m3 customization: a tale of costs/benefits

Customization: A Tale Of

Cost/BenefitsThe First Of A Three Part Series

What We Will Review• Reason Or Need• What To Do• Review Of M3 Panels• What To Change• Why Customize• How To• QA

Reason / Needs• Maybe your current CSR’s cannot keep up:

o with entering orderso checking order statuso trackingo customer lookupo e-Commerce and Mobile Apps

• Adding CSR’s is costly and a never ending expense

• Speed up the process• So customize

Reason / Needs

What To Do• First and foremost to review and verify your

process:o The process review will insure that any

software based solutions will meet your needso The process review may reveal internal process

changes that will enhance any software usedo The process review will give us our needs

analysis or wish list if you so choose to call it that

Review The M3 Panels• Gather a list of all the fields in each panel :

o Create a list of fields and panels• Field level help• Meta Data Publisher• Your favorite Metadata tool

What To Change• Panel Level With jScript

o If a simple look up is all you need then jScript • Custom External

o If you need complete control customization is the way to go

Why Custom External• Precise control

o We get exactly what we wanto It is tailored to our exact need

• Will provide a “loosely coupled” applicationo Maintenance is easiero Upgrades have little to no impact

How To• API’s• MITest• Troubleshooting• Coding• Testing• Deployment

How To• API’s

o Are the vehicle we will use to insure our data goes to the right place

o We use the API rather than direct writes to the database to insure our integrity

o But how do we find the right API

How To• MITest

How To• Troubleshooting

o M3-API-WSo We can test API’s or Web Services

How To• Coding

o Panel jScripto Dot Net Public Class BaseAPIMI

' this is where we will store the fields themselvesDim lsFields As List(Of mvxAPIField) ' the program name eg. OIS100MIPublic Property ProgramName As String ' the name of the transaction eg. AddBatchHeadPublic Property TransactionName As Stringretrieve all of the fields for this version that are In fields (ie. fields that we will send to MoveX) Dim vFields = From field In lsFields Where field.Version = astrVersion And field.Direction = "I" Select field  If Not vFields Is Nothing Then   If Enumerable.Count(vFields) >= 1 Then    For Each apifCurrentField As mvxAPIField In vFields     If Not apifCurrentField Is Nothing Then      Dim iFrom As Int32 = apifCurrentField.FromAsInt()      Dim iLength As Int32 = apifCurrentField.LengthAsInt()       ' retrieve the value of the field at a specific location and for a specific length      Mid(strPopulatedString, iFrom, iLength) = apifCurrentField.Value      End If    Next   End If  End If CreateInString = strPopulatedStringEnd Function

How To• Testing

o M3-API-WSo We can test API’s or Web Services

How To• Deployment

o We can now take our custom app to our own Web Server

Also consider• Availability of resources within the company and

outside that can support the development• Upgrade friendliness• Performance• Dependencies• Security

Additional help

Nogalis offer (Ends July 2014)

One day of free consulting from one of our 14 Lawson professionals to help get your project started with no obligation.

Contact:

tan@nogalis.com949.285.2349

www.nogalis.com

Next Webinar

2014 Q2

www.nogalis.com/education

eCommerce & Mobile AppsTaking Your Business To The Next Level

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