| Abstract: | With new technology that searches all of a company's IFS data and returns targeted results to ERP veterans and novices, the applications provider plans to fill a growing need for intra-enterprise visibility. |
| Keywords: | Enterprise search, enterprise applications, ERP, search tool, unstructured data, structured search, IFS, Oracle, SAP, data visibility |
Looking to put itself ahead of the ERP pack by delivering greater usability to enterprise users, IFS AB today rolled out an embedded search capability that spans the entire IFS Applications suite.
Under development for the past six months, the new functionality allows users to search for data across applications for product lifecycle management, asset management, accounts payable, supply chain management, and any other IFS program a company has licensed.
Out of the box, the technology will troll data that resides within the IFS environment, but it can be configured to also return search results that include, for example, a Dun & Bradstreet report on a potential supplier, or information from the supplier's own Web site, according to Rick Veague, chief technology officer of IFS North America.
The tool can also crawl a company's unstructured data, including archived invoices, order forms, and paper folders, and return those as part of relevant searches — provided they have been digitized and housed in a data repository as part of IFS' document management service.
Search findings are returned to workers based on his or her access rights to the IFS applications. If a user is not permitted to view certain financial documents, for instance, they will not be listed in the results.
IFS application licensees will gain the new search capabilities when they install the current service pack for IFS Applications 7. New IFS customers that purchase version 7.5 of the applications suite, to be released in October, will have access to the new search feature.
The search box that appears throughout version 7.5 of IFS' applications also appeared in previous versions, albeit in a stripped down form, Veague told Managing Automation. The technology that underlies it is what has changed.
"The traditional notion of an ERP application is you launch a screen that gives you a very rigid way of working and a very rigid view of data," Veague said. Effective search, he said, changes that. Comparing the evolution of enterprise search to that of the Internet, he said the status quo has shifted, leaving the onus of discovery on the technology instead of on the user.
In the early days of the Internet, he explained, users went directly to the few Web pages they were familiar with in the hope that those sites held the information they needed. Over time, search engines became the means of conveyance, allowing users to specify the endpoint first — the information they hoped to find — while the engine delivered the most relevant websites for their needs.
Until recently, IFS' enterprise applications lacked that power, and ERP users searching for background on a particular customer, for instance, needed to visit a distribution screen to view that customer's recent orders, a financial screen to explore the credit history, and an analysis screen to compare recent invoices.
In essence, the old search process favored experienced IFS users, who knew what information they were seeking and which enterprise application or screen to find it in. Still, even the most experienced IFS user had to access multiple screens one by one to uncover a multi-tiered view.
Now veteran users can save time, and more casual users, who might otherwise be intimidated by the user experience, can get results with less input, Veague said. "We see the same thing happening in enterprise applications — people who are less familiar with the specific, say, financial or distribution application still know what data they're looking for, even if they're not familiar with the application specifically."
IFS and its ERP brethren, including Oracle, SAP, and others, have made usability a clarion call in new development efforts. From simplified user interfaces to more relevant search returns, more and more ERP providers are looking to put their best foot forward, hoping to lure more employees within the enterprise while maintaining lucrative multiyear engagements.
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