Last week, we introduced the Yoga Connect IDM importer tool and briefly discussed how it interacts with data throughout the import process. Now, let’s dive into some of the pros & cons of using Yoga Connect when dealing with historical documents. Continuing with our invoice document example, this scenario is one of the cons of using an IPA flow for this type of process – it is harder to handle data errors as you do not have the same functionalities as Yoga Connect to resolve issues.
While we're on the topic of data enrichment, one of the great benefits of IDM versus other ERP document repositories that it provides us with custom document types. You can create a document in IDM as a legacy invoice document type that isn't connected to a payables record. If that record is imported as part of the historical data load, you will still be able to search for it in IDM. At the end of the day, if we don't bring that invoice record over from our previous system or can’t successfully match it, we can still store it as a legacy document type.
An example of this is when you’re dealing with regulatory requirements that require you to keep financial records for seven years, but perhaps you only brought the past three years of data into your FSM records. You still want to hold onto these records without mating the two repositories, so that is a good use case for the Yoga Connect solution for data enrichment.
For the past few weeks, we have been discussing how Yoga Connect handles the import of historical documents and data enrichment. When comparing it to Spreadsheet Designer Plus or the IDM Bulk Import Utility tool in combination with IPA flows, there are certainly some pros & cons to be addressed. One of the biggest pros for Yoga Connect is the fact that it is a premium service handled by RPI. Since our consultants are the ones uploading the documents and going through the conversion process, your organization can offload many of the manual processes. It also allows for dynamic data enrichment. As we receive data, we are making web calls to Infor and enriching data depending on the document types. We can also convert all the documents to PDF utilizing this functionality, as well.
One con is that it's not a free software. The other two are included with CloudSuite and can be pulled up using Infor's software. Another thing to note is that it requires an ION API connection, which may present an issue for some organizations. Although this is something that RPI’s clients have via the Infor OS, we still want to highlight this so that there isn’t any confusion.
