Prakesh Masand and Joseph E. Joseph join us from Oracle JD Edwards to talk about automation and how it affects enterprise resource planning (ERP). The ultimate goal, they agree, is to create an automation-heavy business that is paperless, connected and frictionless.

When a business automates these large-volume tasks, they improve efficiency, which in turn empowers the citizen developer and the rest of the team.

Paperless

People are no longer sending faxes and snail mail as frequently, as the American workforce is on the fast track to nearly complete automation. “You want everything to be paperless,” says Masand.

Seamless

New methods of integration are creating more seamless information flows, accelerated by new enhancements in JD Edwards. “One thing we have added recently is the Watchlist,” says Masand. Briefly, some benefits of Watchlist include: improving user productivity by enabling users to quickly access info that is important to them, shifting data to end user outside of the application and creating personalized Watchlists based on JD Edwards applications and saved query.

Frictionless

Process efficiency ranks high in obtaining frictionless business operations. The approval process is one of the most notoriously cumbersome aspects of maintaining a business. One asset to a more streamlined model, he argues, is JD Edwards Notification Action, which he describes as an “ERP with a pulse.” The tool allows people, processes and data to move at the tempo of your business.

Key results of improved workflow include:

• Automating large-volume and repeated tasks
• Fast tracking the approval process
• Orchestrating process with system and human tasks
• Integrating business process across multiple products

“That’s what digital business is all about,” adds Joseph.