surrounding their JDE with SaaS applications to drive better business decisions, plan and procure effectively and standardize processes
Next, an overview of the latest & future product updates –
Safe Harbor Statement – The above is intended to outline general product direction. It is intended for information purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any contract. It is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, timing, and pricing of any features or functionality described for Oracle’s products may change and remains at the sole discretion of Oracle Corporation.
A few examples of how customers are overcoming challenges throughout Covid-19 and beyond with available 9.2 tools including Orchestrator, Mobile, Automation & UX One –
Did you know? #IFEnvision featured 50+ sessions highlighting Orchestrator use cases 😮
Which was a perfect setup for CE Customer Success Stories & Educational Highlights.
CE Customer Success Stories & Educational Highlights
Continuing the theme of illustrating digital resilience & success, CE sessions featured customers who are adopting next-gen RPA & transforming their businesses to overcome challenges & increasing digital demands as well as product & service innovations.
A popular session for Getting Started with Orchestrations was CE’s interactive 2-hour workshop where customers had the opportunity to get hands-on with the Orchestrator Studio to create, test and troubleshoot their automations. CE’s Deepak Sharma, Sr. Technical Consultant, and Sagar Bora, Technical Consultant, provided an overview of basic concepts and sample use cases including calling orchestrations from E1 forms, uploading data into E1 using a CSV file and enhancing orchestrations with Groovy scripting.
Great news – CE is hosting two more interactive Orchestrator workshops on Wednesday, April 28 from 4pm-6pm EDT and Friday, April 30 from 10am-12pm EDT for those who are:
- Ready to take their first steps towards automation with Orchestrator?
- Facing challenges with existing orchestrations where you might appreciate guidance?
- Looking to expand your knowledge of Orchestrator after InFocus Envision?
Bring your questions & sign up for this complimentary workshop here: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/5144737366519734285?source=Blog
One customer case study featured Emirates Flight Catering (EKFC) who accomplished their 9.2 upgrade in the middle of the global pandemic to overcome challenges and modernize with E1. Building upon his 35+ year experience in the industry as a digital transformation professional, RPA-enabler & strong advocate for JDE, Arun Tewary, VP of IT & CIO at EKFC, joined sAchin cHoudhari, CEO & Founder at CE, for a lively conversation around the teamwork, strategic partnerships & agile leadership that led to the success of the project – not to mention how they were able to achieve this without compromising best-in-class quality & service for their customers.
Another case study featured Craig Scullin, Director of IT at Granite Properties & Tonio Thomas, Sr. Manager of Technology Services at CE, who shared how Granite Properties is leveraging Orchestrator to automate manual billing entry, saving ~3,000 hours of time spent on manual data entry while eliminating human error. This solution also enables their employees to spend more time with their customers while empowering the business to achieve more with its resources.
Another customer session featured Steve Gibson, Sr. ERP Developer at Sound Transit and Tonio Thomas, who demonstrated how the business stays current with 9.2 through regular application of Oracle Critical Patch Updates (CPUs). Steve and Tonio provided an overview of the types of patches available, an overview of CPU timelines and an introduction to keeping your JDE up to date including applying patches & bug fixes, cleaning up files, database objects & performance tuning the infrastructure.
After hearing the many customer stories involving automation, I was excited to learn more about the tools & technologies that make it all possible. During 9.2 Ways to Automate System Admin Functions, Tonio along with Sworna Dunant, Sr. CNC Consultant, demonstrated how the latest innovations can help empower System Admins and CNCs to automate repetitive, manual & time-consuming IT activities while delivering the highest quality of service to the business. We also explored several CE product innovations that help make a CNC’s life easier including Server Manager Mobile App, Self Service Password Reset, Smart Build Package Automation, etc.
As a marketing professional & Eloqua user myself, I enjoyed a demo of Oracle’s marketing automation platform during the Magic of Eloqua & JDE, where we explored customer case studies, best practices for delivering Integrated ERP/CX Digital Experiences and CE’s new Fast Track Implementation methodology – Eloqua in 4 Weeks.
CE also showcased more product innovations including AtomIQ, Mobile Apps & Smart Scheduler across several educational sessions.
During Mobile Apps for Unified User Experiences in JDE & Beyond, we learned how to rapidly build & deploy our own mobile apps while synchronizing data across desktops, tablets & smartphones to achieve unified UX across both JDE & non-JDE applications.
Then we explored Top JDE RPA Use Cases with AtomIQ where Nitin demonstrated just a few of the hundreds of use cases, including Release Held Orders, Month End Close, Eliminate Capacity Constraints in E1, etc. What is neat about AtomIQ is that whether you are currently leveraging the JDE Orchestrator, or on an older release without Orchestrator functionality, you can take advantage of all of its features.
For Production Scheduling Automation & Touchless Compliance, we were joined by Nitin Lakhpat and Saravana Kumar to demonstrate how to speed up manual processes such as managing production schedules across work centers and recertifying user access to JDE apps – while also moving forward with next-gen RPA. Nitin and Saravana shared two more customer success stories (which are also available as on-demand replays).
Finally, Tonio took us on test drive of Smart Scheduler to demonstrate exciting new features including the ability to call E1 Orchestrations, email Work Center messages directly to your inbox and load balancing, as well as new add-ons including user-submitted jobs and Smart Build package automation.
#InvestingInDigitalSuccess
A few more highlights:
* 5-Minute Demos & Innovations: Mobile Apps, JDESign for eSignatures & Workflow Automation, Server Manager Mobile App, Cerberus Self Service Password Reset, Smart Build Package Automation, Orchestrator & Groovy, Gap Analysis & E1 Optimization with Smart Help On Demand, Smart Scheduler, etc.
* Luxurious Giveaways to Enhance Your Home Office Experience featuring Apple AirPods Pro & Nespresso Vertuo Espresso & Coffee Machine
* Insights from JDE customers around how they are moving forward with RPA, areas where RPA might be the most beneficial for their organization and more collected from the 2021 RPA Survey (there’s still time for your JDE team to participate & receive back a $10 Amazon gift card & benchmark insights generated from all the data collected)
* Virtual exhibit booth featuring Smart Help On Demand, new & flagship Product Innovations and Consulting & Managed Services Innovations (see the list below!)
* Sharing new CE digital resources including the 2021 RPA Survey, new E1 Mobile Matrix, Groovy Scripting Cheatsheet 2.0, For the Love of (Robotic) Process Automation Digital Guide, Latest 9.2 Capabilities Whitepaper, Enhancing Your Home Office Tips & Tricks & more
Additionally, full presentation slide decks from CE sessions are available to JDE customers upon request. Please do consider me at your service if you wish to request access, have any questions, additional resource needs or if you’d like to explore CE product & service innovations 1on1. I am happy to help!
New CE Product Innovations
- PlanIQ: Production & Work Order Scheduling Automation
- JDESign: Digitize Your JDE with eSignature Workflows
- Server Manager Mobile App: Manage E1 On the Go
- Smart Sense: Visualize & Analyze E1 Logs
- Cerberus: Self Service Password Reset
Flagship CE Product Innovations
- AtomIQ: RPA, Mobile, Chatbots & Workload Automation
- Smart Scheduler: Eliminate JDE Batch Job Challenges
- Smart Build: Automate Package Builds & Deploys
- CX Add-Ons: Leads, Quotes, CRM & More
- AutoXCHNG: Automated FX Mgmt
CE Consulting & Managed Services Innovations
- Smart Help On Demand: Troubleshooting, Guidance, Skills Enablement
- Gap Analysis & E1 Optimization: Engage, Evaluate, Prioritize, Transform
- CNC & E1 Managed Services: Rollover Hours & Rightsize Protection
- Staff Aug+: Tap Into 160+ Resources Whenever/As Long As Needed
- Smart Help: Award-Winning Skill Based Swat Teams & Resources
- Lift, Shift & Manage: Upgrade Your Way Across Any Cloud
- Smart Fit: E1 Customization Analysis & Retrofit Evaluation
- Orchestrator: Enablement, Troubleshooting & Training
- JDE & CX: Integrated ERP/CX Digital Experiences
Resources:
Replays Available: Customer Stories & Educational Sessions www.circularedge.com/infocus-envision
Invest in QUEST, Invest in YOU www.circularedge.com/infocus-envision/invest-in-quest
RPA Survey https://survey.zohopublic.com/zs/crzF1J
9.2 Capabilities Whitepaper http://www.circularedge.com/resources/jde-9-2-outline
E1 Mobile Matrix https://www.circularedge.com/resources/jde-mobile-matrix
For the Love of (Robotic) Process Automation Guide https://www.circularedge.com/resources/rpaguide
Groovy Scripting Cheatsheet 2.0 http://www.circularedge.com/resources/groovy-scripting-cheatsheet/
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Chelsea Krieger, Marketing Manager