Why Infor’s Workforce Management Version 7 Upgrade is a Must Do?

If you haven’t been paying attention, Infor has been making major investments into the last few releases of their CloudSuite Workforce Management (WFM) solution set. Specifically, Version 7 represents the largest functional release in the last 10 years. They have made major improvements in artificial intelligence (AI), mobility, advanced scheduling, underlying platform technology, geofencing and employee enablement. If you haven’t thought about upgrading or moving to cloud, think again!

Key Areas of Focus for Customers on Version 6.4 and Prior:

• Labor Forecast Optimized Scheduler (LFSO) Module – Infor has made major improvements by implementing new AI that greatly improves the forecast schedule accuracy. The three case studies thus far have shown a better than 20% improvement in forecast accuracy. This means major savings in retail and other organizations leveraging volume-based scheduling. Through AI, LFSO can now incorporate virtually any schedule affecting data such as weather, historical sales data, unplanned closures or promotions changing customer patterns. In the graphic below, orange is the old way, blue is leveraging machine learning and gray is the actual. (Note: You will need to make sure you own LFSO)

• Multiview Scheduler (MVS) – MVS is the scheduling engine for shift-based scheduling needs typically seen in manufacturing, distribution, healthcare and any warehouse scheduling scenarios. MVS has gotten a massive user experience upgrade in version 7. This includes improvements in the Master Rotation UI, Employee Shift Billboard UI and the Central Staffing functionality addition. (Note: You will need to make sure you own MVS)

Time and Attendance

• Core Product – Infor has continued the push to a fully configurable product over the need for customization and they continue to drive towards a zero-code solution heading into the rest of this year. They have made major improvements in mobility and the ability for the product to be used on virtually any device. Mobile UI is more configurable and all screens are optimized for both portrait or landscape. Geofencing now allows for employees to clock in via mobile while verifying they are onsite. This will be important with Social Distancing and the needed COVID-19/Coronavirus workforce setup.
• Clock Functionality – Version 6.3 and beyond introduced the WB-9000 clock with touch screen display and biometric capability. Additionally, WB-8000 and 9000 clocks have built in clock server’s allowing for offline clocking and syncing when connected. This also means there is no longer a need for infrastructure other than the clocks.

• Birst Embedded and Integrated– Over the past several releases, Infor has been continuing to improve reporting. With Version 7, they have now made the push to fully integrate the Birst platform. Birst is Infor’s Analytics platform allowing for much more robust dashboards and reporting. Imagine your executives’ having the ability to drive into every bit of data they could possibly need in order to make business decisions. Expect to see a lot more here as Infor is leveraging Birst as the go-forward analytics engine across all products. Expect to see analytics access across Asset Management, Supply Chain and Labor all in one place. Think about having the right person, right assets and right materials at the exact right time with no idle downtime or wasteful labor costs.

• Platform Support Changes – Version 7 has brought Infor up to date all underlying platforms versions. It is important to not that other than 6.3 and 6.4, most previous versions of WFM are certified on end of life underlying platform technology. This includes Oracle, SQL Server, application servers and the reporting tool. Version 7 addresses this for years to come.
• Key Points for Customers on any Version 5 – This article would be entirely too long to name every advancement since the 5 versions, but every customer should be upgrading to 7 if they are on any version 5. A big value area is the alerting engine. This allows managers to address exceptions and to ensure they can address scheduling issues such as overtime before it happens. Infor has made massive improvements to the UI, mobility, tech stack support, security, and configurability. All that aside, the underlying operating system, database and web stacks are likely end of life no longer supported if you are running on a 5 version. We see this as a big risk given these versions are over a decade behind.

Conclusion

Infor has stepped up in recent years to make sure they are top of the food chain when it comes to both large complex solutions and for the smaller sized organizations. Their roadmap is strong and customers should look very hard at getting up to date and even going cloud. Nucleus Research has had them in the top right quadrant for 5 years straight and there is a reason for that. It’s no longer the old Workbrain platform. They have made a statement with Infor CloudSuite WFM version 7.