You see its full potential, but you feel like you're just "scratching the surface." You would love to have time to read all the documentation and learn about those "new" features that your JDE version brings, but the day-to-day work consumes your time. 🤯
It is frustrating to intuit that you could solve much more complex problems, but not knowing exactly how to take it to the next level. Does this sound familiar?
That feeling is precisely what we addressed last week in an advanced Orchestrator training session. And I have to confess: every time I teach one, I reaffirm my passion for this. Not only for the pleasure of seeing the "light bulb go on" 💡 in the faces of the attendees when they discover a new capability ("So, it WAS possible to do THAT!"), but because I also continue to learn. Every question, every use case, pushes me to deepen my knowledge more and more.
For me, teaching is the best way to learn. 📚
As I mentioned to you in the past few days, this past Monday, October 20th, we participated in the JDE Talks event, where we presented several practical examples focused on Orchestrator's Workflows and Widgets.
Just as I promised, I have prepared a complete summary with all the technical details and use cases that we covered. It is perfect:
✅ If you couldn't attend.
✅ If you were there and want to review the technical details.
✅ Or if you simply want to see Orchestrator in action solving specific problems.
Here it is. 👇
Use Case 1: Accelerating Project Approval (Say Goodbye to Emails!) 📩💨
Does the endless waiting and stack of emails required to get approval and move a development project to Production (PD) sound familiar? This process, vital for quality control, often becomes a tedious bottleneck that delays the deployment of solutions. Communication is scattered, and manual approvals generate friction and oversights.
We transform this manual task into an automated, direct, and transparent workflow. We use Orchestrator to create an instant and traceable approval system that eliminates reliance on email. This not only speeds up the move to PD but ensures the approval is made by the right person at the right time.
How We Achieve It:
Create an Orchestrator that allows for direct updating of the project status. Important: The approver must be a project user for this to work. And send an approval message.
Implement a Workflow that sends a direct action message to the person in charge (AN8). Their response (approval or rejection) activates the Orchestrator from point 1, closing the loop instantly or sending a rejection message
A Logic Extension acts as a bridge. It receives key data (package, status, approver's AN8, and user's AN8 to inform) and, with this information, fires the Workflow.
Add an intuitive button to the project application (P98220U) using Form Extension. This button is linked to the Logic Extension, making the process seamless for the end-user.
For a future improvements, you can configure a UDC or table that automatically defines the approval manager by business area. Furthermore, you can create an additional Orchestrator for the creation, generation, and deployment (if your Tool Release is 9.2.9.3 or higher) of the package, achieving end-to-end automation! 🤯
Use Case 2: The Inventory Guardian: Automated and Reactive Purchase Approval 📦🛡️
Allowing inventory to dip below safety stock is a costly mistake. Constant manual verification and reactive creation of purchase orders are slow processes that risk the supply chain. We need a system that proactively monitors levels and instantly launches the replenishment process, minimizing human intervention.
We have created a fully automated and scheduled "Inventory Guardian." This Orchestrator runs periodically, identifies stock shortages, and intelligently initiates a purchase approval workflow, ensuring quick and authorized replenishment without the need for manual paperwork.
How We Achieve It:
Designed a Workflow that acts as the purchase control center. It receives all key parameters (buyer, supplier, reorder quantity, product, and the AN8 of the user to be notified). The Workflow:
Sends a direct action message to the buyer for purchase approval.
If approved, it sequentially calls one Orchestrator that creates the purchase order and another that handles its printing and mesage sending.
If rejected, it immediately notifies the user (AN8) of the results.
Create the Orchestrator that can be scheduled to run weekly. This component:
Uses a Data Request to select the critical products for monitoring.
Executes a Logic Extension that uses the Business Function (
B41021) to compare current stock with safety stock.If it detects that inventory is below the threshold, it immediately activates the approval Workflow from the previous step, initiating the purchase cycle.
To reduce friction and multiple approvals, the process can be optimized. Instead of creating an order per product, all products can be grouped by supplier and buyer into a single purchase order. This requires only one approval for each replenishment group, maximizing operational efficiency.
Use Case 3: The Power of Widgets 📊⚡
In today's business environment, time is the scarcest asset. Users spend valuable minutes navigating menus and running reports to answer basic questions like: "How are today's sales looking?" or "How many purchases were made?". Critical information is often trapped deep within the system.
Transform the JD Edwards login screen from a static list of menus into a Dynamic Operational Command Center. Using Orchestrator as the data engine, we create Widgets that offer an instant, big-picture view (the "what and why") of key business operations.
To feed this high-impact dashboard, we design simple yet powerful Orchestrators that extract key intelligence without running a single report:
An Orchestrator instantly retrieves the number of purchase orders (F4301) and sales orders (F4201) generated today. Result: A real-time metric measuring the day's activity.
Another Orchestrator analyzes the detail tables (F4311 and F4211) to get the total quantity and amount of orders generated in the last month, broken down by product. Result: Immediate identification of top-selling - buying products and revenue - expenses sources.
AI at a Click: An advanced Orchestrator connects to a Large Language Model (LLM), sending a query and receiving a relevant response. Result: Integration of AI directly into the JDE workflow.
The creation of Widgets using the results of these Orchestrators, available since Tool Release 9.2.9.4, is so simple and intuitive that the true revelation is the final result. Imagine seeing, right upon logging in, a dashboard that tells you in 3 seconds what's selling most, how many purchase orders were created today, and where you should focus your attention. Without running a single report!
I hope this summary is as useful to you as it was for me to prepare and share this session.
Now I'd love to hear from you: What did you think of these use cases? 💬 Is there a challenge in your company where you think something like this could apply? ¿Have any technical questions arisen?
Simply reply to this email or contact me directly. I would love to read your impressions and talk about it!
Best regards,
Mario Garcia
