Infor Velocity Suite Use Cases Live Today, With More on the Way

[00:00:03] Ask someone what Infor Velocity Suite is, and you might hear AP Automation Tool. But that answer only covers a small fraction of what the platform can do. Today on RPI Tech Connect, we're setting the record straight by talking about what Velocity Suite is, what it isn't, and what it will be.

[00:00:36] Welcome back to RPI Tech Connect. I'm your host, Chris Arian. Today we're going to be talking about Infor's Velocity Suite solution. And I want to be upfront about why that is. Almost every time this platform comes up in conversation, someone describes it as an AP Automation Tool. That description isn't necessarily wrong, because it does do that, but it completely misses the mark on everything else that the platform can do.

[00:01:02] So we're going to spend an episode talking about what it isn't, what it is, and what it will be. And today I'm joined by two guests who've had a lot of time with this tool. First up, we have Sam Green, who's going to be talking about what the platform can do right now and where it will be going. And we have Jeremy Stoltz-Svist from RPI, who's going to be talking about how he's seen Velocity Suite play out during implementations. So Sam, I'd like to start with you. Tell us who you are and what you do it in for.

[00:01:32] All right. So this is what I do here, I guess. First of all, Chris, thank you very much for the invite. Jeremy, great to see you again. A little different environment than, you know, sunny Temecula, California. We're stuck indoors now, again, doing our regular job. But great to have you with us. I'm a product director at Infor, and I'm focused on AI innovation under Rick Ryder and his team.

[00:01:59] I've been with Infor for a little over 17 years. I actually started with Lawson as a COBOL programmer. I've kind of moved around within the company, worked in analytics, architecture, did some integration work. But I've always been focused on tech, and that kind of led to me becoming a SME for InforOS. And then naturally that just evolved into kind of becoming an expert on Velocity Suite as well.

[00:02:29] And my main role here is to basically enable our Cloud Suite customers and our partners like RPI to leverage the latest technologies we offer as part of our cloud platform to address a wide range of business challenges. Excellent. It's great to have you here, Sam. And Jeremy, for those who haven't had the pleasure of meeting you, what can you share? Thanks, Chris. Yeah, my name is Jeremy Stoltz.

[00:02:57] I'm a principal technical consultant with RPI. I've been here with RPI for almost 10 years now. Prior to joining RPI, I was on the customer side. Actually, for about 13 years, worked as a system administrator. You know, with my job at RPI, when I worked on the customer side, my role has always been about process improvement.

[00:03:20] When I worked on the customer side, you know, not only was I doing supporting the Infor platform from an install, patches, upgrades perspective, but I was working with my end users to do automation of simple tasks, right? And applying automation using whatever tools that we could to make their jobs easier, right?

[00:03:43] Once I joined RPI, that still kind of remained my focus just with multiple clients now as opposed to dedicated to just one client. And then moving into my first CloudSuite project, however many years ago that was now. Of course, the server maintenance piece of it goes away, but I still remain focused on that process improvement. And that could be development of IPA flows, could be configurations, it could be reports. Whatever it is, you know, it's all within the Infor framework.

[00:04:13] Awesome. Thank you for that intro there. We got two technical guests on the TechConnect podcast. Let's get technical. So first thing, let's talk about what Velocity Suite is. Sam, question for you. Where does this idea come from that Velocity Suite is an AP automation tool? And why is that an incomplete description? Yeah, that's a great question. And it's definitely one that I've fielded before. I'm sure Jeremy has.

[00:04:43] I'm sure you guys, your colleagues at RPI have fielded that as well. And to kind of understand where that question comes from, you have to kind of understand the history of what we've been doing here at Infor. So it was probably three, probably longer than that, probably almost five years ago when we started really building out enterprise automations. You know, so we could showcase the capabilities of our platform.

[00:05:11] And one of the first things that we did was build out an AP automation solution. And that was bundled up as an enterprise automation and became a sellable SKU. And as we started kind of evolving the platform, evolving our go-to-market strategy, that solution ended up getting bundled into Velocity Suite. So that was our big use case right out the door. There was a big need for it in the market.

[00:05:41] And we ended up, you know, selling quite a few of those deals and implementing a lot of those deals. So it was really our big first use case. And we spent a lot of time marketing that use case because we thought it was pretty good. But then, you know, as we started implementing AP automation, you know, it really hit us that there is no one size fits all to some of these solutions like AP automation.

[00:06:07] It really, those solutions really have to be personalized and configured to the specific customer. You know, and not just like at an industry level, but at the actual organization level.

[00:06:21] So we started looking at, you know, looking at our marketing, our implementation, our support and said, okay, can we deliver AP automation and other solutions that are nearly complete but not quite tailored to the organization? And then provide the services to tailor those solutions to the organization. Because every organization is different. You know, if I go to hospital A and hospital B and I say, how do you handle three-way matching?

[00:06:51] How do you handle vendor statements when they come in? How do you handle returns? They're probably all going to give me a slightly different answer. You know, so it was kind of, it's been kind of hard for us to get over that image of Velocity Suite is just invoice processing. But it was a good journey because it did a few things for us.

[00:07:14] It helped us prove out our tools because we used pretty much every tool in the bag at the time to provide a solution for AP automation. And it also allowed us to really prove out the architecture because as our cloud platform has changed, we've been able to swap out technology components with really little effort because everything is so, you know, tightly integrated but loosely coupled.

[00:07:42] So it's been, it's been great. But yeah, we are definitely not just an AP automation tool. Thank you for that, for that, for that story there. And I look forward to hearing more about what, what also Velocity Suite can do. And to segue then, if AP automation is like, you know, the surface of, of Velocity Suite, what's beneath the surface? Can you go a little deeper?

[00:08:13] Yeah. Yeah. There's, I mean, I know this is going to be like a, you know, 20, 30 minute podcast. We could spend all afternoon talking about everything that's under the surface. Give me the quick, the quick and dirty. There's a lot of depth to it. But, you know, if I can summarize it, it's really, you know, we're providing a set of tools, solutions, and people that are really going to help our customers like discover insights into how their organization operates, you know, how their business is functioning.

[00:08:42] Help them automate processes that are going to make an impact to their business. And then really personalize the, their adoption of latest technologies like Gen AI. You know, I mean, succinctly put it's Velocity Suite is part of our industry cloud platform and it's used to drive Cloud Suite customers ambitions and their capabilities forward. Let's go.

[00:09:34] Let's go. All right. So, you know, I mean, it's a lot of customers that have already implemented some other solutions. So, you know, as a customer, I hear Infor say, oh, we've, we have this new Velocity Suite. It's for AP automation. And they say, okay, well, that's nice. I already have something. So being able to kind of debunk that myth becomes very important. Got it. All right.

[00:10:03] So then let's go ahead and talk about what Velocity Suite is by exploring some of these use cases. Sam? All right. Yeah. Yeah. So hopefully it's, it's clear. Velocity Suite is not just AP automation. You know, we can put that to bed. You know, as Jeremy has said, like our customers have been doing this for years. You know, we've had complimentary solutions for a long time that have done this.

[00:10:30] You know, and, you know, when a customer actually approaches me and says, well, I'm not interested in Velocity because I've done AP automation. That actually gets me kind of excited because I'm like, cool. Now we can work on other things that aren't, haven't been around for like 20 years, you know? But yeah, it's so back to what like Velocity Suite actually is. The way I like to position it is it's not, it's not a set of tools. It's not just a set of solutions. It's not people.

[00:11:00] It's really like, it's really an idea. It's an ideal. You know, we want to help customers take advantage of technologies. You know, old technologies that they haven't maybe seen benefits from, but also the latest and greatest stuff. Because we want to really expand their capabilities in a personalized, secure, and governed fashion. Like we don't want it just to be the Wild West out there. You know, and that all sounds great from like a marketing standpoint.

[00:11:30] But what, you know, what we really, really want to do is fill that gap, that value gap between what the marketing material says, what the salespeople say, and what the actual business is going to see with ROI. You know, so it's a big change in mentality.

[00:11:48] Like instead of shopping for tools or shopping for solutions, it's now we need to see what a true suite of capabilities looks like and really imagine where can we take our business with this technology and these resources. Very cool.

[00:12:08] I like how you made clear that Velocity Suite isn't just a single tool or a single solution, but a collection of them with the whole identity behind it being like, here's how you're going to maximize or get more value out of your cloud suite investment. You're going to make business processes run more efficient, run smoother, all that good stuff. Jeremy, have you, this shift in mindset that Sam's kind of talking about here, I imagine this is something that's come up with conversations you've had too,

[00:12:36] or like maybe through your own learning through some of the training you've done on Velocity Suite. Anything to share? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You know, after attending the Import Connect conference for the past several years now, I've seen that shift in the customer's mindset where they get that it's more than just an API automation solution, that it's a tool set that is to help them improve their processes, you know, from start to finish. Right.

[00:13:03] And then also give them deeper insights of things that, you know, were harder to get to or just required some development time to be able to pull out the data that was required to do some of that. So now we've got a tool set where really kind of your imagination is what limits you to some of the things that you can do with it. Awesome.

[00:13:25] Imagination is always encouraging people to get creative and find new ways to use the tools that they have at their disposal. I don't know. Sam, you've mentioned personalization a lot, and that's obviously a key differentiator. A lot of different solutions out there. Talk to me about the way the Velocity Suite kind of handles that. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:13:49] It's really what I think is going to be key to our success, to Inforce success, to our customer success, to your success, you know, as a partner. You know, there's a lot of solutions out there that have popped up, you know, recently that are very generic. You know, we've all heard the term SaaSpocalypse. You know, AI solutions that are built to kind of replace traditional ERP.

[00:14:21] And, yeah, that might happen someday. But right now, those solutions are way too generic. You know, they don't understand the industry our customers are in, and they don't understand our customers specifically. You know, you're just never going to get the value out of a generic solution that you can from a personalized one. You know, and that's why, you know, at Infor, we've really started with that idea of Infor Industry AI.

[00:14:47] You know, we're trying to move industries forward. And in order to do that, you know, we're building on our foundation of industry-specific ERPs. You know, whether you're finance and supply management, human capital management, M3, LN, you know, those applications are basically specific for your industry, you know, down to the micro vertical.

[00:15:11] And instead of just, you know, throwing a bunch of AI on top of things or, you know, throwing some AI resources, you know, at a company and saying, hey, they're going to do things for you, we're really partnering with our customers. And that's where this idea of the forward deployed engineer, you know, has come up across the industry, really.

[00:15:34] You know, and that's not just someone who's assigned to you a name and a number, but it's someone who's going to understand your organization, understand your needs, but then also understand where the industry is going and where you need to go as an organization. You know, and we've got, you know, as far as Velocity Suite goes, you know, we've got some automations that we've built in the past that, you know, we've got some proof points out there for customer success stories.

[00:16:04] So we're bundling those automations, we're bundling new insights across analytics, across Gen.AI. And we're also combining that with some synthetically generated kind of use case templates. You know, we've worked, we're adopting AI internally, you know, for Infor. And with that, we've kind of looked at, hey, what are the big use cases that should be solved across our industries that we support?

[00:16:31] So we've got a host of solutions that we can really start off on a good foot. You know, maybe we're 70, 80% of the way there with the solution. We've got a prototype built out. But it's really that FDE partnership with Infor, the partner and the customer, that's going to personalize that solution and give you the most value. You know, and the best thing about using those templates as a start is we're not starting from scratch.

[00:17:00] So we're not wasting hours building things from the ground up. You know, we're taking advantage of that industry context in the ERP. We're taking advantage of Infor OS and all of its capabilities. So we're not spending time, development cycles and money building things that are basically table stakes. You know, we're spending valuable time and effort personalizing, you know, the end user experience to just make a better solution.

[00:17:29] And that's really what makes Infor different is the fact that we're not just bolting on AI to a product. It's deeply integrated across the applications, across the stack. You know, and that was kind of, that was brought up with another interview that was done with Rick Ryder and Kramer ERP. You know, Robert Kramer mentioned AI doesn't run alongside ERP, but it runs through it.

[00:18:00] And I think if you don't have that, you lose a lot of functionality. You lose a lot of time in getting to that value point. And you're just not going to be as successful. So if I'm hearing you correctly, it sounds like part of what makes Velocity Suite so valuable to customers is that it's based off of like a very like industry specific ERP, like Cloud Suite, for example, like in healthcare and public sector.

[00:18:29] Like that system was built for those industries and Velocity Suite on top of it is like deploying templates and tools to kind of help surface ways that organizations can like run a better system. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah, it is. Cool. Just make it that much better. This sounds like a similar approach to what we take here at RPI with like, you know, we're very, we're industry specific first and then, you know, ERP second.

[00:19:00] Jeremy, what are your thoughts on this idea of like personalized gen AI that Sam was talking about? Yeah. Well, you're absolutely right, Chris. I mean, this is kind of like our standard approach when we bring a customer, implement a Cloud Suite for a customer, right? You know, we look at their industry, we understand their business and we kind of know where to focus, right?

[00:19:24] So when we, when we talk about Velocity Suite and bringing that to the table for a customer, it's the same thing. And Sam mentioned this, all these templates that are there, right? So you stand up Velocity Suite and out of the box, you can start asking questions and, you know, with the agents, right? And Velocity Suite just knows how your ERP operates and knows how to get data in and out of the system with minimal effort, right?

[00:19:51] So that really becomes the kind of, as Sam said, a great starting point. And then it's just a matter of fine tuning those solutions and understanding, okay, well, our business operates slightly different here. We wouldn't want it to kind of steer a user in this direction. Instead, we wanted to steer it in that direction. So you can always kind of code in or add in those exception type things.

[00:20:15] And that's really kind of fine tuning the process and fine tuning those agents that are used, that know and understand the ERP. But as Sam said, there are all, you know, there's a lot of them out there that are prebuilt and they are templates, right? That you can then build upon and expand upon. Thank you for that. I got to say, I like how we're getting into like the roots and like the behind the curtains, like scenes of how Velocity Suite is actually working.

[00:20:45] I think it's good technical context for people listening in to understand how this tool works, how it works specifically well with, you know, industry specific ERP. Now we should go a level up and talk about some of these different use cases that organizations can expect to deploy when they decide to use in for Velocity Suite. So Sam, tell us about process mining.

[00:21:13] So process mining, that is, it's, it's probably one of our newer offerings that we have here at Infor. And it's probably one of the most exciting things we have going, I think, because I'm, I'm kind of a, I mean, I'm a nerd, you know, I've done, I've done process mining like manually. When I was in college, I worked actually on a shop floor in a manufacturing facility, documenting processes by hand.

[00:21:39] Like this is how much this process took, how much time, you know, you know, tracking parts through a system. It was super interesting because, you know, Hey, I like building things and seeing, you know, the behind the curtain. But, you know, when we launched. Did that take a long time? Did that take you a long time to do that? Oh, they paid me for two summers to do it, you know? And that was on like one of their, one of their key, key products that they were building, you know?

[00:22:08] Yeah, it took a long time, you know, and the data wasn't there. Like, you know, they had their own, their own MES system, but it was old. It was antiquated. It didn't have the data they needed. They didn't trust it. We tried running reports and it just didn't work. So that's, that's where I came in here. Pencil, paper, go at it. Um, but our approach here, you know, at Infor with process mining is, is much more advanced than that.

[00:22:38] And it's a few years later than when I was in college, you know? But, you know, now we can kick off process mining, um, basically the day somebody signs a velocity suite contract. And the cool part about that is, especially in our applications like FSM or HCM, we have tons of historical data that we can, that we can analyze, you know, very quickly. You know, we get process mining provisioned.

[00:23:07] We turn on a replication set and we can get event data that starts flowing into our process mining database. And in a matter of a couple, couple days, um, it could take hours, but we all know it's hard to schedule meetings with customers. You know, get everybody organized. That's probably the hardest part. Um, but once we get everybody in a room, we can really show them like, Hey, this is what your processes actually look like.

[00:23:34] You know, they might have a BI statistic or a KPI that says, you know, um, requisition to payment takes 45 days, but they don't really know why. Is that because people are entering requisitions and they're getting rejected or they're entering POs, sending them off to a vendor, they get rejected on the vendor side.

[00:23:58] Like there's, we can get kind of small insights using tools like BI, but we can't really get down to the event level. Like we can with process mining. Um, you know, Jeremy, I know you and I have talked about like approvals and how those just kill some customers. You know, they'll say it takes me way too long to get this invoice approved. Well, yeah, because you've got 13 levels of approvals that you have to go through. That's not a KPI you're going to get from BI.

[00:24:28] You're going to get that from process mining though. Um, you know, so that's like our first use case. I really want to launch people on to get that true insight because that's how we identify where we start. And so the process mining identifies like that long approval process and like, surface it in a way that's like, Oh, that's what's happening. Or what is the, uh, how do you like, how do you, how do you get there? Yeah.

[00:24:57] Yeah. I hear like as a replication set or something, but like, what does it look like from a customer perspective? Yeah. Um, it's a lot of data. I'll be honest. Like it's, it's super data rich. Um, it can be a little intimidating at times when you pop up this dashboard and you've got charts and graphs and, you know, um, you've got all these process maps you're looking at. Um, so what we really like to do is sit down with the customer and walk them through the

[00:25:24] findings, you know, because you know, that, that's that, that FDE partnership that I spoke about earlier. Like we really want to make sure you understand what you're seeing so that you don't come away with incorrect assumptions. Okay. Um, yeah. So we sit down, go through the findings and then, you know, we try to do it with IT leaders, with functional users, because there's going to be back and forth between, well, IT is configured it this way. Functional users need it this way.

[00:25:53] Um, and it's really just, it's really just a fact finding exercise to figure out, Hey, we think there's a problem here. This is what the data shows. Then let's go do some automations, run process mining again and see how we've improved. And that's where we can measure that ROI with actual data, not just anecdotes, which is awesome. I really like that. That's a good, that's a good example. Um, Jeremy, I want to hear from you.

[00:26:21] When a client takes on process mining, what's that process look like to stand up? Sam, I know you said it could be very quickly, but Jeremy, what's your experience? Yeah, no, it's, uh, Sam's right. I mean, it's a matter of days to like, once you get the last space week and process mining provisioned and have access to it, um, this is just a few simple steps. Sam mentioned the replication set that pushes data down, uh, into process mining for process

[00:26:47] mining to be able to consume that data and kind of add it to, um, put it into the format that it needs. Right. And then it's all that pre-delivered content, uh, again, that, that, that, that, that info is bringing to the table here with process mining. There's, as Sam mentioned, there's a dashboard, uh, an insights process insights page of multiple pages of information and it's charts and graphs and metrics.

[00:27:12] And, um, and as Sam said, you know, when you, when you first set it up and you first get all that data pumped into process mining and it can build up this thing, right. Then you, then you have to walk through that data with the customer and make sure that they understand what it is they're seeing. But then the really cool thing about it is right there on that insights page, the customer says, okay, well, I understand that, that this piece may be, maybe slightly a bottleneck, but is it related to a specific vendor?

[00:27:42] Or is it related to a specific, uh, buyer within our organization or, or, or what, where, you know, kind of tell me a little bit more about that specific metric. Right. And right there on those insight pages, you can filter down to more specific, uh, details to really kind of fine tune and ask the questions of, okay, well, this is a bottleneck, but why? Right. And then really kind of drill into that specific area.

[00:28:09] Um, the other thing that's really cool about the process mining is the, uh, the process catalog, the industry process catalog or IPCs, um, which is just an integral part of that. Right. So implementing cloud suite, we should be looking at those IPCs to make sure that we're, we're following the prescribed process that, that Infor has built the software to do. Right. Um, with process mining, it shows you where those outliers are.

[00:28:36] Um, and it'll draw a physical diagram to say, Hey, you've, you've exited the process here to do this external step. Um, and so you can capture those things and it's really kind of cool. It's, you know, kind of geeking out, right. It just visually, you watch it and draw the line and show you a little red box here outside of the process. Um, and, and so that just, you know, is, is something to call attention. Right. But then you later, but then it goes even further.

[00:29:04] You later say, okay, well, no, that's, that may not be Infor specific, but that is us specific. And we have to have that step apart as part of the process. Well, with a couple of button clicks, you can then have that process redesigned to include that step. And so that's no longer an outlier. Wow. Like I, I hear this, I'm getting excited and I'm not, I mean, you know, I'm a technical guy, but not, not to the extent that either one of you are.

[00:29:31] And I think it's one thing for a customer to be told, like, this is how the process is. This is how we know it to be. And then they think about it in their mind, but to have it drawn out in front of you with this out, like, you know, detected outlier, like, this is why your process is taking so long because you're doing this step outside of it. Like to see that, I feel like it brings, brings to life any kind of like, you know, obstacles or things that are slowing you down in a way that's like, okay, I want to fix this now. Like, why are we doing that?

[00:30:00] And it's asking those types of questions that I feel like customers need to be thinking about, which, and they might not be until they see it. Right. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Wow. Okay. I'm sold. I'm convinced. Businesses are big silos, you know, really they, you know, IT doesn't necessarily know how the functional people are using it and vice versa. So you end up with these disparate processes for the same business process, you know, even

[00:30:30] distributed customers, you know, might be in Pennsylvania or they might be in Ohio and they're doing things differently, but they all work in the same, you know, in the same department. And it, it highlights that stuff really, really quickly. And, you know, I do want to add like one of the things we've done to help make this data like more digestible and more easily accessible is we've built Gen AI into process mining.

[00:30:57] So now, you know, after we do this walkthrough with a customer, they'll have a tool that they can now ask questions like, Hey, I'm looking at this screen. I forgot what conformance analysis means. Can you explain to me what I'm seeing on my screen? Can you suggest areas for improvement? And our Gen AI knows our IPCs. It knows our industry. It knows our applications. It obviously has access to the process data.

[00:31:25] It can go through all that and just say, Hey, this is what I'm seeing and highlight those things. So it really becomes self-discovery. This, this Gen AI assistant you're speaking about is this, this is a separate, another type of use case customers can expect to use with Velocity Suite. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's kind of a separate use case, but it's also just pervasive across our applications.

[00:31:54] Um, you know, which is one of the reasons I really try to highlight that, you know, because it's, um, you know, I think of all the ways that people are using Gen AI now, you know, just to find, find answers to questions. Um, and I can ask, you know, business questions to, to a generic AI tool, but I'm not necessarily going to get good answers because it doesn't know my industry. It doesn't know my ontology.

[00:32:24] Um, so it might lead me in the general direction, but it could also lead me astray. Yeah. So what we've been able to do is, you know, build in a Gen AI assistant that knows our applications. It knows our data. It knows our ontology and you can ask it very in for specific questions and it's going to understand what you're talking about. And that's, that's helpful for, you know, pulling back data.

[00:32:53] Um, you know, asking, Hey, how do I use this screen? For example. Um, and it's going to give you, it's going to give you the instructions from our documentation. And that's, that's surfaced through a few different tools that we've developed. You know, we've got our private and public knowledge hub. Public knowledge hub is basically, we have fed, fed our tooling, all of our documentation.

[00:33:19] So anything that's out on docs.info.com that, you know, takes too many clicks to get to have to kind of drive, dive through to look, you know, to find what you're looking for. Um, you can surface it really quickly with a simple query and you know, that's great. But I know like at RPI, you guys build user guides, training guides. This is how we've implemented your system specifically.

[00:33:46] Well, then if I have a user that's querying the public documentation, they might not get the answer they're exactly looking for. And that's where that private knowledge hub comes in. Cause now you guys can upload all of your documentation that you hand off to the customer, you know, after they've done their acceptance testing and they can now query that with a Gen AI assistant. So they're getting the best information possible.

[00:34:14] I think that's a really, you made a really great point there. And I think about my own use of AI with like Claude or ChatGPT or whatever. And the output that I get working with something like that is so contingent on the amount of context and background that I give it. And like, if I don't put in a lot of info, I'm not going to get something good. And because this Gen AI assistant you're talking about lives in your system and knows all the

[00:34:42] details about the way that you do processes and the way that your organization runs, like it has access to all that really critical rich data. It's going to make, it's going to give you the informed and correct answers that you need. Right? Yeah. That's huge. It's tailored to your organization. It's not something generic. You know, like we mentioned, I mentioned vendor statements and like returns earlier.

[00:35:09] You know, you can't, if I say, how do I do a vendor return? Well, there's a standard way of doing it in the system. But then what if you handle it completely differently? You know, what if you don't actually do vendor returns? You just decide, okay, let's just distribute it across our warehouses. Well, that's a business process that's specific to you. So if I'm using generic AI to find the answer to that question, it's going to lead me astray and it's not going to provide any value.

[00:35:39] Okay. Yeah, that's really good. Jeremy, any thoughts on the Gen AI assistant? Yeah. Yeah. One thing that I think is really neat about it and I think kind of is probably a more common use case is that, or very common use case, is the one-off reporting request. So when I worked, I used to work at a hospital. When I worked there, I would get requests for these one-off reports almost weekly.

[00:36:06] And, you know, it was always frustrating because we always had, well, we had this version of the report and we had this version of the report. And then this week they needed a different spin on it, right? And so it would come to me and I would have to write some report and then they'd have to be tested and published and go through a whole big process. Well, now with the Gen AI assistant, you can kind of get that one-off reporting information just by asking a couple of questions and if you need to fine-tune that, right?

[00:36:35] And as Sam mentioned, the Gen AI assistant is built into the ERP. It knows what a requisition is. It knows what an invoice is, right? You don't have to tell some generic AI tool looking at your data, hey, in this table, in this business class or in this area in the application. You don't have to give it all that context. It kind of knows that context based on the ERP itself. Yeah.

[00:37:05] And more importantly, it knows what data you should have access to, right? So it's not just an open book. You know, I mentioned governance earlier. Like we can really lock that down. You know, you're basically, it's taking action as a user. So if Jeremy's asking for information that he should have access to, it should be presenting that information. If you kind of go outside your scope of authority, it's going to cut you off and say, hey, you

[00:37:34] don't have access to this, but let's try and reach out to someone who does. Really awesome to hear about the capabilities of the Gen AI assistant. I want to ask you now about automation in the AI adoption hub. I see that's something you wanted to chat about. How did, what's the story there? Yeah.

[00:37:57] So this is, this is probably one of the coolest things we've been doing over like the last, I don't know, six, maybe nine months is building out a tool, a visual, visual tool that allows our customers to really, you know, we've talked about process mining to, to take those insights from process mining, take those, those anecdotes of how people think their business is operating

[00:38:26] and dump them into a business, dump them into a prompt that, you know, like you talked about context being so important, Chris, like you dump them into this prompt and say, these are the issues I'm having. These are my goals. This is where I want my business to be. Um, and this AI adoption hub, it starts churning and it looks at all of the IPCs that we have, you know, for your industry, it looks at your IPCs.

[00:38:54] It looks at data. It looks at our enterprise automations. It looks at the available insights and it starts mapping your requirements to a solution. And it tells you, this is how we're going to get there. And if I put something in that, that doesn't exist yet, we don't have a template. We haven't thought of it. It'll generate a new idea and say, okay, you're having a problem with, let's say cash reconciliation.

[00:39:23] It'll start designing a solution. It'll create a prototype for you. So you can actually visualize what a solution would look like if we were to build one. You know, it's really, it's probably one of the most powerful things we've got going right now. Because not only does it propose these solutions, but it'll tell you, hey, these are all the pieces of technology that are involved. This is how we're going to build it.

[00:39:51] So it's not like we're going to use Gen AI and solve all these problems. It's not just a generic, like smoke and mirrors type thing. We're telling you we're going to use Ion. We're going to use robotic process automation. We're going to use some Infor document processor. We're going to throw Gen AI at it. It's telling you all of the pieces of the puzzle that are going to come together to provide you a solution. That's pretty powerful stuff. And I have to say, I feel like it's like the last part of the equation here.

[00:40:18] It's like we have the process planning for identifying bottlenecks, things that can improve. Get the Gen AI assistant to help you kind of like make sense of that and surface up additional insight. And then you have this automation element that kind of like helps you take action on those things that it's identified and helped you understand. Yeah. Yeah, it's exciting. We've been, you know, we've been doing a lot of user groups since the middle of June. We've done Connect.

[00:40:48] We've shown it there. We did the Western user group out in Temecula. We did the Midwest user group in St. Paul. I just got back from Velocity Week and people are blown away by the AI Adoption Hub. You know, I mean, maybe they don't have insights from process mining. That's fine. Let's just give you a blank canvas. Tell me what your goals are. You know, here's a few prompts, a few questions. Hey, do you struggle with this?

[00:41:17] How long does it take you to close month end? You know, we can take all that information and we can kick out a roadmap in 20, 30 minutes. And then we can send that off to your team and you can prioritize those. You can say, well, maybe we don't want to focus on this solution first. That's not as high priority. And you can reorder that roadmap. And then that's what ends up getting delivered to our FDE teams to basically start implementation.

[00:41:46] It's a really awesome tool. And this is available right now? Like if someone wanted to purchase one? Yeah? Okay. Yeah. Ask Jeremy. He'll demo it to you. Jeremy, let's hear about it. What's your experience been with this? Yeah. I mean, for me, it's relatively new too. But yeah, if Sam explained everything, like it really is a, if you're kind of like, okay, well, what are my true, what can I truly gain from this system?

[00:42:13] And as Sam mentioned, you know, you kind of feed it a couple of pain points and you kind of, you know, well, you know that you might have too many approval levels or, or, you know, some areas where you might want to focus on, right? Kind of give it, give it a little bit to kind of go with. And then it, like the same said, it'll kind of generate that roadmap and show you where you need to focus by just, you know, providing a little bit of information. Very cool. I'm impressed.

[00:42:43] Seriously. Well, that's good. That means I've done my job. You've done a great job with that. So we've talked about what Velocity Suite is and what it is. We've explored these awesome use cases. Tell me what's on the way, what's on the roadmap. What can people expect to come from Velocity Suite? Oh, more of the same, more awesome stuff, you know, but in all seriousness, like that

[00:43:12] AI adoption hub, how that's going to change, how we interact with our customers, how you guys interact with our customers. It's going to be huge because I think it's really going to, it's really going to drive people towards that self-actualization. Like I have this idea in my head. I can't quite articulate it, but I can start throwing these ideas at this prompt and it's going to start churning.

[00:43:36] And maybe I have to refine it a little bit, but eventually I'll get to this idea and it'll start building content for me. It'll build me a prototype that I can then play with, you know? And then the question becomes, okay, that's cool. I've got a prototype. Where are we going from there? Well, you can probably guess. It's that self-deployment model. You know what I mean? That's just the natural conclusion.

[00:44:05] Like I can build a prototype. Why can't I build actual product and put it into production? You know, so I think that's where we're going. You know, to go from that brainstorm, brainstorm a bunch of ideas, build your prompts, kind of refine, build that prototype, propose that to your colleagues, your leaders, and then get it into production. And I think that's, I hope it doesn't put us out of business, you know, but you guys

[00:44:34] out of work, customizing things. But you know what? I think there's plenty of work to do, so I think we'll be okay. Yeah. Really cool. And, you know, that's an exciting future. Giving people the tools to be self-sufficient and to explore, you know, what these tools are capable of to the limits of their own imagination is a pretty powerful thing. I think, I like the messaging. I like the vision. Really, really good stuff there, Sam.

[00:45:02] Jeremy, after hearing that, any conversations you want to have with customers who are maybe thinking about Elacity Suite? Well, maybe now I don't want to sell it so much because I will be out of the job. No, no, absolutely not. Just getting there, of course. I feel like, you know, I've been in the Infor Lawson ecosystem for a very long time. And, you know, when I first started Lawson version 7 or whatever, and people would say,

[00:45:31] oh, I wish the system would do that. And I'd say, sorry, it doesn't. You know, and now with the capabilities that are coming out, it's, you know, as you kind of said, if you can imagine it, it can probably be done now at this point. Like, maybe not exactly how you kind of want it to happen, but, you know, there's always alternate paths and things like that. So I think the advice I would give the customers is, you know, continue down your path that you're

[00:45:59] on, but leave this, like, keep this in the back of your mind and actually bring it to the front of your mind, right? And how you can really, really realize value from this tool. And just about, you know, is, you know, in some organizations that I work with, IT is the bottleneck, right? Not because of bad personnel, it's just a small IT shop.

[00:46:23] And so these tools give, really give customers the ability to make rapid advances. So think about it from that perspective, really. There will always be some other thing that needs to be dealt with and some other change that needs to be made, some other emergency that we need to respond to or whatever. So there will always be plenty of work, I think. That's good advice.

[00:46:51] And actually, Sam, I don't know if you know this, but before we wrap up on RPI Tech Connect, I always like to ask my guests what they're, if they had a one actionable takeaway for the audience, what it would be. So Jeremy, I kind of heard what yours would be here. Sam, same question. What do you got for us? Yeah. Biggest thing, don't wait. I don't know where it started, but I've heard the quote multiple times.

[00:47:18] If you wait six months, you're going to end up three years behind. And I think that's really true with how quickly the market, the technology is changing. So get out there, talk to your AEs, talk to your partners, you know, hit up Jeremy. Start asking questions about Velocity Suite. You know, if you've got a CSE, talk to them. Be involved in your user groups, your industry councils, and just figure out how you want

[00:47:48] to get started, how other people have gotten started. And just don't wait. Don't wait. Don't wait. I like it. I'll remember that. And for those of you listening in, if you need Jeremy's phone number or email address, if you send an email to podcast at rpac.com, we will happily share that info with you. But no, in all seriousness, thank you both so much for this lovely conversation this afternoon.

[00:48:16] For those of you listening in, if you do have any questions or you want to learn more about Velocity Suite or how RPI can help you, let's have a conversation. Please contact us at podcast at rpac.com. Again, that's podcast at rpac.com. This has been RPI Tech Connect. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.