The Infor Professional Services Advantage
07/08/2010
This
is my first contribution to Infor’s blog for public sector, and our professional
services team (PSO) looks forward to beginning a dialog on a variety of
relevant Hansen 8 implementation topics. We welcome your opinions and comments.
You’ve read from many contributors to this site about the benefits that an asset management solution can bring to your agency, including configurability and flexibility to seamlessly interface with other agency applications. Customized workflows suit how your agency operates, providing you with greater control of your asset information.
So now you might be saying, “Yes, that’s what we really need, but how do we get there? At what cost?” Well, it may not be as steep as you think, and the benefits are many. Of course, there are variables and unique circumstances to consider in any implementation or migration—such as data sources and mapping as well as training needs (before and during implementation, and ongoing).
The implementation team is equally as vital as the software you purchase (or upgrade). They need to have an absolute understanding of the software’s capabilities as well as your current environment. And it’s essential that the implementation team bring the product evolution and a consistent methodology to bear to work with your staff in creating an end-to-end asset management migration path or new implementation customized to your specific agency needs.
Two customers that recently completed the “go-live” phase of their asset migrations to Hansen 8 provide real-world examples of successful approaches. Using Infor’s tools and methodology, one city migrated its Hansen 7 water management system, starting with the conversion of most of its predefined data fields ”out of the box,” and teamed with Infor PSO to identify and map unique custom fields and look-ups into Hansen 8. The city’s business users benefited from the new Hansen 8 capabilities to easily display key custom information on core screens. In addition to mapping custom data fields, we used Infor’s best practices in the project’s design phase to integrate the city’s business rules and workflow triggers directly into the new system (for example, for inspections or work orders). The city’s implementation also included interfaces with its CRM and financial applications. Training was a cornerstone of the project and instilled a philosophy of knowledge transfer throughout the project phases. We conducted several training classes to inform both IT experts and business users on Hansen 8 capabilities. The results are powerful—a “look and feel” that is tailored to how the city works, and a solution that empowers business users to be proactive instead of reactive in managing the agency’s asset investments.
Another customer had a very simplified approach for their asset and work management migration from Hansen 7 to 8. This city’s implementation did not require an automated migration of existing asset data. Instead, they worked with the Infor project team to capture their business processes, provide advanced configuration training to IT and business core team members, install the software, and define data entry requirements to get started. By working with our PSO team and attending our training offerings, they created assets and employee records in the system. Within a few days, they were able to begin creating work orders with job-costing information. This resulted in a more robust, agency-wide asset repository for the city and gave them the capability to organize, search, and manage assets and work orders more cost-effectively.
Infor’s PSO team has completed dozens of implementations and upgrade projects from earlier Hansen versions to the current Infor Hansen 8 solution offering. We help our customers build self-sufficiency early in the project and carry it through to a timely and cost-effective go-live production environment. As these examples illustrate, our approach is flexible, aligned with the extensive configurability of Hansen 8, and highly responsive to the needs of each agency.
You’ve read from many contributors to this site about the benefits that an asset management solution can bring to your agency, including configurability and flexibility to seamlessly interface with other agency applications. Customized workflows suit how your agency operates, providing you with greater control of your asset information.
So now you might be saying, “Yes, that’s what we really need, but how do we get there? At what cost?” Well, it may not be as steep as you think, and the benefits are many. Of course, there are variables and unique circumstances to consider in any implementation or migration—such as data sources and mapping as well as training needs (before and during implementation, and ongoing).
The implementation team is equally as vital as the software you purchase (or upgrade). They need to have an absolute understanding of the software’s capabilities as well as your current environment. And it’s essential that the implementation team bring the product evolution and a consistent methodology to bear to work with your staff in creating an end-to-end asset management migration path or new implementation customized to your specific agency needs.
Two customers that recently completed the “go-live” phase of their asset migrations to Hansen 8 provide real-world examples of successful approaches. Using Infor’s tools and methodology, one city migrated its Hansen 7 water management system, starting with the conversion of most of its predefined data fields ”out of the box,” and teamed with Infor PSO to identify and map unique custom fields and look-ups into Hansen 8. The city’s business users benefited from the new Hansen 8 capabilities to easily display key custom information on core screens. In addition to mapping custom data fields, we used Infor’s best practices in the project’s design phase to integrate the city’s business rules and workflow triggers directly into the new system (for example, for inspections or work orders). The city’s implementation also included interfaces with its CRM and financial applications. Training was a cornerstone of the project and instilled a philosophy of knowledge transfer throughout the project phases. We conducted several training classes to inform both IT experts and business users on Hansen 8 capabilities. The results are powerful—a “look and feel” that is tailored to how the city works, and a solution that empowers business users to be proactive instead of reactive in managing the agency’s asset investments.
Another customer had a very simplified approach for their asset and work management migration from Hansen 7 to 8. This city’s implementation did not require an automated migration of existing asset data. Instead, they worked with the Infor project team to capture their business processes, provide advanced configuration training to IT and business core team members, install the software, and define data entry requirements to get started. By working with our PSO team and attending our training offerings, they created assets and employee records in the system. Within a few days, they were able to begin creating work orders with job-costing information. This resulted in a more robust, agency-wide asset repository for the city and gave them the capability to organize, search, and manage assets and work orders more cost-effectively.
Infor’s PSO team has completed dozens of implementations and upgrade projects from earlier Hansen versions to the current Infor Hansen 8 solution offering. We help our customers build self-sufficiency early in the project and carry it through to a timely and cost-effective go-live production environment. As these examples illustrate, our approach is flexible, aligned with the extensive configurability of Hansen 8, and highly responsive to the needs of each agency.
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