VOTE………
I love watching The Voice. The talent, the positive attitudes of the coaches and the host, Carson Daly’s excitement when a chair gets turned. If you have a good voice, chairs turn because a coach wants to work with you. But did you know that INFOR Visual ERP also has a process similar to The Voice? In this case, it isn’t voices that are being judged, it is enhancement requests. Let me explain.
The Submission
When you go on The Voice, there is an on-line website where you submit your request to be on the show. I know because my niece tried out. She did not make it onto TV but the process was fun to watch.
Visual ERP has a similar process. You log into INFOR’s support site, INFOR Xtreme. Under the Resources, there is “Enhancement Request System”. You can submit your ideas of how to make Visual even better.
It could be:
- Adding new functionality.
- Adding a field to a window. Maybe you think a window would be enhanced by having user defined fields. Or it could be 1 more column.
- Changes to improve the ease of use.
Have you ever said, “Gee, I wish Visual did ______________.” You know what you have thought. Fill in the blank. This is what INFOR is looking for.
Voting
Now here is the interesting part. Other Visual ERP users get to see your enhancement requests AND everyone gets to vote!! Someone might look and say “Wow, what a great idea. Why didn’t I think of that?”. If that is the case, then your submission would be endorsed. When you are voting, you can even make comments, like the coaches, on The Voice. I have to admit I was looking at some of the enhancement requests and it is really fun seeing the cool ideas from the Visual ERP users. I even voted for a few.
To get your votes to count even more, work with your local users’ groups. It’s like being on Survivor and making alliances, but that is another reality show. When the idea comes from a Users Group it gets more clout in the voting department. At our Canadian Users Group meeting, we had break-out sessions by functional area and we made our wish lists. These lists were then entered by wonderful volunteers.
Winning
The INFOR team reviews the votes and assesses the enhancement requests. I can almost imagine Rich Lagoy and Frank Maglio reviewing these together. I wonder if they banter like Adam Levine and Blake Shelton. One thing I am pretty certain of is that they get a lot of pleasure out of making Visual ERP even better, just like The Voice coaches working with their team members.
Do you think you have a chance to win? I would say Yes. I have recently met 2 Visual users who have had their suggestions implemented. There have been hundreds of user enhancement requests incorporated into Visual over the years.
Just think. You could submit a request, others would vote and then you see your idea in a new version of Visual. You could show other users and say “See that new functionality in Visual? Well I suggested that.”
Go ahead, give your suggestions a try. It is your opportunity to express your voice.
Kim Worrall is a CPA, CA with over 30 years of business consulting and financial management experience. Kim has been consulting with Visual ERP for over 20 years. She knows the tables like the back of her hand – something to do with her excitement over solving number problems. Kim’s love of numbers has made her the go to person for solving complex issues within Visual ERP.
