Hosted by Chandra Wobschall and Paul Houtkooper

Hey JDE Connection listeners! Chandra and Paul here! We’re back together this week, and yes, we’re still giving each other a hard time. Some things never change!

This week, we welcomed Nicole Laurent from Oracle to continue our conversation about User Defined Objects (UDOs) in JD Edwards. Nicole has spent 27 years working on the product and brings a wealth of knowledge from the Orchestrator and AIS side of things.

We kicked things off with a question that came up during our JDE 101 session at INFOCUS: Should everyone have access to create UDOs? As you might expect, we had slightly different opinions. Shocking, we know! Fortunately, Nicole helped us find some common ground.

How Much Freedom Is Too Much?

Nicole reminded us that UDOs cover quite a spectrum. Something as simple as a personal query or grid format can make someone’s day considerably easier. On the other end, we have orchestrations, form extensions, and logic extensions that can affect how the business operates.

We love the idea of giving users tools to make their jobs easier and that’s where our friendly debate about governance comes in. We can appreciate Paul’s enthusiasm for empowering users, but the recovering accountant in Chandra still wants a few controls in place. Nobody wants to explain why an innocent attempt to improve efficiency suddenly brought sales order entry to a screeching halt!

As we talked through the possibilities, we kept coming back to the importance of understanding which tools make sense for which users.

The Best Ideas Might Be Sitting Right Next to Us

One part of our conversation with Nicole really resonated with us: the importance of bringing technical and functional people together.  Sometimes the best place to start is sitting down to watch someone work or asking someone what annoys them most about their day. Those extra clicks, multiple applications, and repetitive tasks can reveal opportunities that nobody thought to mention because they’ve simply become part of the routine.

We’ve all encountered that person who’s been doing the same job for 20 years and knows every shortcut, workaround, and peculiar little step required to get things done. The problem? Most of that knowledge lives entirely in their head. And let’s face it; we’ve probably all developed a few workarounds of our own!

We Can’t Use What We Don’t Know Exists

Here’s another challenge we know all too well. We attend conferences, learn about exciting JD Edwards capabilities, take notes, and head home with every intention of sharing what we’ve learned. Then reality hits. Our inbox is overflowing, meetings are stacked up, and we’re already three days behind. Before long, those great ideas are buried somewhere between our conference notes and our ever-growing to-do lists. Sound familiar?

We talked with Nicole about how easily valuable information gets stuck within IT teams while business users remain unaware of tools that could make their lives easier. It made us think about how we can do a better job connecting what we learn with the people who could actually benefit from it.

Midwesternism of the Day

Of course, we couldn’t wrap up without a little Midwestern humor! This week’s conversation takes us back to familiar family traditions, where generations have passed along their own ways of doing things. We had a few laughs about how something perfectly understood in one household can leave everyone else scratching their heads. You’ll have to listen to hear where this one goes!

Until next time, let’s keep learning, sharing, and most importantly, laughing together.

Toodles!

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