Corporate

When the word integration is raised in the context of business systems it is generally understood that it refers to making systems and services work together.  But perhaps a formal definition of the word reveals one key reason why many integrations fall short of their potential:

Integration noun [u] ‘the action or process of combining two or more things in an effective way’ (Cambridge University Press, 2023)

An effective way, simply combining systems may satisfy a narrow definition of integration, but unless that combination is effective does it genuinely qualify as an integration?

In the history of Business IT systems, one name writ large is IBM, even the name of the company, International Business Machines tells of its purpose; and when those machines moved beyond typewriters and calculating machines, IBM designed and built the computer systems that became ubiquitous through the word.  Even in those early days integration was key to utilising this new technology effectively as automated processes dovetailed into manual workflows.

When IBM System/38, the predecessor to today’s IBM Power Systems running IBM i, broke cover in 1978 it was perfectly placed to utilise the EDI networks which had become prevalent in the early 1970s to integrate businesses into ever more complex supply chains.  It should come as no surprise then that the IBM i is a platform that can be integrated into workflows, processes, and businesses, and yet KFA Connect frequently encounters customers who have been told that this is either impossible or so expensive as to be prohibitive. 

Why is this?

Even though many of the systems businesses seek to integrate are now delivered as cloud services, there are still a huge number of IT professionals, be they software developers, consultants, or users who are still firmly rooted in the world of Microsoft Windows and Unix/Linux systems; the IBM i operating system is often simply perceived as external, difficult, or legacy.  We believe that this is not the case.

Whilst KFA Connect does not have a history as storied as IBM’s we have been working with the IBM i and its predecessors for over 25 years, this means we are familiar with it in a way that most IT professionals are not.  Not only that, but we have also continued to develop our knowledge as the IT industry has developed and so when it comes to integrating the IBM i with a modern eCommerce system, for example, we are not simply comfortable, we are experienced.

How can we do this?

Just as computer technology has made quantum leaps since the 1970s, the last ten years even, so has the IBM i as a platform.  Current versions of the operating system can interface with web systems in the same way as any commodity Linux or Windows system.  Applications can be written in RPG and CL; or in any number of cross-platform languages, for example, Java or PHP, and these can integrate with other applications of web services using APIs, and file-based integration, all the same methods in fact as any other technology platform. In many of these instances, the IBM Power System with its advanced architecture can offer greater performance than a system running on the common x86 platforms.  Integration can be built into an IBM application from its inception.

If integrating a new application is simple, then what about legacy applications?

This is typically what customers have in mind when they want to integrate their IBM i-based software into a new business process.

Because of its longevity and reliability, applications running on the IBM i may themselves, have their roots in bespoke development carried out decades in the past.  Unlike other platforms, an application written for the AS400 in the 1980s could very well be running on a current model IBM i in 2023. 

This longevity means new systems will have appeared that simply didn’t exist when the original application was written.  A typical example of this would be implementing an eCommerce or multichannel system, or the move from office to remote and home working.  How could legacy applications be integrated into these new systems?

Who should help with an Integration with the IBM i?

A multidisciplinary team with experience of both the IBM i platform, but also the systems to be integrated with is invaluable. 

In this way, the experience gained on numerous similar projects can be reused, and hidden costs with specialists being contracted in can be avoided. 

What needs to be integrated?

It is vital to establish the scope of any integration:

• What needs to be integrated?
• Is the integration one-way, or bi-directional? 

This step is vital since there is a world of difference in the complexity of sending simple stock data to an eCommerce site from an ERP system; to fully integrating all functions of that ERP system on the eCommerce site.  Many projects falter at the planning stage because a simple integration requirement gets conflated into something onerous and seemingly insurmountable.

What methods of integration are available?

The IBM i has a powerful SQL database integrated with it, this database DB2 is an intrinsic part of how IBM i can process data so efficiently.  Using universal drivers (ODBC/JDBC) connections can be made directly to this database and data moved to and from the IBM i and partner systems quickly, in volume, and efficiently.

File-based integrations are still prevalent, and these frequently provide the backbone for many EDI (electronic data interchange) systems.  Here data files or ‘messages’ are created on each system and then transferred securely to the partner systems.  These files might be simple flat text, CSV documents and the like, or structured XML files; to an experienced integrator, the type poses no issue.

APIs were already ubiquitous before the rise in cloud computing, and with the rise of black-boxed microservices, these have become the de-facto method of integration when dealing with many systems.  Sometimes heavily documented, sometimes not, these APIs are the defined interfaces between systems and often allow for deep integration with their attached system.  Like so much in IT there are a multitude of types, from the SOAP XML-based interfaces, through the currently favoured REST APIs, to the flexible GRAPHQL endpoints used by the marketplaces of today. Whilst implementing an API may seem daunting, an experienced team will be completely comfortable with the technology.

Does this mean IBM i integration needs bespoke development?

Not at all, there are tools available that can simplify an implementation between systems where much of the heavy lifting has been built in advance.  One such tool that KFA Connect use is Codeless Platforms’ BPA Platform, a business process automation platform where tasks can be built to accomplish integrations quickly and with the minimum of development.  Here functions such as file transfer, scheduling, and even connection to many web services is available within the package.  Using a toolset like this means that time to delivery can be dramatically cut.

We think our needs are more complex than that though.

Sometimes bespoke development is the right path, and when a team already has experience of all the fields required in an integration this makes good sense.  Graphical dashboards delivered to end users can be built over the IBM i giving a modern, familiar way to interact with the underlying data.  This is especially appropriate where business intelligence needs to be disseminated in a way that it can be quickly absorbed.

The same dashboards can also provide endpoints for web services both on the IBM i and on other systems within and without an organisation.  This could provide a multichannel selling platform for example, with ERP data coming from the IBM i, product information data coming from a PIM system running in the cloud, products being sold from Amazon, eBay, and Shopify, and goods being despatched by a 3PL provider.

In conclusion, the IBM i has been at the heart of many business systems for many decades, far from being outmoded, it can work perfectly in the interconnected world in which we live.  With the right technologies and team, an application that is helping to drive the success of a business can be integrated into other modern platforms to continue that success and drive it higher.

Joe Vavasour

KFA Connect, IT Manager

20th January 2023

Want to know more? Get in touch with our team today.

When the now IBM i was introduced in the 1980s as a System/3X, the hardware was huge in today’s terms, requiring large, air-conditioned data centres to run in and being managed via a dedicated console. The systems also required dedicated staff (Operators) to run back-ups of the systems to magnetic tape on reels.

Over the years as the S/3X was succeeded by the AS/400 and then later the IBM i. The machine physical sizes shrank, the need for dedicated data centres disappeared and there was no longer a requirement for an Operator to manage the back-ups and the associated media.

Newer IBM i boxes are now either rack mounted or floor standing with some not much larger than a standard desktop. The IBM i can be ordered with or without its own built-in tape drive.

There are many smaller businesses running an IBM i that is located in a room in their offices and backing up to tape on a daily basis.

Backup Planning

As with any successful project, it’s all in the planning.

What you back up, when, and how often needs to be carefully considered when you plan your backup strategy.

How Critical is your System?

If you were to lose your system, would you be able to restore to a new system and get your business up and running again within an acceptable window of time?

• What is an acceptable window of time for your business?
• Is your system taking live orders 24/7?
• Would you be able to run your business using manual processes for any period of time?

What is your Backup Window?

The time available to perform a backup will determine how much data you can save. If you have batch processes running overnight, then you need to find a space in the schedule where you can run your backups. If the system runs 24/7 then you may need to use a replication tool where you copy the data ‘live’ to another system and run your backup from the other system.

What Do you Need to Save?

Depending on the criticality of your system to your business, you will at least need to back up your data files daily. If you are developing on your system, then you will want to back up your development environment on a daily basis. Libraries that change rarely could be part of a weekly backup.  

Backup Options

There are a number of options available to businesses for backing up their data from their IBM i. The concept of backing up to tape and taking the tape home with you each evening or putting it in a fire-proof safe overnight should be a thing of the past, as should using an external physical tape storage facility.

VTL (Virtual Tape Library)

Depending on the size of your business a VTL could be a good solution. Comprising of either one or 2 physical servers running VTL software. There are 2 solutions we recommend when using VTL.

1. A single VTL instance, located locally with your server.
2. A VTL server local to your IBM i and a second VTL server located at a remote site.

The VTL software eliminates the need for physical tapes and runs hand-in-hand with IBM’s BRMS software.

If you are running a second server then the VTL software can be set to duplicate your data back-ups to the off-site location.  

Backup to Cloud

Using the IBM BRMS software, you can send your data to a remote server where the data can be held off-site.

This is a cheaper solution than the VTL option as you do not need to purchase the VTL software, and you will not need to purchase any physical hardware. You will only pay for the initial setup of the backups and the ongoing cloud storage costs.

At KFA we have extensive knowledge of both methods mentioned above.

KFA installed a VTL solution for Vodafone UK across 2 physical locations with replication running from one location to the other.

KFA also provide cloud backup services to our IBM i customers wishing to save their business-critical data off-site giving them complete peace of mind that they will be able to recover their systems rapidly in the event of a crisis.

Richard Austin

KFA Connect New Business Director

9th January 2023

Want to know more? Get in touch with our team today.

‘Data migration’ – sounds easy doesn’t it? It’s just a matter of taking some data and moving it from one place to another, possibly changing its format along the way and sometimes moving it to a new application.

The reality is that data migration requires considered planning and a good technical knowledge of the database you are moving from and the one you are moving to.

This blog will focus on the migration of data from an IBM i to either another stand-alone database or to another application running on a different platform.

Planning

As with any successful project, it’s all in the planning.

Before starting the migration careful consideration should be given to the data that actually needs migrating, for example;

• Does all the transactional data need to be migrated?
• Is financial transaction data required in the new application or would opening balances suffice?
• When/how will the migration take place?
• Should you close the system down for trading and migrate over a weekend?
• How will the migration be tested?
• Should a parallel system on your new application be run? To run data through your migrations process.
• Will access to reporting over your legacy data be required? If you are not migrating it to your new application.

Common Problems when Migrating a DB2 database

DB2 on the IBM i dates back to the 1980s. A relational database, the database is created using DDS (data description specification) to specify the attributes and functions of fields within files.

DB2 restrictions mean that file names and field names are restricted to 10 characters. This means that without a data dictionary or schema of your application database, files and their field contents can appear meaningless – ABC001 is not obviously a file holding order transactions for example. 

DB2, in its original form, did not have date fields so dates and times were held in 6 or 8-long fields sometimes as numeric and sometimes alpha.

DB2 data is held in EBCDIC format so issues may arise when converting to ASCII, ANSI or to UTF character sets. 

Data Dictionary/Schema

If your DB2 application is bespoke and has been written over many years, then it is fairly unlikely that the database itself will be well documented. 

Time spent determining which files hold what data and carefully documenting the database will pay dividends before you start any migration and will often reveal nuances of the source system that will not have been apparent in normal everyday usage.

It will also help to avoid migrating duplicated data and will help identify historical data that is not required by the new system.

Formatting Issues

When converting date, time, or datetime fields where information has been stored as either numeric, or string date, routines will need to be written to convert the data to standard date, time, or datetime formats.  This will also allow your new system to work across multiple localities worldwide.

As DB2 is an EBCDIC database there will undoubtedly be characters within the database that will not transpose to the new database. In this instance, we would suggest a conversion/mapping table holding the character being mapped from DB2 and the corresponding character you would like to convert to.

Many applications and databases differentiate between a blank value, and no value at all, a null value. 

Within IBM i applications it is common to simply use blank values in all cases so, part of any data migration involves making sure the appropriate pattern is followed. 

Sometimes this will be a simple choice for every value in the database, however, each field should be analysed, and the decision of how to handle blank values made on a case-by-case basis.

Moving to a New Application

If you are moving to a new application, you may well need to move your existing data into that application. You will need to move customers, suppliers, sales data, stock positions etc. This will all need to be carefully planned with your new system implementers to ensure all data is mapped correctly.

You may be able to create opening balances in the new application and start trading from that position. You could then move your historical financial data to another database that you can keep for regulatory purposes and have the ability to run reports over that data if required.

By starting with an opening balance in the new application and running a month’s work of transactions through the new system you can prove the month-end closing balance matches your existing system. This is a good safety check to ensure the new system and your data migrations are working as planned.

Migrating for Archive

If you intend to shut down your existing system and do not need any of the data in your new applications then you could consider migrating the transactional and financial transaction data to a new stand-alone SQL database. A simple suite of reporting programs can be produced to give access to the data if required for auditing purposes in the future.

At KFA we have extensive knowledge of IBM DB2 and have experience of converting a DB2 database to SQL on the IBM i. We have written numerous functions to extract data from the IBM i into SQL databases for use in other applications.

We also have experience of extracting entire databases to other platforms as applications come to end-of-life and experience of migrating data to new applications to replace the IBM i including SAP and Oracle.

Richard Austin

KFA Connect New Business Director

5th January 2023

Want to know more? Get in touch with our team today.

Difficulties finding IBM i Application Consultants and Developers?

If your business runs an IBM i application you will no doubt have identified risks with the shortage of IBM i developers in the market.

Most IBM i developers started their careers in the hay days of the 80’s and 90’s when IBM were selling the systems to all and sundry across all business verticals including finance, insurance, manufacturing, distribution, and retail. 

Over the years, sales of new IBM i systems fell away and the majority of sales were to existing customers upgrading their systems. Many developers have either moved on to different platforms or are retiring having spent their entire careers working on the one platform.

The demographic of employees in the workplace has also led to the demise of systems like the IBM i with younger staff being more familiar with and expecting to use tablets, phones, and mobile apps with flashy user interfaces. Presenting these staff with green screen applications can lead to a higher turnover in staff who see the IBM i as ‘legacy’ and ‘old hat’.

This perception also makes it difficult to recruit younger staff to train as developers on the system.

The IBM i has changed as a platform over the years with huge advances in technology and the introduction of new programming languages and techniques. None of the reliability has been lost, with the modernisation of the system, and it remains the backbone of many businesses.

The majority of IBM i users love the system, it is incredibly reliable and offers stability that many new systems can only dream of. Data entry is super quick and certainly much quicker than a web-facing system; it’s just the user interface tends to be not as modern and nice looking.   

With a shortage of new IBM i developers coming into the market the risk of continuing to run these systems is perceived by some to be high.

So how can you reduce the risks to your business?

Recruit Permanent Staff

This isn’t as easy as it sounds, most of the IBM i developers on the market are heading toward retirement. Salary expectations are high and so are the associated agency fees.

Many staff are well established in their current roles and are happy to stay put in the comfort of working on systems they know where they are seen as key personnel to the running of the systems.

Recruit a Contractor

Recruiting a contractor is an easier route than hiring a permanent employee. Agency fees are less in the beginning, and you get a chance to see if the contractor is good, so easy to release them if they are not. A contractor who is versed in regularly working in different companies will likely become productive quicker than a permanent employee who has moved to you having worked somewhere for many years previously. There are obvious cost implications of keeping a contractor long-term not to mention the dreaded IR35 implications.

Train New Developers

This is a great idea in our opinion but only if you have:

• Someone who is keen to learn and;
• A team who can train that individual.

In our experience, trainees are keen to learn, pick things up really quickly and before too long become very technically competent. Salaries are of course, lower to start and if you can train internally or take someone straight from school or college there are no agency fees.

Seek the Services of an IBM i Consultancy

The advantages of seeking help with your IBM i through a consultancy include:

• You have access to multiple resources with varying skills and industry experience.
• You pay for what you need – you are not paying for a resource full-time when you only need a couple of hours a day or a short-term resource to deliver a project.
• No agency fees.
• No staff costs including NI, Pensions, Perks, holiday, and sick pay.
• No long-term commitment – try and if it doesn’t work then walk away.

At KFA, we started on, what is now the IBM i, back in the 80s. A few of the staff who started with the business are still here and are passing on their knowledge and years of experience to our younger developers. We have taken students straight from school, 6^th form College and University and trained them as developers on the IBM i.

Of course, the training has not always been successful, and some have moved on to new careers – it’s not for everyone! But we currently have 4 developers under 30 and we plan to recruit and train more.

Richard Austin

KFA Connect New Business Director

16th December 2022

Energy Saving at KFA

3rd November 2022

There’s an ever-increasing number of emails related to energy-saving ideas flooding both my work and personal inbox. The reason is very clear, we all know we have to do our bit to reduce our energy bills, it’s a hot topic for EVERYONE – and with obvious reasons.

Growing up I was taught that if you were cold, put another jumper on, or if your feet were cold put another pair of socks on. If I was hungry just before dinner, I was always told to have an apple, but I didn’t always listen to that advice either if the biscuit tin was calling to me! My thrifty parents were always hot on my heels if I left a room without turning off the light and we always had to switch everything off at the plug overnight.

As a teenager, I’ll admit I thought this was all a bit of a drag – especially turning the electricity off at the power sockets. As an adult, I had probably lost sight of the reasons behind these vital lessons that I learnt as a child and became used to just tweaking the thermostat rather than layering up – not good I know, but true. Fast forward 30 years (OK, maybe it’s more like 35 years) and I’m going back to these roots, big time. I’m repeating those same words to my kids that I heard so regularly from my parents….

“Shut the door – were you born in a barn? You’re letting all the heat out!”

“Turn the light off when you leave the room, it’s like Blackpool illuminations in here!”

“What do you think that money grows on trees”?

“What have you got to be sad about, you don’t have a mortgage?”.

Honestly, I could go on and on… and I laugh about it with my family now, but it’s not funny – they are all 100% valid.

That same frugal mentality should follow us to work. Saving the company that you work for money will, in the long run, help to secure the financial future of the business, and subsequently the future of your job. It’s quite simple really if you think about it. I do feel sorry for companies who have a large number of Gen Z’s working for them if their attitude was anything like mine at that age. I’m hoping they have a better understanding of these matters.

Confession time, I was still guilty of leaving my monitor in the office on standby overnight and at weekends (and I know I wasn’t alone). Not such a big deal you might think, but when there are dozens (or for some companies hundreds) of desks, and if everyone did the same it can quickly ramp up the electricity being used unnecessarily. I think you get the point.  

So, we started a new phase at KFA, thinking about our impact; individually, as a team and also as a business –  how we could reduce waste, save money and be even more environmentally friendly and all-round good people.

I guess it started (some years ago now I might add) with number one:

We’re a paperless office

We have been committed to being a paperless office for several years already. Without even considering the positive impact we are having on the planet from not printing and saving trees etc, in our industry, it is a huge benefit from a security / GDPR perspective to not have confidential customer information lying around the office or sitting on people’s desks.

We ‘hot desk’ in the office now so we would never have the opportunity to leave paperwork on a desk anyway. A brilliant way to eliminate office mess by the way – no more desk trinkets gathering dust for us!

Our team have been given ReMarkables – electronic notepads to use. These devices also ensure that any notes taken by our team members relating to our customer’s IT systems are secure on these password-protected devices.

Recycling – We donate equipment & furniture

Over the years we have donated any usable electrical equipment to charities that are able to re-purpose them in the community. This was especially great when the schools were looking for donations of operational but unwanted laptops for children who did not have access to one at home during Covid. We replace our equipment fairly frequently, so this made sense to us as a business. We have also previously donated monitors to a local charity that looks after homeless people, which is a great thing to be able to do. When we moved offices earlier this year, we even donated office furniture to a local start-up business too.

During the first Covid lockdown, just like many other businesses, our entire team quickly adapted to working from home.  The KFA Directors sensed the direction the pandemic was heading because they sent us all to work from home two weeks before the Government announced the first lockdown.

Moving to work from home was not difficult for our team, since many of us already regularly worked from home one or two days a week, so the infrastructure and security procedures were already in place to support this. There were minimal changes, as we already used Teams for meetings with our customers, so we just became more reliant on this to communicate as a team daily as well.

After months of working from home during the lockdown, many of our team found that it gave them a better work/life balance without having the commute to and from the office. Others found being able to spend their lunch break exercising either on equipment at home or by going for a walk or run was beneficial to their mental health and so they continued to work from home beyond the lockdowns, which has led to the following additional savings;

Travel Costs and associated environmental impacts have been reduced.

Covid has reduced (and in some cases eliminated) the cost of travelling to and from work, which inevitably also helps reduce emissions from these additional vehicles on the road.

The Covid pandemic also seems to have changed how KFA communicates with our customers and potential customers for good, with many favouring online meetings instead of travelling for face-to-face meetings. Although I personally miss that face-to-face relationship-building opportunity (you can’t beat a good handshake), I can also see the obvious benefits of not spending hours in the car or on the train and the cost of fuel or train tickets to the business, the environmental impact of the journey, and of course, the physical time saved.

At KFA were very supportive of the team members who wanted to remain working from home, ensuring they had the right equipment and giving due consideration to their working environment and health and safety. This continued arrangement relies on dedication to the business from the individual and mutual trust. We are lucky that the entire KFA team are very business focussed – always ready to go the extra mile.

This shift in the norm for KFA meant that the team who were left in the office were rattling around in a large and very expensive office, which was now too large for the numbers who were regularly using it.

This felt like another natural nudge towards more changes to help save energy and ultimately money. So, the Directors of KFA decided to remain in this hybrid working situation on a more permanent basis and downsized the office to a smaller space. This led to other natural on-site savings, starting with…

Relocation of server room = lower on-site business costs.

This change, which was beneficial in more ways than one, was to do away with our on-site server room. Server rooms have to be kept cool at all times with costly air-conditioning, so we strategically relocated ours to a UK Data Centre prior to the office move. We would be using the Data Centre’s Air-Con instead of having to run our own from that point.

We have since turned our attention to what other long-term changes we could make around us, and this one reminds me of another of my Mum’s favourite sayings; “Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves…”

“Alexa, Power On!”

Following the office move, we carried on the cost-saving theme, installing Alexa and Smart Plugs in the new office. Now we “Alexa, Power On” at KFA each morning – and “Alexa, Power Off” At night. Alexa does all the leg work, and she makes sure that no equipment is left draining electricity overnight and at weekends.

It was a simple, but effective change and no one (me) will ever be judged again for being the one to leave their desk equipment on standby!

We’re continuing to think of new ways to save money, energy and the environment. We’re aware that all three of these things often go hand-in-hand – and we do want to do our bit.

We know that all businesses are looking to do the same, focussing on;

• Saving time.
• Saving money.
• Reducing manual effort.
• Increasing customer satisfaction and customer retention.
• Eliminating human errors.
• Improving productivity.
• Automating business processes.
• Enhancing Management reporting – for better decision-making.

Those who sell online will also be looking to:

• Improve their customer’s eCommerce user experience.
• Allowing any trade customers to order online at any time of the day.
• Improve their stock accuracy.
• Streamline warehouse pick, pack & despatch processes.

At KFA our team spend their time developing software solutions and systems integration solutions that either directly or indirectly tick all of the above boxes.

If you would like to test this theory – give us an example of an area of your business which could be improved, and we can talk through how we would approach and deliver the requirement. We do love a challenge!

Our integration skills, business process automation experience, eCommerce know-how and ability to increase your customer satisfaction and retention, will allow your team to get on with growing your business.

Get in touch today.

Nicki Smith

Sales Manager

KFA Connect helps Norwood Aquarium to replace their IBM i server.

Why You Should Automate Reports and Documentation on a Scheduled or Data-driven Event.

Consistent management reporting ensures that compliance procedures are adhered to, decision-makers are empowered to make informed decisions, and company performance can be monitored and improved.

Typically, reports are manually created within sales, marketing, and finance departments as without individual reporting on sales targets, product lines and cash flow how does a company know how it is performing?

The problems start to appear when reports are manually created as data from multiple systems needs to be collated, analysed, and distributed to relevant employees.

Common report creation problems include:

• Data is not always in one business system.
• Manual report creation takes time and is prone to errors.
• Costly and repetitive administration tasks.

SAP Business One Automated Reporting

SAP Business One automated reporting procedures on a scheduled or data-driven event eradicates repetitive administration that employees face on a daily basis and safeguards an organisation against human error and provides decision-makers with the most up-to-date information to analyse – ensuring compliance and improving data visibility.

The automation of reporting procedures enables an organisation to automatically create and send Crystal Reports or MS Reporting Services for practically any business report or documentation such as:

• Manufacturing reports e.g. waste % per product line.
• Warehouse reports e.g. stock management.
• Sales reports e.g. sales figures by territory of account manager.
• Finance reports e.g. aged debtors or cash flow statuses.
• Automated tracking number notifications sent to customers via SMS or email.
• Human Resources e.g. monthly attendance figures by department.
• Customer service reports e.g. KPI statistics on calls processes
• Customer and stakeholder reports e.g. monthly statements or purchase history

This all reduces time, removes errors and ensures that information is readily available when it is needed most and can be achieved by implementing a business process automation solution called BPA Platform.

BPA Platform will dynamically monitor your business systems and automatically create and distribute your reports on a scheduled or event-driven basis via HTML formatted email, FTP, attach the report to a CRM record or place the report on a network location.

It can also initiate workflows to allow you to react to the information contained in the report.

BPA Platform Automated Report solution overview

• Monitor all your business systems
• Automate the creation and distribution of your in-house reporting engine (Crystal Reports, MS Reporting Services etc) to produce graphs and interactive charts
• Create MS Excel, HTML, PDF, CSV, XML, TIF, and .doc files
• Create and distribute reports and documentation on a scheduled or data change event
• Include workflows
• Trigger report creation and distribution on request from email or SMS

With the opportunities to automate documents and reports being endless, what reports would you like to automate?

For more information on how automation can improve your business processes contact us to arrange a demonstration.

KFA Connect are Codeless Platforms Partners – authorised to sell BPA Platform. KFA Connect have in-depth knowledge of developing integration and Process automation using the solution.

Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook: ‘No Good Excuse’ for Lack of Women in Tech

I read an interesting article today from the BBC about how Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said in a recent interview that there are still “not enough women at the table in the world’s tech firms’ – including his own.

The article, which was written by Zoe Kleinman on the BBC website following her interview with the Apple boss who said that technology “will not achieve nearly what it could achieve” without a more diverse workforce.

What are your thoughts, do you agree?

Tim also said that while their business has made progress on diversity that there were “no good excuses” for the tech sector not to employ more women.

The firm was under the spotlight following the launch of the Apple Health App in 2014 – which left out some female-specific tracking functionality in the app – which may, or may not have been due to a male bias among its developers.

In 2021 the number of female members across Apple’s global staff was at 35%.

Tim also mentioned in the interview that there may be a shortage of women taking computer sciences but he can’t hire enough and that the world must fundamentally change the number of people taking computer science and engineering.

I really don’t know why the ratio of women to men is not more balanced in this field, given that roles in this industry do not require physical strength (although I recognise that women can perform roles which require this perfectly well too!), working outside, working at heights, in dirty conditions or out at sea, irregular hours or even working underground – there really is no particular reason for it that I can put my finger on.

This article got us thinking about what the ratio of women to men looked like within the KFA team.

Which you might be interested to know is currently made up of 40% of women.

I asked a couple of the younger members of the KFA team (who have been through the GCSE/A Level/College experience much more recently than I have) what the ratio of girls to boys there was in their respective Computer Science courses. One A-Level course seemed to have 40% girls (but in a very small class), whereas a GCSE course was less than 10% girls in a full class.

It makes me wonder if there is something wrong with the way that careers in the IT industry are presenting themselves to school-age children.

The same conversation sadly gave me the impression that many kids at school who took Computer Sciences were seen as “Geeky” and were often bullied and unpopular – this made me feel saddened as they are no doubt often the brightest and most intelligent individuals – and should be celebrated.

So what more can be done to encourage girls (and boys) to see a future for themselves in computer science and programming?

The KFA Connect team have in the past taken part in ‘The Big Bang @ Dorset’ – (STEM-themed event exhibitions) at The Tank Museum in Bovington and found the children who attended as groups from local schools who visited our stands (in very large and loud groups!) to be very engaged with the topics and in particular the gadgets that were on display. We have seen first-hand how events like these are really great at inspiring future generations to pursue careers in STEM subjects.

Tim Cook said in that same interview, that “everybody should be required to take some sort of coding course by the time they finish school, in order to have a ‘working knowledge’ of how coding works and how apps are created”. So I’m going to make a point of asking my teenage kids and all my friend’s school-age children to see if this is actually happening in the UK at all schools, but I suspect that this is more likely to be the case here as it is in other countries across the world.

Businesses can’t cop out and say “there’s not enough women taking computer science – therefore I can’t hire enough”, said Mr Cook.

But why then do there seem to be fewer girls interested in this career path than boys? Could it be that boys from a young age are stereotypically more likely to be interested in gaming than girls, which might form a greater interest in how they are programmed? Or, is there a stigma attached to being into Computer Science at GCSE and A-Level age leading those who might want to do it to simply choose a different path?

I don’t have the answers to any of these questions – but I do find it fascinating why a larger percentage of girls are not more interested, and the reasons why.

The article also tells of four female app founders/creators which you can read about in the full article by clicking on the link below.

29/09/2022

Nicki Smith – KFA Sales Manager

How is your business planning to grow?

Growing a business can bring a multitude of questions and associated challenges – do your systems and applications do what you want them to do?

Do they provide full visibility of business processes?

Can they provide a 100% audit trail?

To grow in line with your strategic goals, these questions and many more must be answered. In fact, ensuring that your business systems and applications meet your exact business requirements presents a clear goal to achieve your businesses potential.

As your company grows, business processes evolve over time and having the ability to streamline administrative tasks and receive real-time information when it’s needed the most can play a major part in improving your ROI.

But how do organisations running SAP Business One achieve this?

SAP Business One has been designed to provide a flexible and easy to use framework with clear functionality for integration with third-party software enabling organisations to explore possibilities such as the SAP Certified integration solution BPA Platform.

BPA Platform provides:

• Code-free drag and drop integration tools to reduce costly development time frames
• Ensures systems and applications ‘play nicely’ no matter how complex the requirements
• Automation for practically any business process
• Automated reporting is set to business rules you define
• Real-time data for improved decision making
• Protection against future upgrade paths

If your company is planning to grow, BPA Platform can assist in helping you to achieve your long and short-term strategic goals.

For more information on business process automation solutions click here

If you would like to discuss how you can automate your business processes to help your business achieve its strategic goals, contact us today to arrange a demo.

Happy New Year!

Are Your IT Software Systems Ready for 2021?

Companies who have put off making changes to IT software systems to help cope with what was being referred to in 2020 as our “new normal” and what really is now just “normal”, should act now.

If you haven’t already made sure that your systems are ready for what 2021 has in store for us, you should be looking to make these changes as soon as possible.

As many businesses now face managing their day-to-day operations with some or perhaps all of their team working from home, it’s more important than ever to have a good solid software system/s in place to help your team give the best possible service to your customers.

Some of the areas which really need to be addressed or reviewed might include:

Reporting

If the information is in your system but you can’t access it quickly and easily, your decision-making will be much more difficult and delayed.

If your system reporting gave you the exact information you need, in real-time and when you want it, with useful alerts – you can react so much quicker.

For example, receiving alerts when your best-selling product’s stock goes below a certain level to enable you to trigger the procurement process or if you are sitting on a lot of a certain product which might need business focus to sell-through.

If your competitors have this information at their fingertips, and you don’t – you will be missing a trick.

Warehouse Barcode Scanning

Where can you make improvements to your pick, pack and despatch process?

KFA’s ScanB1 Barcode Scanning solution for pick, pack and despatch can reduce errors, speed up the despatch process and automatically update your backend system with the despatch information.

The pick process is planned based on where your stock is located in the warehouse to use the most efficient route around the warehouse for the pick teams. You can also set up ‘wave picking’ to pick multiple orders at once and a dashboard will show you exactly what is going on in the warehouse, what stage each order is at and who is working on the order.

No need to print pick notes anymore as the scanner screen becomes the pick note.

Will your 2021 begin with a business review of how your software systems cold work better for you?

If your New Year review of your IT software systems identifies areas you require assistance with, get in touch with our team here.