Prasanthi Appikatla| July 17th, 2018

 

Sometimes, despite our best preparations, things don’t always go as planned when consulting—working onsite with clients requires adaptability to handle unexpected challenges that can arise. I was onsite with a client once, delivering the Syteline manufacturing rules training. As part of our standard practice, prior to the onsite visit, I set up the CPQ to Syteline integration, configured an example ruleset through Syteline, and verified the resulting bill of material. Ensuring that everything was working properly, I was ready to tackle the onsite visit.

Training was going well, until of course we started testing the rules.  As I frequently encounter in group training sessions, one precocious individual was racing ahead of his colleagues and began to test the manufacturing rules on his own.  He quickly encountered an error when launching configurator – an error that I had never seen before.  Following the standard troubleshooting protocol, I verified his permissions, checked the integration, and searched for the error within InforXtreme.  As I worked to resolve this error, other participants began catching up and similarly encountered this error when launching configurator.  At this point, I had to divide my attention between six trainees while troubleshooting the error.

Finding myself overwhelmed, I reached out to my team member, Nate, and quickly brought him up to speed on the error. He immediately responded and began looking at possible solutions. To maintain the planned upon schedule, I continued guiding the clients through the discussion topics and exercises until the end of the day.  I returned to the hotel and continued troubleshooting—I also reached out to my boss, Jeremy, to seek his advice on possible solutions.  After consulting with Nate and Jeremy, I had a list of possible solutions by the end of the first night.

The following morning, I began running through the brainstormed solutions, starting with the simplest solution first. After eliminating the potential causes for the error, the issue was finally resolved. All trainees were able to successfully test their rules through Syteline and generate a bill of material, allowing the remainder of training and workshop to progress smoothly and on time.  This experience, to me, underscores the commitment of RenaissanceTech to encouraging a team-oriented environment and our drive to meet client’s often evolving needs in a timely manner.  Through the prompt initial response from my team and continued support, I was able to deliver training successfully.

 

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