Epicor Business Architecture Technology is the foundation which most businesses use to execute their objectives. At the same time, it is important that the technology does not overwhelm a business but operates seamlessly and effectively in the background. Today Epicor business architecture provides a rich user experience, affording opportunities for greater user collaboration and productivity. Offering new levels of extensibility and scalability, it is a technology asset that meets a company’s requirements today, yet remains flexible enough to accommodate opportunities in the future. This unique blend of tools and technology constitute the business architecture we call Epicor Internet Component Environment (ICE).
Business Architecture Underpinning Epicor enterprise business software is our next-generation service-oriented architecture (SOA), called Epicor ICE. This agile business process enabling technology builds on an already complete and robust framework and toolset which is helping our customers to both use and enhance Epicor applications at a business as opposed to a technology level—with minimum overhead. Epicor ICE addresses the following key needs of modern enterprises:
User Experience Epicor ICE delivers user interface (UI) options that are at once easy to use, rich and intuitive, and give users choice in deployment and experience. Unique technology within Epicor ICE offers the ability to have multiple user interfaces interact with the same SOA-based business logic simultaneously including a “Smart Client”, a Web browser-based Client, or Microsoft Office applications. All UI options are intuitive, flexible, and aesthetic and promote user productivity.
Epicor Everywhere Framework™ Today many enterprise applications are being rewritten to support mobile devices and browser-based clients, which provide easier more convenient access to business information and easier deployment. These clients are generally considered “zero-footprint” or “thin” clients. Rather than rewriting our application forms to support mobile devices and the web, we developed the Epicor Everywhere™ Framework, a unique technology that stores all client business logic as tagged XML metadata. This permits Epicor applications to run as smart clients or Web clients or on mobile devices, all from the same source code. This framework also ensures that user customizations and personalization remain intact, whatever the UI.
Epicor Information Worker According to current industry surveys, desktop productivity tools are used by 95% of business workers, with Microsoft Office as the standard for desktop applications. Epicor Information Worker provides a secure, seamless interface to your Epicor application from within Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Excel, or Microsoft Word, blurring the lines between enterprise software and desktop productivity software to create a single immersive solution. Imagine the productivity and business visibility you will gain by using Epicor Information Worker as an interface for both traditional and non-traditional Epicor users.
Business Activity Query Every business needs an intuitive and easy to use query engine, and for this Epicor created business activity query (BAQ), which allows you to create personalized queries or to copy standard queries. Once the query is created, it can be used throughout the application—to generate Crystal Reports, for quick searches, to support Portal views, or to view results in a Dashboard. Epicor BAQ lets you create queries that display the data you need, when you need it.
Epicor Portal It is essential to have current enterprise data at your fingertips to make the decisions that drive your business to success. But sometimes important business decisions need to be put on hold because you have to wait for someone else to get you the data you need to make those important decisions. Epicor Portal can help by providing the framework and tools that allow you to gather and share enterprise data without having to depend on others. With Epicor Portal, you can get the information you need from your enterprise system when you need it, without having to wait in line.
Once Epicor Portal views have been created, they can be published as Microsoft SharePoint Web parts for use by any qualified user. Users are able to access business data either through the Epicor Portal Explorer or Microsoft SharePoint. Data discovery and visualization within Microsoft SharePoint empowers information workers and other stakeholders to build and share business data and events in addition to performing ad-hoc online queries.
Business Process Management and Workflow Management Epicor takes into account the real-life circumstances that define your complex and dynamic business environment, both during planning and the actual process. Embedded within Epicor applications is a comprehensive and flexible workflow solution that gives you the tools you need to respond quickly to critical business requirements. The workflow facilities available within Epicor enable you to quickly begin managing and automating even the most complex business processes, including working toward ISO certification. Epicor Workflow Management is comprised of five major components: Task Management; Workbench Views; Business Activity Management (BAM); and Business Process Management (BPM).
Epicor Business Process Management (BPM) Building on and extending beyond the simple rules enforced by BAM, Epicor Business Process Management is all about identifying and improving processes to make your business more efficient, more disciplined and better able to adapt to change. Epicor incorporates BPM technology to enable organizations to automate and streamline business processes for continuous improvement. Epicor BPM augments your current efforts of continuous improvement by allowing you to more closely tailor your Epicor solution to reflect the best practices you have developed.
Epicor Service Connect Epicor Service Connect is a powerful business integration platform, functioning as a central integration point for secure workflow orchestrations within Epicor applications as well as external connectivity to Epicor and non-Epicor applications.
Exploiting the Value of Epicor True SOA™ Because Epicor solutions are built using Epicor True SOA™, the power of Service Connect can be used to streamline processing within the application framework. Business components, represented as Web services outside of the application, can be recomposed within Service Connect to eliminate non-value added steps or potentially speed up any process. For example, processing sales orders typically involves multiple availability inquiries, reviews, inventory release decisions, etc. Orchestrating this process within the Service Connect Workflow Designer can eliminate many of these steps by routing processes to automated tasks, such as order-submit-direct-to-pick for specific inventory items or order fulfillment for your best customers. Other examples include: product lifecycle management (PLM) integration without entering change orders within a process workbench in the application; processing of e-mail attachments for automatic data input; and corporate governance best practices using task assignments with digital signatures.
