In the general course of doing business, we have the opportunity to talk with a lot of people involved in accounts payable automation – individuals who have implemented solutions and those who have not as well as consultants and experts who work in the field. Our general conclusion is that there is a lot of confusion in the marketplace. This is predicated on the fact that while solution providers generally use the same or very similar terms when discussing their offerings – terms like intelligent capture with optical character recognition (OCR), automated workflow, mobile AP, exception handling, ERP integration, and dashboards and key performance indicators – there are very important nuances between the various solutions that cause substantial differentiation. This situation causes great confusion and can lead people to make suboptimal choices for their businesses as a result.

The purpose of this white paper is to shed some light on the critical elements that underpin these key differences to help educate the marketplace. While there are many aspects to accounts payable automation, these top 15 questions should help individuals differentiate the solutions in their minds and help them to make better informed decisions for their businesses and organizations. Click here to access the white paper.

Do you have another question that you feel needs to be addressed? Please post a comment below and we’ll respond to your question.

Here are some of the highlights for Fusion 2012:

• Keynotes speakers featuring
• Laura Lang, award-winning journalist – discussing crucial issues around the world on Monday, May 14
• Dick Finnegan, President of Finnegan Mackenzie – discussing employee retention on Wednesday, May 16
• Thad Roberts, author – who will challenging the audience to chase their dreams and change their lives on Thursday, May 17
• The Opening Reception on Sunday, May 13 featuring rising country music star Jared Ashley; and the Fusion Finale on Wednesday evening, May 16 at the Wildhorse Saloon will feature Les Richardson.
• Fusion Vendor Tours – participants will be able to hear five-minute introductions to solution providers focused on specific tour subject matter. Image Integration Systems will be featured on both the Premier Solutions tour – Sponsored by OPEX Corporation on Tuesday, May 15 starting at 9:15 a.m. and the SAP tour on Tuesday, May 15 starting at 12:45 p.m.
• Image Integration Systems will be hosting three breakout sessions at Fusion 2012
• Accounts Payable Automation Lessons Learned for JD Edwards and Oracle E-Business Suite – Education Breakout Session #3 hosted by Image Integration Systems’ Ron Kelley on Monday, May 14 at 2:45 p.m. in Cheekwood B
• Accounts Payable Automation Lessons Learned for SAP – Education Breakout Session #8 hosted by Image Integration Systems’ Ron Kelley on Wednesday, May 16 at 11:15 a.m. in Cheekwood B
• Enterprise Software Selection -­‐ Keys to Successful Evaluations – Education Breakout Session #10 co-hosted by well-known ERP expert, Eric Kimberling, President of Panorama Consulting Solutions, and Image Integration Systems’ Dave Litzenberg on Thursday, May 17 at 8:00 a.m. in Cheekwood B

For those of you who haven’t already registered, the good news is you still have time to do so. To do so, please visit the IFO Website If you’d like to schedule a time to meet with Image Integration Systems while at Fusion 2012, please visit our Contact Us page and either send in a request form or give us a call. We look forward to seeing you at Fusion 2012.

Here are some of the highlights of the event:

1. On Monday, April 23, Oracle’s Lyle Ekdahl announced the availability of new releases of both JD Edwards EnterpriseOne (9.1) and World (A9.3) on the same day. This is the first time this has happened in the history of JD Edwards.
2. In that same session, Lyle also announced three solution providers had already completed the Oracle Validated Integration process with the newly announced EnterpriseOne 9.1, including two members of the JDE Alliance: Image Integration Systems with our DocuSphere solution and RF-SMART.
3. The JDE Alliance hosted a great party on Tuesday evening at the Border Grill at Mandalay Bay for customers, clients and partners. You can view the party video here.
4. We had some great discussions with a variety of Oracle E-Business Suite and JD Edwards ERP system clients, some of whom had already implemented accounts payable automation solutions and many who have not. Based on those discussions — especially based on the experiences and questions raised by those who have already gone down that path — we are authoring a new white paper that will be available shortly. Please stay tuned for that announcement.
5. Ron Kelley of Image Integration Systems and Jim Chan of InsightSoftware.com jointly presented “Accounts Payable Automation: Lessons from the Gridiron”. Please click here for some excerpts of that presentation or to request a copy of the presentation .

One of the bigger surprises, at least to me, was that Collaborate 2013 will be held in Denver, Colorado. The Image Integration Systems team looks forward to our participation at that event and in talking with the many great professionals we met in Las Vegas who work with the Oracle E-Business Suite and JD Edwards ERP systems.

]]> http://www.docusphere.com/collaborate-2012-recap-another-great-event/feed/ 0 http://www.docusphere.com/viva-collaborate-2012-jde-alliance-party-brings-jd-edwards-customers-together/ http://www.docusphere.com/viva-collaborate-2012-jde-alliance-party-brings-jd-edwards-customers-together/#comments Wed, 02 May 2012 11:58:50 +0000 Image Integration Systems http://www.docusphere.com/?p=5212 Another Collaborate has come and gone. This was a great event, with much to offer all attendees! We’ll be bringing you news and observations about Collaborate 2012 soon, but in the meantime we wanted to share something fun with you.

The JDE Alliance hosted a party at the Mandalay Bay’s Border Grill during Collaborate 2012. JD Edwards customers had an outstanding time meeting and mingling, as you can see in this video.

Image Integration Systems is pleased to be a member of the JDE Alliance, a consortium of best-of-breed solution vendors that offer proven, respected software solutions for JD Edwards customers. Whether you are upgrading, adding new modules or seeking to improve efficiencies, the range of products and services from JD Edwards Alliance members help you reduce risk and maximize the return on your JD Edwards investment.

We have been completing these validations with every major release of EnterpriseOne since the early days of OneWorld (for those new to JDE, OneWorld is the old name for what we now know as EnterpriseOne). However, don’t be fooled into thinking that because we have been doing this for so long that it was simply a formality. Oracle, in keeping with the best interests of their customers, continually improves the OVI program to make sure partners are meeting or exceeding integration standards. Every validation gets treated as if we have never done one before, which this time resulted in some required changes to our business function name to meet new partner standards. We are happy to make any changes to allow our integrations to meet and exceed Oracle standards.

With Oracle Validated Integration, Oracle customers can be confident of the following:

• A partner’s integration has been tested and validated as functionally and technically sound
• The partner solution is integrated with Oracle Applications or Oracle Fusion Middleware products in a reliable way
• The integration operates and performs as documented

OVI enables customers to reduce risk, improve system implementation cycles, and provide for smoother upgrades and simpler maintenance.

As an Oracle Gold Partner and a member of the OVI Program, we were given the opportunity by Oracle to participate in the Beta release program of E1 9.1. This allowed us to begin early testing with the new software. Once the Beta program was complete, the OVI partners were given the opportunity to install the GA release of the software to complete our validation prior to the BIG announcement to customers at the Collaborate conference this week in Las Vegas.

We are very pleased and excited to participate in the Collaborate conference and to be a part of the E1 9.1 announcement. This is an exciting release for JDE customers and we are ready with our validated integration!

It may be a few days yet before the latest E1 9.1 validations are listed on the Oracle website, but keep a look out here http://www.oracle.com/us/partnerships/solutions/index.html. You will also see our previous validations, such as E1 9.0, listed on the Oracle site.

If you happen to be in Las Vegas at the Collaborate Conference, stop by the Exhibit Hall to see us at the JDE Alliance Pavilion (Aisles 800-900).

April 24, 2012 – Image Integration Systems, a Gold level member of Oracle® PartnerNetwork (OPN), today announced it has achieved Oracle Validated Integration of DocuSphere 4.3 with Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.1. DocuSphere integrates with JD Edwards EnterpriseOne solutions to provide a user-defined workflow of transactional processes and performance metrics. Documents (images) can be automatically indexed as part of the JD Edwards EnterpriseOne application process to ensure accuracy and eliminate duplicate entry.

To achieve Oracle Validated Integration, Oracle partners are required to meet a stringent set of requirements that are based on the needs and priorities of the customers.

DocuSphere integrates with JD Edwards EnterpriseOne solutions, providing access to user-defined workflows for transactional processes, imaging, and content management. DocuSphere integration enables direct and immediate access to business documents with no new user interfaces, includes automatic indexing as part of the transactional process, and maintains the JD Edwards EnterpriseOne application as the principle point of access.

“Image Integration Systems is committed to the Oracle Validated Integration program and we’re proud that we’ve continued that commitment by completing our validation of DocuSphere 4.3 with Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.1,” said Dave Litzenberg, Director of Sales and Marketing for Image Integration Systems. “This is a really big deal to us and to our customers. Because DocuSphere adheres to the standards-based integration principles behind the Oracle Validated Integration program, our customers can feel confident that the integration of DocuSphere and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne can offer a secure and reliable solution.”

“Oracle Validated Integration applies a rigorous technical review and test process,” said John Schiff, vice president Oracle JD Edwards. “Achieving Oracle Validated Integration through Oracle PartnerNetwork gives our customers confidence that the integration between DocuSphere 4.3 and Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.1 has been validated and that the products work together as designed. This helps reduce risk and improves the implementation cycles for our joint customers.”

Since 1993 Image Integration Systems (IIS) has developed and implemented cost-effective document management solutions that provide significant ROI by streamlining business processes, increasing visibility, and reducing costs. IIS solutions are comprehensive: software, hardware, and consulting by business process improvement professionals with extensive ERP experience. IIS has customers that range from local governments to multinational manufacturers in North America, the United Kingdom, and Western Europe. Image Integration Systems delivers “The DocuSphere Difference: The preeminent connected, business-driven AP automation solution – delivered by experienced people for a fixed fee.”

About Oracle Validated Integration

Oracle Validated Integration, available through the Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN), gives customers confidence that the integration of complementary partner software products with Oracle Applications and specific Oracle Fusion Middleware solutions have been validated, and the products work together as designed. This can help customers reduce risk, improve system implementation cycles, and provide for smoother upgrades and simpler maintenance. Oracle Validated Integration applies a rigorous technical process to review partner integrations. Partners who have successfully completed the program are authorized to use the “Oracle Validated Integration” logo. For more information, please visit Oracle.com at http://www.oracle.com/us/partnerships/solutions/index.html.

About Oracle PartnerNetwork

Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) Specialized is the latest version of Oracle’s partner program that provides partners with tools to better develop, sell and implement Oracle solutions. OPN Specialized offers resources to train and support specialized knowledge of Oracle products and solutions and has evolved to recognize Oracle’s growing product portfolio, partner base and business opportunity. Key to the latest enhancements to OPN is the ability for partners to differentiate through Specializations. Specializations are achieved through competency development, business results, expertise and proven success. To find out more visit http://www.oracle.com/partners.

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Dave Litzenberg
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Image Integration Systems
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This is an excerpt from Ron Kelley’s full presentation of “Accounts Payable Automation: Lessons from the Gridiron” at Collaborate 12.

Post a comment or email us to receive a copy of the slide presentation.

Football season is long over. Some might say, “thank goodness”, but not me. I love the game, even though the season does seem to last longer each year. While I like the game in and of itself, I think another reason for its appeal is the similarity between a successful football program and a successful business process. The same requirements for talent, hard work and planning are needed in both endeavors. So just for a few moments, let’s compare your accounts payable team with a football team.

Keys to the Accounts Payable “game”: preparation, efficiency, visibility and control

Preparation always precedes success. Oh, you might get lucky once in a while; we all know that in a football game and in business, the “ball” sometimes bounces your way. But if you want sustainable success, you need to plan for it. A good place to begin is an assessment of where you are. Coaches prepare their teams for the opponent and your AP team must be prepared to face the challenges of processing invoices against the pressures of a primarily “paper intensive defense”.

Coaches might start with some basic questions like: “Do I have the right players on my team? Are we training properly? Have we analyzed what we are up against?” For the AP team, the questions are similar: “Do we have the right people with the right skills to address the need for a more analytically focused AP model rather than simply a transaction focused model that represented the AP of the past?” This translates into AP players who understand and can deal with changing regulatory issues, spot fraud and provide more predictability to the business.

The football analogy is that you can’t only have players who run the ball on every play and expect that to succeed – you need players that can throw, catch kick and man special teams. Adapting to field conditions (read-business conditions) along the way is a key to success.

Efficiency is the second shared attribute between good football teams and good AP operations

If your football team averages only 2 yards per play, it is unlikely to be successful. Similarly, if your AP process has a high cost per transaction and long cycle times to get an invoice ready for payment, you will also be scrambling to keep up.

The best defense against AP process inefficiency is to address the root cause that exists in most companies: paper-bound processes. Perhaps you could get your suppliers to invoice you electronically. This can be done by using EDI, e-Invoicing or other means of transmitting their requests for payment that eliminate the paper. However, this scenario is not viable for most companies as it is usually quite costly on both sides to implement and maintain. Getting suppliers to change from paper to electronic invoice submission is the football equivalent of asking your opponent to play the game in a way that is more favorable to you. While there are advantages to your vendor, paper is still the easiest (and cheapest) medium for most suppliers to use. Now don’t get me wrong; the opponent here is not the supplier, but the paper.

So how do you change the game? Smart AP departments are applying new technologies to the paper game by using intelligent OCR (optical character recognition) and workflow that allows them to improve the data entry process and route documents for approval by turning all that paper into efficient, electronic transactions. In fact, Accounts Payable Automation can help move your “team” towards Best-in-Class performance.

The third key in a successful AP game plan is to have sustainable performance through visibility and control

Accounts Payable shares another characteristic with football; it’s a long season. Football teams prepare and train year round and of course, for AP, the season actually never ends. Every closing period is analogous to being in the “red zone” where the goal line is in sight but those last few yards can be tough to get. The best teams have quarterbacks and players that can “see the field” knowing when and where to call the right play. For our AP team, it is a critical success factor to be able to have visibility to everything that is going on. This includes the status of individual transactions, unrecorded liabilities and key performance indicators that allow you to manage your business processes with the greatest efficiency. Possessing good reporting tools, process dashboards and smart queries are like having spotters in the booth overlooking the game. They provide a 360 degree view of what is happening on the field. Not just measuring but managing effectively for predictable, sustainable process performance.

Hopefully the football clichés and parallels have made you a bit excited about preparing your AP team to win season after season. As for me, I can’t wait for football to start up again!

Here are some of the highlights for Collaborate 2012:

1. Keynotes about Oracle ERP applications – for those of you running JD Edwards, Oracle E-Business Suite, or Fusion applications, and for those of you considering these ERP platforms, here are some keynote sessions you won’t want to miss:

• JD Edwards – Vision, Promises and Execution: It’s the Way We Roll and Why it Matters! – Monday, April 23 at 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon by Lyle Ekdahl, Oracle Group Vice President General Manager, JD Edwards
• Oracle E-Business Suite Applications Strategy and General Manager Update – Monday, April 23 at 2:30-3:30 p.m. by Cliff Godwin, Oracle E-Business Suite General Manager
• Oracle Fusion Applications – Overview, Strategy and Roadmap – Monday, April 23 at 5:00-6:00 p.m. by Chris Leone, Group Vice President, Oracle Fusion and GRC Applications Development

2. JDE Alliance Pavilion – the partner members of the JDE Alliance will have a contiguous booth space called the JDE Alliance Pavilion in the booths 819-829 and 918-926. If you’re running JD Edwards EnterpriseOne or World software, you’ll want to stop by to discuss our respective solution areas of expertise:

• ARCTOOLS – purging and archiving excess data
• Image Integration Systems (DocuSphere) – accounts payable automation
• InsightSoftware – real-time reporting
• Magic Software – application to application integration
• Q Software – security, compliance, and segregation of duties
• RF-SMART – real-time (RF) automated data collection
• Velocity Technology Solutions – cloud-based application management

3. JDE Alliance Party! – the JDE Alliance is sponsoring a hot after party at the Border Grill at Mandalay Bay on Tuesday, April 24 at 6:30-9:30 p.m. While visiting with the JDE Alliance members at the JDE Alliance Pavilion, make sure you get your JDE Alliance wristband which is required to gain admission to this event. Last year’s JDE Alliance Party at Tommy Bahama Orlando was the talk of Collaborate 2011 (see the party video on YouTube). Don’t miss this year’s event!

4. Accounts payable automation and real-time reporting for those running Oracle E-Business Suite – Image Integration Systems (booth 1644) and InsightSoftware (booth 1545) will also have adjacent space on the Oracle E-Business Suite side of Collaborate 2012 to discuss accounts payable automation, real-time reporting, and the integration of our solutions for real-time drill down from reports to source transactions and associated documents.

5. Accounts Payable Automation – Lessons From the Gridiron – part of the financial management track, this session will be jointly presented by Image Integration Systems and InsightSoftware on Tuesday, April 24 at 4:30-5:30 p.m. The session will:

• Show how well prepared AP departments “win” with efficient processes
• Show how efficient AP processes and advanced reporting allow you to “see the entire field”
• Learn how to successfully “score” savings over your competition

For those of you who haven’t already registered, the good news is you still have time to do so. To do so, please visit either the OAUG Website or the Quest Website. If you’d like to schedule a time to meet with Image Integration Systems while at Collaborate 2012, please visit our Contact Us page and either send in a request form or give us a call. We look forward to seeing you at Collaborate 2012.

While at the conference, we met and talked with 300+ participants, including a small sampling of some of the other exhibitors.  Almost to a person, the feedback was that this was a very good event and people were glad to have been there.  While the responses to the breakout sessions were generally positive, there were some mixed responses to some sessions.  Some of the most experienced attendees at the event including some of the breakout speakers themselves said they were being challenged by their own management teams to come back with value to their own businesses beyond just being a good corporate citizen via providing value to others through their presentations.

Even those of us that participate in a number of these events will find some interesting surprises through attending conferences like this.  Rather than focusing on the standard things that everyone might commonly report about SAP Financials 2012, I thought it would be more interesting to focus on the biggest surprises I experienced at the conference.  So, here is a summary of the 3 biggest surprises I experienced at SAP Financials 2012.

1. People were genuinely there to interact, including during the receptions.  At many shows there are dedicated exhibit floor hours and the exhibit floor is open during lunch and in the evening during receptions.  I found the attendees at SAP Financials 2012 substantially more interested in walking around and interacting with exhibitors during the reception times than at most other events where I’ve participated.  I’d love to be able to tell you why this is the case – it was just so.  Maybe it’s something about the SAP ecosystem culture as a whole.
2. Most attendees were willing to be courteous and interact, even if they weren’t directly interested in what you were offering.  There were numerous conversations with participants attending SAP Financials along with those attending the other co-located SAP conferences – SAP GRC 2012 and SAP HR 2012 – even though they hadn’t come to the conference to talk about accounts payable automation and workflow technology; however, most people were interested in discussing what they were there for and to look for common ground in discussions without simply shutting down conversations because you were there for some other primary purpose.   Again, maybe this is just an SAP thing.
3. There were some interesting and surprising gaps in other SAP-oriented accounts payable automation solutions. We had some very fascinating conversations with people about shortcomings they raised and were working to overcome in their incumbent AP automation solutions and how we handled those things in DocuSphere – things that we would have thought before the show that all good AP automation solutions handled equally well.Some people were looking for point solutions to detect duplicate payments after they had occurred, while others wondered how to clean up bad data and invalid transactions in SAP after they had been posted. Since DocuSphere automatically detects duplicate invoices and duplicate payments at multiple steps along the workflow path before payments are setup to occur in SAP and simulates all transactions in SAP before posting them and pulls back the exact SAP error messages should an error occur, we had anticipated this being the industry norm. Apparently, that’s not the case.Participants also asked if we could capture and automatically match multiple line item invoices with SAP PO and receipt data, since their incumbent solutions couldn’t. DocuSphere does scan and capture multiple line items on an invoice and automatically matches these as well.

As a team, we were very pleased with the discussions at this year’s SAP Financials 2012 conference and look forward to participating at next year’s SAP Financials 2013.  For those of you running SAP, please feel free to review more information about our DocuSphere All-in-One for SAP Accounts Payable solution or feel free to reach out to us via our Contact Us page.

The JDE Partner community is very strong and it is great to be part of this Oracle community that provides such dedication to their customers.

Oracle continues to reinforce their commitment to the JDE Products, both World and EnterpriseOne (E1). Here are just a few of the things that JDE customers enjoy…

• Published Roadmaps for long-term upgrade planning
• Dedication to lower total cost of ownership (TCO)
• 100-Day Upgrade Workshops
• New and improved tools such as the Technology Catalog, which allows you to analyze changes between releases and data models
• Major focus on user interface (UI) improvements such as E1 9.1 Tools and iPad/Mobile Device applications (Have you seen it yet? WOW!)

In keeping with the idea of lower TCO, Oracle offers the Oracle Validated Integrations (OVI) program. Here at IIS we have been a part of this program since the early JDE World days. Oracle continues to promote this program to partners and it is a huge benefit to customers. Check out information about our current validation on the Oracle website. New this year, with the new E1 9.1 Applications software coming soon, Oracle has offered Beta release software to OVI partners. We are currently participating in this program with our DocuSphere All-in-One for JD Edwards Accounts Payable solution and I will be blogging more about it next month.

Once again, keeping in mind lower TCO, Oracle recognizes that it is generally much more expensive to change your entire software suite than it is to upgrade. No JDE customers will be forced to the Fusion Applications. JDE customers can continue on their current path with regard to upgrades, or if there are Fusion Applications that make sense for your business, you can adopt a co-existence path.

Of course, a big message that continues from Oracle with regard to JDE is “GO9”! This messaging gets its name from the fact that the latest releases of both JDE World and E1 have 9’s in them. Oracle has unveiled their new JDE Portal that has everything you need in one place.

I think I speak for most of the JDE Partner attendees that Oracle put on a fine event. Not only was it a great event, but the location is spectacular! Though the three of us managed to escape the blizzard that engulfed the Denver area late that week, others were not so lucky! We will be back again next year.