Modernization Deep Dive: Rapid Orchestrations & Workflow Automation

August 26th, 2026

17 min read

This Modernization Deep Dive explores how Rapid Orchestrations can simplify repetitive, manual processes in JD Edwards. See a live demonstration of an orchestration in action and learn how proven automation frameworks can reduce clicks, improve consistency, minimize errors, and be deployed quickly within your existing JDE environment.

Transcript

Thanks.

OK, well we are at 12, so 12 O1 actually we'll get started real quick.

I just want to let you guys know we're going to record it.

We'll send it out like we have the last couple.

So I'll come out tomorrow for all you here attending.

Again, just remind you, we'll try and make this pretty quick, about 1/2 hour.

We'll do 10 minutes of of intro and 10 minute of demo and then leave some time at the end for Q and A.

So today we're going to talk about rapid orchestrations.

We've got Greg Ed here along with myself.

There goes the slide.

So I'm Scott Oppenheim, the marketing director at ERP Suites.

Like I said, I'm joined by Greg.

He's going to show you the good part of the demo, walk you through a little bit about how the orchestrations work.

So he's a senior JD Edwards consultant here at ERP Suites.

So first real quick talk a little bit about ERP Suites for the view that don't those of you that don't know us yet, but we are do all things with JD Edwards.

So we got hosting managed services.

Hopefully you've heard about our AI solution.

So we got a lot of digital workers agents working within JD Edwards and other stuff on our AI platform, JD Edwards Consulting.

So whether it be orchestrations like we're going to show today or upgrades or integrations or whatever it may be that you need help with JD Edwards.

And then lastly on here, we have our EPM services.

So anything with your finance, we can help support that as well.

So today, like I said, we're going to cover a little bit about the extra clicks that are happening inside your JD Edwards.

What are rapid orchestrations are we're going to get in and show you one of the demos.

And then I'll end with what you can do to get started, what that cost if you want to work with us.

OK, so let's get started here, except I'm trying to go a little quick leave time for Greg, but I want to focus in on on JD Edwards.

So a lot of times, I'm sure many of you are are doing some of these processes here.

I've got 3 outline.

So whether it be creating a new item, you're probably doing 50 clicks.

If you're reprinting invoices or printing invoices, that's 10 steps or more.

The one pick slips you're at 15 steps.

So especially the new item one, think about that 50 clicks.

Well, I'm sure many of you are doing two or three of these processes or even more.

So you can add those up.

We're at 708080 steps just to do a couple of these things.

And so that adds up every day every every person doing those tasks to a lot of time.

It also has some other issues.

So your month end close may be delayed.

You have orders that could be sitting on hold longer than they should.

The vendor when you're doing those setups that's going to take a little bit longer time that's holding things up as well.

So again, if you're looking at one of these, that's a lot of time that you probably may not even notice.

But I like I said, I think a lot of you might be doing multiple of these and we've got a lot of different examples.

These are just three.

So it really adds up over time.

So what are we doing about it?

Well, what are what are you all doing about it?

I guess there's usually two options.

Many are just living with it.

Like I said, you may not realizing it.

So you're, you're just doing those 50 clicks to do the new item set up and you don't realize it that there's a better way.

You're building workarounds and then those errors are just compounding as you get downstream.

Another option is to build something custom rounded.

So the problem with that is your, you know, that takes a long time.

You got to set up the project, you got to develop it, test it.

The bigger problem though is probably when it comes to upgrading or updating, now you have to deal with retrofits and working around those customizations.

And so every time you do that, that's another thing that you got to deal with that's that's causing issues, delays, more cost, developer time, time from internal recess resources that they don't have their or didn't think that they're going to have to be doing every every time you come for an upgrade.

So today we're going to talk about the third option, which is orchestrations.

As you know, orchestrations are the native automation inside JD Edwards.

And we're specifically talking about rapid orchestrations, which are the different orchestrations that we have done many times.

So we're done the we're doing these inside other JD Edwards customers.

And so we can then move those into your environment and rebuild those.

And I'll, I'll show a little bit more of those examples here in a second.

So I just want to reiterate, these are orchestrations that are proven.

So Greg, the rest of the team, they built these for, for other customers, for ourselves.

So we know they work.

We know all the different things that go into building these.

They've been tested.

When we have those, then we just, it's not necessarily a plug and play.

We have the the framework.

We then put it into your system, tailor it so that it's aligned with your data, all your security stuff.

So there's a little bit of work there.

Get your business processes to work within within that orchestration.

So by taking that framework, third thing here is how fast it is.

So within a week, typically less than that, they're going to be done, ready to go in production, ready to be to be used right away.

So what does that look like?

It's generally, I mean going to be a button.

So you're in the same JD Edwards screens you're using now.

Now there's just more buttons for you to select.

Instead of doing those 50 clicks, doing those 10 steps that we talked about earlier, you got these new buttons that can run the automation and do all those clicks for you.

So we're going to take the security that you have set up, make sure everything matches up so you're not able to do something you shouldn't be able to do.

You can click the button.

It's going to do everything that your normal user will be able to do think OK, last screen.

So then we'll get into the demo.

So I urge you to check out our website.

I've got the 20 how many we have here?

I'm not sure how many they're on here, but I think there's like 26 up on our website, all the different rapid orchestrations and and we probably should be adding some more.

I think we have a few more that we can put up on there.

So take a look at these.

They, I'm not going to go through all of them, but lots of different stuff from master data forecasting, order to cash procure to pay, different finance things, all the different documents we talked about earlier with printing and reprinting invoices and packing slips, a little bit more specialized ones, you see those on the bottom.

So over 25 of them.

If you go to our website, you'll be able to see them find the orchestration page and and you'll find the rapid orchestrations along with the other orchestrator services we offer.

So like I said, there should be something.

These are rapid orchestration for a reason.

There's things that many customers need.

I'm sure pretty much every instance of JD Edwards will have A use for, for some of these that we can implement for you.

So that will get us to our demo.

So I will stop and let Greg take over while Greg's getting set up.

I do want to point out, like I said, we've had a lot of time for questions at the end.

So if you want to put those in the chat or we can unmute you at the end or, or put them in the chat towards the end, we'll try and address those.

I know Kevin jumped on to help out with that as well.

Awesome.

Thanks, Scott.

Yeah, hi, morning, everyone, and good afternoon to those in other parts of the world.

But yeah, thanks very much for joining the session today.

So what we've done is we've just created a small demonstration on how to create item masters and branch plant records together with updating them at the same time.

So just to start off with, I've used a spreadsheet and an Excel spreadsheet, ACSVXS spreadsheet.

And you can see that those who are familiar with JD Edwards, I've just created a whole load of items with the relevant fields.

And I've used a number of fields across the item master and the branch plot.

Just for the purposes of the demo.

I'm going to update this particular field over here at the moment in terms of the orchestration.

And if we've got time, I'll happily add another record, Greg 124, for example, and run the orchestration in.

So this is just a spreadsheet.

And and just so that you're aware, this is, we don't necessarily need to have a spreadsheet.

You might have data sitting on a somewhere else, an XML file, a Jason file.

You may have it sitting in another external database.

And as long as we can get access to that data, we can use that as input to be able to create these orchestrations.

So I'll just pause these.

Any questions in terms of the inputs to these orchestrations?

OK, so, so moving along.

So what we've done is we've created an orchestration and I'm sure that and I'll just touch on on a, on a, on a few of the elements within the orchestration for those who who don't haven't really used the tool in the past.

So I'm sure that by now you all realize his orchestrations, his form requests and requests of form as a JD Edwards application that we would use a data request, getting data reports, watch lists, attachments, notifications, etcetera.

So there's a number of elements within the the orchestration tool set which you can use.

And what I've done is I've gone along and I've used a couple of these these elements or couple of these elements within within the orchestration tool.

And I've created one to be able to update and create item master slash branch plant records just getting in there.

So and the other thing while I'm doing it, it would be good if you guys get into using these things, using these things is create yourself a some sort of naming convention.

Before I start here, you'll see that I've created orchestration, ORCH_create after master.

But then if I use, for example, the rule, I've got RL as a prefix and and so on.

So if I've got a CSV comment file coming in, which I have at the moment, then I would obviously use CSV.

But that's just naming conventions as a, as a suggestion.

But you can certainly, you know, decide on on your own naming conventions.

And before I run this, obviously this can be linked to any application.

You can link it to a menu option, you can link it to, you know, as as Scott showed you early on, you can link it to a button on the screen.

So it's really up to you as to how you do this.

So how does this work?

So I've gone ahead and built this and we've used this for many in many different areas.

If you click run from this particular menu here, the system will allow you to to, to select the, the, the CSV file.

And I'll just get out of this one.

So the system will allow you to select it.

And by selecting the little button over here, it says, OK, can I select this file?

You you would select drag and drop.

And in this case, I've just set it into my default directory on the desktop.

And I select the this CSV that I'd like to run and I click run.

That will go away now.

And what it does is it looks at the applications.

So that's the P41O1, which is the item master screen.

It then runs through the various tabs on that and I'll show you that shortly.

And then it goes automatically into the item branch and it does the update for you.

So if you have a look at the first item here, if I go into, for example, I go in here, you will see that all these items, all these fields that are here have been updated.

But the point I wanted to show you here is the one that I did update on this run was the category codes.

I set it all to one O 1 and you will see on that spreadsheet and I can go back and show you.

And if I go through this, you can see that the item, let's just go back a second.

If I go through it, it updates all these fields and more.

If you want to, you can go into the tab.

You'll see that I updated the dispatch groups, the weights and measures I've updated here, the lock processing.

You can decide how you want to set this for serial numbers, etcetera.

And then on to the next screen, which is all your category codes.

And I changed this particular one in the run that I've just done right now and the manufacturing values.

So here you can see I've set up the manufacturing values for policy codes, planning fence rules, etcetera, together with all the lead times on the right hand side.

And I go on to the branch plant.

So I've got the versions, the jetty of its version set.

And if you go into the branch plant, you will see that it's created all of these for you.

And I'll just click through it and I'm sure those of you who know JD Edwards know these screens very well and it creates the cost screen and there's your item created.

So I'll just go and and update the spreadsheet for you and just show you that if I go in here and just do one quick little change to the spreadsheet, if I say copy and insert and I'm just going to create a new record and and it's really up to you how you drive, how you decide which is the inputs.

Yes.

So I'm just changing these first be parameters and I save this.

So I would expect now to see this or this item get created.

Greg 124.

I've saved that.

I didn't come back to the orchestration.

I'll come out of the existing one.

I will then select this one.

So the same process.

I select the other master and I click run and there we go.

You can see that the output is on the screen here, but sometimes that doesn't make too much sense to the normal user.

So if I go back into the system.

And I'll change this to 4.

You will see that it's created the new item and you can see it put all the relevant parameters in here together with the lock processing, the additional information, weights and measures and you can go through, you can see it's updated the category codes and so on.

So, So what are the benefits of using something like this?

You know, I see a lot of benefits here in terms of firstly, if you've got a new project or if you're trying to maintain your existing master.

I mean, how many times do we come across areas or situations where we have inconsistencies in our in our branch plant data or in our auto master data or the category codes?

And you have the ability to set up an input file if I if I want to, if for want of a better word and run it through it.

Or alternatively, you could also use it for exception.

So she could run do and do conditions based on whatever conditions you choose to use.

And I think the other thing that that is an important point here is that you cannot, for example, and let me show you, if you decide that in your, you decide that you wanted a load, for example, a value that doesn't exist yet, the system's going to not allow you to do that is my point.

So a 99 doesn't exist, it will throw an error.

And therefore you can either decide to build exceptions into the into the run, or you stop the, the orchestration from running.

So it's entirely up to you as to how you, you decide to, to develop that.

But you can see in this particular case, I've, I've loaded quite a lot of the fields.

I haven't built any exceptions here, but you can certainly have exceptions in your items.

So let me pause there.

I'm sure there's many questions and we'll take a few questions.

Yeah, Greg, we got a couple questions.

Sure.

Kevin, did you were going to say something?

No, no, I was, I was going to say the same thing there, there was a there was a question out there, Greg, that I wasn't quite sure of.

So I was waiting for you to stop.

So do you have any orchestrations that check master data for potential duplicates, like a similar name, tax ID?

So at the moment, no, but certainly, certainly those can be created.

I can assure you that, you know, you can run an orchestration through and check, for example, if the description is the same, you know, you can do that.

So descriptions, item numbers, whichever you choose to do, you know, I haven't built that particular one.

We've built a number of them as you've seen on the list, forecasting budgets, pick slips, etcetera.

So certainly that one, if we want to build that one, it'll be a fairly simple one to build.

We just need to know which field you'd want to check.

Yeah, and we can do the do the check and you can also the other.

The other last thing about this is that you know, to go back to the orchestration with those and with the exception reports.

So you can build exceptions and and generate a report if you wanted to.

And you can also generate an Excel spreadsheet.

The other thing that you can do, and I'll just just open up, you can build notifications.

So a notification says, hey, I, I've got a, an exception here.

I've got the same description for another item.

And you can send a notification.

And what the system will do is, I don't know if you're aware, but you can see I've got a little notification here.

And it says the item branch has zero costs.

So I built this new item which is Greg 124.

But I didn't do costs.

OK, So that means you could then send an e-mail, for example, to the costing department to say, setting up a message slash e-mail to say, hey guys, we've built this new item, Greg 124 and we've created the basic cost records.

But you need to update the costs with the relevant standard costs or average costs or whatever costing method you're doing so, so you can do that.

There's certainly attachments as well, which are actually very, very nice as well.

And I imagine on that, imagine that item set up one.

A lot of that stuff's probably already in a spreadsheet.

You just got to do some spreadsheet manipulation or formulas to pull it all into exactly what you need.

And then you got, you know, you're doing all those clicks to get it in there, but you're probably doing more copy pasting or just spreadsheet manipulating to get all that in the right format.

Yeah.

So no, back to the question that was asked around duplicate descriptions or duplicate, you know, anything that's duplicate, you can certainly set something up to put to to get some exceptions.

I mean, I'll certainly make a note of that.

And we can develop that one.

It's that's not a not a difficult one at all.

Yeah.

So it might not be listed as a rapid orchestration, but something that should be pretty simple that we might be able to just include it.

No, you could check, check for duplicate descriptions, you know, as an example.

Yeah, that's it.

Like another one was with these orchestrations be saved like object saved like other object types like Ubes.

I don't know what that is.

Apple's EPPLS they just Frank just chimed in and answered sure UDOSI think we get objects they slightly slightly different from legacy objects that you check out check in that may need a retrofit for an upgrade or applying an ESU UDOS such as orchestration query personal form or are retained and typically do not need a retrofit.

Maybe we go I think Frank answered that one and then another question in the example of the item master creation, if it's a unique key violation, then will the orchestration show air at the end to the end user correct.

Yeah, it's it's definitely because just to show you, if I, if I open this up, you will see that we are using standard JD Edwards applications.

So if I open this up here, just like you would do a a if you went to manually and you try to try to add an item with a duplicate key, it's going to it's going to throw an error message.

And the same applies here.

So you can see that if I look at the first, you'll see that I'm I'm actually running an application P4 one O 1, the form and the version, OK.

And so exactly what you would be doing manually if you were typing it and manually capturing this, it's doing exactly the same.

So if you look at the category codes as I showed you early on, you will see it's picking up all the different category code screens and you will see it's the application for 41 O1, it's the form type 41 OB and that's my version.

So, yeah, you can't, you know, to answer your question, you can't add and it won't allow you to add in a, a duplicate item number, for example.

OK, Any other questions?

Did you have anything else Greg, you want to show while we wait?

No, I'm, you know, it's just it's, you know, with a quick demo, you can see I've just opened up the actual orchestration a little bit.

You can see I'm using notifications, I'm using rules, I'm using data, Data request, which is a UDO that allows you to go and collect data from a specific area.

In this case, it's costs.

These are forms requests which are standard JDE screens.

And there's a native data request here.

So you can see that I, I verify whether the item record exists here and then I, I head down a path of either adding it or a path of updating it.

So, you know, I've got both elements update and add in the same orchestration, and you can continue to add as much as you like.

You know, obviously the more you add, the more the, you know, the more complex it gets.

And as I said earlier, these can be added to a menu.

You can add it to a screen.

And yeah, and they're fairly easy to deploy, as Frank has pointed out.

So yeah, there's no question.

Scott, over to you.

OK.

Yeah, Thanks, Frank, for chiming in.

I will pull back to the presentation here.

OK, what's going on here?

Get that out of the way.

OK.

All right.

So we'll finish up with how to get started, what the price looks like, what you get.

So as we talked about, well first thing pick your automations, you know there's 25 plus that we have there.

Any other ones like the question we had, certainly we can discuss that and see if that can that can fit in here.

But we're looking at a three orchestration bundle.

We talked through those, get the access and that kind of stuff, tailor it, deploy it in your environment and and that's going to be done in, in less than a couple weeks.

So typically two to five days for for each one is what we're having there.

And the other big thing is, you know, obviously if you if, if you, if this, some of these are something you can do.

Greg pulled that up and showed you a little bit of it.

We've got them listed on your website.

Certainly try that.

But if it's not, it's something that you're not going to need a lot of internal resources to help us get these up and running.

So the pricing saw this at the very beginning, but you get 3 orchestrations 15,000.

We go through that process I just outlined.

You're going to be using those three or more in less than just a couple weeks.

So look through those 25 if you're not sure which we can have a conversation to help you choose and get and get the orchestrations that are going to give you the best ROI, save you the most time.

Potentially the one one of them that's not on the list could be an option as well.

So whether that be using spreadsheets, getting buttons on there for, for people on your team to, to click a button instead of going through all these different steps to save the time.

So last one, we've got a, just an example using the new item set up of what that ROI could look like.

So in this example, 120 items getting set up in a month, if that's saving somebody 10 minutes every time, you're going to be saving 240 hours.

You know, at an example of $45 per hour, that's a $10,000 right there.

That's for one orchestration.

You get 3 of them and and that's something in, in one year, you're going to be using this for years.

So the ROI think within three, you're going to get a payback in that first year.

Every case is going to be a little bit different, but just the time right there is ROI.

But the other one is the error.

So 50 steps, 10 steps, 15 steps.

How many times is that prone to more errors that you're not going to eliminate because you're just automating it?

It's not going to be that error.

So what I want to say is start, you know, think about these questions.

What are you doing more than 50 times in a month?

Or where are you going outside of JD Edwards with spreadsheets or emails or some more manual process that can be brought into some automation like one of these rapid orchestrations?

I know we already covered some questions, but a couple more things here that might answer some.

So what JDR was released you need to be on, we need to have orchestrator.

So 9.2 dot four or higher have orchestrator installed.

If not, that's another project we can help with and get that going.

You'd have capacity on your AS server to handle these orchestrations and we're going to need to work with somebody.

So just to figure out some of that tailoring the business processes, security and that kind of stuff.

We get any other questions while I pull that up.

We're right at 12:30.

So certainly send any more last questions.

But I do want to end with the rest of our series.

So this was I think #3 we've got the next week is back, back talking about orchestrator.

So we're going to do some more advanced orchestrator techniques a week from today and September 1st and then every other week after that we will take a break.

You'll see there later in September where we'll be in in focus.

Hopefully we'll see a bunch of you out there, but we got four more and maybe add some more to come in October.

Kevin, do we have any other questions?

Doesn't look like it.

No.

Oh, Frank.

Frank added some more looks like to the original question about retrofitting.

All right.

Well, if there are no other questions, I will get this recording out to you all tomorrow.

So thank you for joining us and we'll see you next Tuesday.

All right.

Excellent.