How to learn Mapics ERP / Infor XA

Question

I have got a job offer where the work will be on Mapics (infor XA) ERP suite. Please can anyone give guidance on how to find resources to get an introduction to this? I have googled a bit and it did not help much :(

Answer 1

If you're a user then I would expect you'd be trained on the menus / programs you will need to access. It's fairly straightforward.

You can find a "intro to powerlink" here.

For a PowerUser/IT/Programming perspective: You can find a lot of pdfs from the xausergroups presentations here, click links and then select a date and open the pdf. Unfortunately nearly none of the MAPICS/Infor XA documentation is public, whatever company you end up going to will most likely get you an account on https://www.inforxtreme.com/ which has all the information regarding your products.

However, Infor XA runs on top IBM i (which is an Operating system with a built in database, DB2), (IBM i was previously OS/400 then AS/400, eServer, iSeries, then finally IBM i)

IBM provides some documentation on IBM i series. Hopefully you're working with the latest revision IBM i series, but some of the information contained in the older revisions of IBM i series is worthwhile. V7R3 is the same as version 7.3. There are "Technology Refreshes" which you can think of as OS updates, but there are also smaller updates/bugfixes called PTFs.

This page will get you started on reading about the IBM i series, for which you will have to choose your version. For the latest version and to see how to access/change the database using SQL see this page.

"ERP data" is defined pretty well on the wiki page so I'll leave it at that.

From my understanding, MAPICS stored relationships in definitions, and used the IBM database to store these relationships/records. Infor XA has basically extended / replaced MAPICS and now forms those relationships with more updated methods I assume, (while maintaining the previous MAPICS ones. In Infor XA Release 7+, Infor has stopped supporting these old MAPICS programs through the 5250 emulator as they continue to convert them over.

So in the IBM i Series/DB2 if you didn't have Infor XA you'd basically be left with a bunch of tables without relationships/transactions defined.

So lets get into Infor XA as it is today: A tool that manages this information (relationships, transactions, table names, etc.) and offers extensibility through "Integrator"

Infor XA (Infor Developer Framework?) consists of 3 main packages - Powerlink, Systemlink, and NetLink, but also includes an "Integrator" tool inside of Powerlink.

Using a 5250 emulation client (similar to telnet) we can log into the iSeries (think Linux command line) and get to programs which then allow us to manipulate and view data. Editing the views or programs requires editing the program code, the majority of which are written in RPG, CL, or COBOL? code, some of which are proprietary.

Powerlink is a java based application that allows the create/maintain/delete of records, creation of views, subsets, and sorts --- and cards with pieces of information based on the relationships between the tables ('Business Objects'). It also may include Integrator, which allows you to create your own tables and user programs to work within XA itself.

System-Link is Powerlink without the UI, and instead using XML to send/receive data that information (upholding and allowing access through relationships and security)

Netlink is a browser based version of power-link which doesn't have all the functionality, but is continuously developed and will integrate into Infor Ming.le.

Additionally Infor XA has expanded upon the security of the IBM i series, and of the old MAPICS programs. Security is a nightmare if you're using MAPICS because you'll have to manage: IBM i series permissions (users/groups), MAPICS (groups?), and Infor XA security and sometimes they overlap and sometimes they don't.

Although IBM i series supports languages such as node.js, ruby, and python to interact with the data --- Infor XA does not, just System-Link and ION. Some people update the tables directly, but tables inside of any enterprise application that does not make the use of database constraints or relationships should be considered "hands off" unless you want to break things.