Posts Tagged ‘Implementation’

Dynamics GP Implementation in Wholesale and Retail Trade: POS, Barcoding, WMS

Accounting and Corporate ERP applications are in the transformation to become Barcoding, POS devices friendly, and you may expect them to be implemented in industries, such as Retail and Wholesale.  You do not have to stick to the recommended approach in implementing Great Plains, there are numerous options to consider and choose from.  In this small publication we will try to give you initial highlights and you should be able to launch your homework in Dynamics GP modules and POS, Barcoding and Wholesale add-ons selection and evaluation.  Let’s begin our paragraphs, first section will be dedicated to retail automation:

1. High volume retail versus small outlet.  It might sound a bit paradoxical, but in high volume retail store, where cash register has to process new walk-in customer shopping card every few minutes, you would normally like to install simple POS terminals (with dedicated POS software, such as Microsoft RMS or Counterpoint Cash Register), comparing to the store with low volume of POS transactions, but where each shopping cart is several times more valuable in price (where you may decide to install Dynamics GP workstation on Windows7 (or more traditional Windows XP) with POS extension module, such as Compass Point Of Sale).  Let’s review these options in the next paragraphs

2. Microsoft RMS or Counterpoint from Radiant Systems cash registers.  Here you normally do not need powerful computer, you rather invest into POS peripheral devices, such as USB barcode laser scanner, Credit/Debit card processing box (with optional customer signature capturing device – touch screen), POS display, Coupon printer, etc.  Microsoft RMS as well as Counterpoint and other professional Retail packages allow your store to work off line (such as seasonal markets, farm stands) and then upload POS transactions on demand via dial-up, DSL, Wi-Fi and even MiFi connections.  Obviously all the mentioned above communication protocols are traditional and reliable, except MiFi or Cellular Broadband 3G and especially emerging (November 2010) 4G (WiMax, currently available through Sprint/Clearwire) and LTE (in rolling out phase by Verizon Wireless).  3G seems to more expensive (even for Cellular companies to rent towers and frequencies), where you typically cannot find the plan with unlimited broadband 3G data plan.  4G imitation (or at least, not officially recognized as true 4G standard support) WiMax is currently the only available option in major US mega polices, seems to be working on really high frequencies and the signal is very sensitive to natural obstacles, such as brick buildings, forests, hills, even aluminum siding and energy savings windows and balcony doors.  We experimented with Clearwire MiFi hot spot, and it didn’t work in the office, however when we placed the device in plastic waterproof bag and elevated it on five meters toll tree – it got stable 4G WiMax signal (2 to 3 bars out of five) and download speed was around 2 MegaBit per second (our distance from the nearest Sprint tower is around two miles and we do not have hills, just forests and residential buildings).  Clearwire also provides business service, based on WiMax 4G, where you may rent outdoor modem ( per month) – we didn’t have a chance to test its performance and signal quality.  At this time we recommend be very conservative and do not sign long term agreement on 4G broadband internet.  We recommend you to see the results of Verizon 4G LTE rollout, which supposed to happen in the next few months, where we saw he reports, that LTE will work on the lower frequency signal and should be more flexible to penetrate to the office buildings

3. Dynamics GP POS extensions.  In our opinion this option is a good fit for the retailer with smaller volume of transactions and you have to have permanent internet connection with your Dynamics GP Server.  Technically you may be OK with just installing Great Plains workstation for each of the cash register computers (please, be sure that you are in compliance with GP user workstation computer and operating system requirements).  POS extensions, such as Compass allow you to handle Sales promotions and discounted price campaigns, where you have control on who is eligible, merchandise ID from-to, Class From-to, Custom Category from-to

4. Wholesale Trade: Supply Chain Management, Warehouse Management System, Barcoding on the Warehouse floor.  WMS is often considered (by various SCM evangelists) as Supply Chain Management theory core concept, with such WMS components, as Order Fulfillment (sometimes referred as Allocation), Inventory Restocking (Merchandise Allocation), Inventory Count (Stock Physical Count, typically every month or quarter) and Adjustments.  Please, read our articles, dedicated to WMS products selection for Microsoft Dynamics GP in open press, where we are reviewing pluses and minuses of external WMS versus Warehouse Management Extensions for Dynamics GP

5. Last Flint, generic Barcoding for Dynamics GP Great Plains.  In theory each Dynamics GP form could be opened for barcoding where you have editable fields.  This should work the following way – move the cursor to the field and, having USB compliant barcode laser scanner connected simply click read button on the scanner (positioning scanner head over item barcode label). At this point we expect a lot of questions and complains about that type of barcoding to be very inefficient and user not friendly, well if you are not happy with free solution, consider professional POS or Warehouse Management System to be implemented

6. To request further support, please call us 1-866-528-0577, help@albaspectrum.com We need to discuss your cards in order to recommend you the best solutions, which is not contingent to our preferences.  We serve you USA/Canada nationwide via remote support (web sessions and phone/skype conferences).  Local service is available in Western Michigan, Chicagoland, Southern California (LA, Orange County, San Diego), Houston area of the state of Texas

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Dynamics GP implementation in Distribution: eCommerce and Warehouse Management with Barcoding

In order to achieve high wholesale or retail trade volume with lower expenses your sales cycle should be automated completely (with lowest number of phone calls, which are transferred to technical support call center).  If you are in Wholesale, then ideally customers should reorder merchandise through B2B ecommerce shopping cart or EDI (Electronic Document Interchange) channels.  If you are also in retail, the best case is to have your new or existing customers order merchandize via B2C ecommerce shopping cart.  In all scenarios customer orders go to your Corporate ERP application, in our publication we are giving you example, where ERP is built on Microsoft Dynamics GP (formerly known as Great Plains Dynamics/eEnterprise).  Dynamics GP in its turn exposes Customer Order or Invoice via Warehouse Management System add-on to the warehouse floor for immediate fulfillment, picking and packing and shipping.  If you think about further automation (maybe due to the high trust level to customer payment via Credit Card or on account, typically directly through your ecommerce shopping cart, such as Magento/PHP or ASP.Net Storefront or another platform) – you can post Dynamics GP Sales Batch directly from your ecommerce web application deploying Alba Spectrum Posting Server add-on.  Let’s review the options and technologies:

1. Microsoft Dynamics GP as ERP platform.  This application is hosted in Microsoft SQL Server, meaning maximum possible scalability and virtually unlimited number of EDI or eCommerce originated transactions could be processed in real time (automatic sales batch posting in GP) or in quasi real time(scheduled batch posting process or triggered by GP user).  In Great Plains you should review so-called Distribution set of modules: Sales Order Processing, Inventory Control, Purchase Order Processing

2. Sales Automation: EDI.  Electronic Document Interchange is pretty generic term and there are various technologies, from precisely formatted EDI text file (with header, lines and trailer) to EDI format in XML styles.  EDI channel could be done via ftp upload, http post, or even via email.  If Sales Order placement rules are reasonably simple, we recommend you to do custom EDI programming, by processing XML, text file and importing preprocessed EDI records via Dynamics GP Integration Manager, the same results could be achieved in eConnect SDK programming (if you are comfortable to do Microsoft Visual Studio C# or VB.Net programming and have some exposure to Great Plains objects, such as Sales Order, Customer, Inventory Item)

3. Sales Automation: B2B and B2C e-commerce.  This is very popular method in B2C retail ecommerce, as internet customers are typically very technology savvy.  In Wholesale B2B ecommerce scenarios you should still expect reasonable competition between EDI and ecommerce merchandise restocking.  Let’s review ecommerce extension for Dynamics GP.  We encourage you to trust ecommerce shopping cart platform, such as Magento, ASP .Net Storefront or you can pick another popular one – here you should expect reliability (as they have huge clients base and most of the bugs are already beta tested and fixed).  Done deal from ecommerce shopping cart goes to Dynamics GP SOP Invoice or Sales Order with Customer Deposit (Credit Card payment, or sometimes debit card, if technology permits).  Alba Spectrum eCommerce add-on have Wizard driven setup interface, where if you ecommerce doesn’t require customization – you can do it yourself within the matter of hours

4. Order Allocation on the warehouse floor in real time.  Warehouse Management Extension works directly out of Sales Order Processing tables and paid Sales Order or Invoice is ready for being picked and packed.  Your warehouse worker has barcode scanner with operating system, where WMS client application is installed.  Client application has customer documents handy and ready for fulfillment.  Each Order line is fulfilled by scanning item barcode label.  We setup your WMS SOP Documents to require manual allocation – allocation is done on the warehouse floor by barcode scanner.  WMS client application talks to WMS Server via wireless connection or RFID and in its turn WMS Server being on the wired network (or even on wireless, if the volume of barcode scanning is low) uploads scanned documents to Dynamics GP via Order Connector ODBC mechanism

5. Further automation – posting eCommerce or EDI originated Sales Documents automatically.  Microsoft Dynamics GP architecture requires Sales, Purchasing, GL Batches or the batches of other origin to be reviewed by Accounting, AR, AP managers (to review the discounts given, credit limits, and other give away to be reasonable and if required adjust sales commission, etc.).   We do not think that you would oppose such business logic, but if you are in high confidence to your ecommerce originated transactions and you would like your ecommerce application to do all the job up to paid ecommerce customer order to show up on the warehouse floor for assembly on order or items picking and packing and shipping to the customer – we have special product Alba Spectrum Posting Server which allows you to schedule the batch for automatic real time posting (every 30 seconds) directly from your eCommerce web application

6. How to contact us?  Please, call us 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918, or email us help@albaspectrum.com  International customers are welcome, we naturally provide USA and Canada Dynamics GP, WMS, EDI and eCommerce software licenses sale, installation and implementation by travelling to your office for initial software deployment and user training and following remote support via web sessions and phone conferences.  If you absolutely require local walk in service, we are happy to help you in Michigan: St. Joseph, Kalamazoo, Benton Harbor, Grand Rapids, Holland, Muskegon, Saugatuck, South Haven, Ludington, Grand Haven, Battle Creek.  We are also serving you locally in Southern California: Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange County (from Irvine office).  Next business metro, where we are available locally is Chicagoland – Chicago Downtown, Naperville and all the Southern, Western and Northern suburbs, including North West Indiana and Southern Wisconsin.  We are also serving you with local support in Houston, Texas

Sap Business One Implementation With Custom Barcoding Considerations

If you are small or midsize shop with warehouse management and relatively simple logistics and inventory control and you are considering to reshape your ERP infrastructure, we would like to give you some highlights on barcode for SAP Business One and SB1 general selection, installation and training guidelines

1. SB1 functionality. It is very generic and easily fits to the majority of small and even mid size business models. In the case of the store, you will need to connect your existing POS system to SB1 back end. Several possible integration scenarios: SB1 SDK custom integration (which can allow you real time mode or if you are not in rush, then batch processing is even more simple), workbench, which allow you to deploy Excel templates, or third party integration products (here you need help with option research and comparison). In SB1 you process your orders pretty traditional way

2. Barcoding. This often includes two parts: hardware and uploading software, drivers, connectors. When you are selecting hardware you typically evaluate if you need real time barcoding (in this case barcode scanners are directly connected to you SB1 via cable or wireless connection) or batch processing. Batch processing usually requires more advanced software connectors, which allow you to load transactions batch from the scanner memory to the connector and connector in its turn uploads transactions to SB1 more likely in one-by-one fashion. Here you again need to research which is better fit for you: third party of-the-shelf connector or you own custom connector. Custom connectors are typically created in SAP Business One SDK

3. Barcode lease vs. purchasing. Lease is becoming more popular, as in this case the burden of scanners selection and solution integration is offloaded from your shoulders and you don’t have to worry about scanner obsolescence – you normally receive news scanners set in something like three years

4. Barcoding and ERP. These two components are typically coming separate, however for small implementation you can bundle them together by selecting SB1 integrator, who also provides barcoding services