How and When to Customize Your ERP System

By Ron Colburn,
Sr. Manager Global Migrations and Customization Services

Customization is one area of your Extended ERP system that requires some consideration.

In general, we recommend that customers hold off on any serious modifications to their system until after the new users have been fully educated and trained on the standard glovia.com capabilities. You want to be sure that your personnel have as full an understanding of the core product and its potential applications as possible. In many cases there is a sense of urgency to change the new system to "be like the old system" from a functional standpoint — before there is a clear understanding of how glovia.com supports generally accepted business practices and solutions.

Over time, we have found that many of these early changes turn out to be unnecessary and become obsolete. More importantly, sometimes these changes lock a customer into an inappropriate process, which precludes full use of standard glovia.com functionality.

Of course there are simple customizations that are to be expected. For example, in order to provide external documents such as Purchase Orders, Checks, Sales Order Acknowledgments, etc. These must be done — and this type of customization is considered to be "tailoring" and is an acceptable low risk modification. Reports also fall into this category.

If serious modifications such as changes to processing logic or the database cannot be avoided — for instance you need to meet a critical or unique business process — then we provide development guidelines for customization. These guidelines include standardized naming conventions for functions and files to allow segregation and identification within the standard code library.

One of the most important things to remember in any customization operation is to follow the proper naming guidelines in order to prevent customization from being overlaid during an upgrade or when a code patch or service pack is applied. If customization is handled correctly, new patches and services packs can be analyzed in advance to determine the impact of the standard changes and enhancements on the custom functions. This is an essential way to minimize risk.

Another essential best practice for whenever a serious change is considered to glovia.com is to make sure that your project team — including representatives from all departments — is included to review the proposed change and verify that the modification will not have an unexpected ripple effect on any other department's processes. Customization is not the time to forget that "one man's pleasure may be another man's poison."

We work hard to minimize your need to perform customizations to glovia.com but we appreciate that particular manufacturers and particular functions within companies sometimes do have unique needs. By approaching custom modifications at the right time, by following sound protocols, and by keeping your full team in the loop, you can avoid unnecessary risk and impact to your operations while you fully enhance the value of your glovia.com investment.

Please don't hesitate to let us know if you have any questions.