JDE Summit 2014

When I started this post, I thought I would concentrate on one or two key topics from the 2014 JD Partners Summit. But as I reviewed my notes, I realized there are so many exciting things coming in 2014 and beyond that you would be better served if I highlighted as many as I could and then went into more detail in future posts.

Success Through Continued Innovation

Success Through Continued Innovation was the theme of the Summit, and it started with Lyle Ekdahl’s keynote. Lyle (Twitter handle @lyleekdahl), the Group Vice President and General Manager for JD Edwards, outlined a strategy that changes the upgrade paradigm. Instead of large upgrade projects that occur once every five years or so, JD Edwards wants to move clients to consume innovation through a series of smaller bite-sized uplift projects that occur on a regular and perpetual basis. Major dot X releases are still scheduled every three years for both World and EnterpriseOne, but interim releases that introduce new functionality will now occur once or twice a year. In order to make this change easier to consume, Oracle and JD Edwards realize they need to adjust the upgrade methodology to make it faster and less disruptive. The teams are looking at ways to minimize testing and validation by only passing changed objects to the Production system. Several of the break out sessions discussed how Oracle, in combination with partners like us, could improve the upgrade process and add value by shortening the technical and testing phases from months to weeks; accelerating the rate of adoption of change while reducing the time to benefit.

Mobility Remains the Focus of EnterpriseOne

EnterpriseOne product innovation continues to focus on mobility. A new E1 iPad demo debuted at the Summit with a scratch pad feature that captures freehand notes, drawings, and signatures, and attaches them to PDFs and transaction records. This is especially intriguing for signature capture because employees in the field can now store customer approval signatures on work orders, purchase orders, and other documents electronically. The roadmap for mobile innovation is defined in three phases:

Companion applications on tablets and smartphones such as the existing service billing and purchase requisition approval modules.
‘Mobile First’ new use cases for tablets, smartphones and wearables (visual picking anyone?) in ERP.
Finally, the internet of things – connected devices throughout the organization.

Take a look at the native iPad app available in Tools 9.1.4 for a glimpse of the direction in which these devices are moving.

Continued Investment in Innovation for World Users

Bob Mann, Oracle/JD Edwards Senior Development Director for World, gave a presentation on the changes to come for World users and, without hyperbole, it is game changing. Most important are the planned changes to the user interface currently in development, which will more closely mirror the look, feel, and functionality of E1 – including the availability of grids. In addition, a form of One View reporting may be coming to World.