Organizations that have relied on JD Edwards for years often find themselves carrying a heavy load of custom programs. These customizations, while necessary at the time, create long-term challenges: they require specialized developer expertise, complicate upgrades, and add risk during testing cycles. At INFOCUS 2025, Aprille Moyster shared how her team has been replacing legacy custom code with orchestrations — transforming complexity into streamlined, business-friendly solutions. 

The Case for Moving Away from Custom Code 

Custom programs once filled the gaps where standard JD Edwards functionality didn’t quite fit. For example, Moyster’s team had built custom UBEs to update employee email addresses daily. While functional, these programs required manual intervention, back-end formatting, and were vulnerable when in-house developers retired or moved on. Each upgrade amplified the pain, requiring costly retrofitting and extensive testing. 

Orchestrator, however, has shifted the paradigm. By enabling business analysts and super users to build low-code or no-code solutions, it allows organizations to reduce reliance on developers and simplify both daily operations and long-term maintenance. 

Real-World Examples of Orchestrations in Action 

One of Moyster’s first Orchestrator projects focused on automating employee email updates. Instead of running a custom UBE, the orchestration leveraged connectors, schedulers, and service requests to pull new data, validate changes, and update JD Edwards records automatically. The process, once dependent on daily manual steps, now runs seamlessly in the background. 

Another project tackled a more complex interface with a third-party vendor. The team built four orchestrations — one each for new hires, rehires, changes, and terminations — to process inbound files. Using orchestration logic, they could handle position control, validate employee data, and catch integration errors quickly. Visual design tools in Orchestrator made troubleshooting more intuitive, replacing the opaque lines of custom code with clear, traceable flows. 

Benefits Beyond Efficiency 

Moyster highlighted several advantages her organization has realized by shifting from custom code to orchestrations: 

• Easier Upgrades: Orchestrations reduce retrofitting needs during JD Edwards upgrades. 
• Business User Empowerment: Analysts and super users can design and troubleshoot orchestrations without relying on developer resources. 
• Transparency and Monitoring: Orchestration Monitor and composite pages provide visibility into runs, errors, and performance. 
• Error Handling: Built-in validation mimics application behavior, reducing the need for complex error-checking code. 
• Flexibility: With support for connectors, FTP/SFTP, and logic extensions, orchestrations can bridge JD Edwards with external systems. 

While orchestrations may take longer to process large data sets compared to SQL scripts or pure custom code, the trade-off in accessibility, maintainability, and upgrade readiness often makes them the better choice. 

Lessons Learned Along the Way 

Moyster cautioned that moving from custom code to orchestrations is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Complex legacy programs, such as certain grant reporting requirements, may still be best left as custom solutions. But for daily, repeatable processes — especially those requiring frequent adjustments — orchestrations provide a sustainable path forward. 

Naming conventions, scheduler setup, and file handling practices are critical to success. Her team learned, for example, that trailing rows in CSV files could cause orchestrations to hang indefinitely, and that scheduling orchestrations requires proper AIS server configuration. These lessons underscore the importance of careful design and testing as organizations expand their use of Orchestrator. 

Looking Ahead 

Orchestrator has opened the door to faster, more agile business processes. For Moyster’s organization, what began as an experiment with small tasks has grown into a reliable alternative to custom coding, saving time, empowering users, and simplifying upgrades. 

As JD Edwards continues to evolve with tools like logic extensions, the combination of low-code flexibility and orchestration’s integration power promises even greater opportunities for organizations to modernize without the weight of custom code. 

Want more?  

Explore more content and resources to help you get the most from your JD Edwards investment:  

• Be sure to check out the INFOCUS 2025 Event Hub (coming soon) for presentation slides – available exclusively to Quest members.  
• Explore the JD Edwards Orchestrator Strategic Content Center for more Quest-exclusive resources.  
• Visit the Quest Learn Library for blogs, how-to demos, and on-demand sessions.  
• Connect with peers in one of our Quest JD Edwards Community User Groups to swap stories, ask questions, and share tips with other users facing the same challenges.  

Not a Quest member yet? Join today and tap into the ultimate Oracle customer network.