Your preparation as ERP manager
Your title is probably not “ERP manager”, but you have responsibility for Business Central in your organization. You may sit in IT, in Finance, you may be a super user and daily user, or a project manager. Maybe a bit of everything. Before you take on the rest of the work, you need to get three things in order: your processes, your solution, and your mandate.
The ERP manager’s four areas of responsibility
As an ERP manager you have four core responsibilities:
- you must ensure trouble-free operation so that business processes don’t grind to a halt
- you must manage roles, permissions, and data security in the daily work
- you must make sure the system supports the business when workflows change
- you must proactively optimize processes and contribute to the efficiency and competitiveness of the business
Four points, but a big job. The rest of the chapters in this guide go into the details of how you solve it in practice.
The three homework assignments before you get started
You have three homework assignments that must be in place before you take on the other responsibilities:
- Know your processes
- Know your solution
- Know your mandate
The consequences of skipping these assignments are concrete. We have seen a new ERP manager discover that invoices had not been sent out for a week because the setup of job queues was never handed over. We have seen a company come to a halt with its posting because the number series had expired, and the employee who used to renew them had left. Two minutes of work turned into half a day of panic because responsibility and knowledge had disappeared with an employee, and nobody knew what to do.
Homework 1: Know your business processes
Your first preparation is to map the company’s processes and how Business Central supports them. It is the most overlooked task for an ERP manager. You can’t manage what you don’t know.
How to do the mapping
You walk through the work tasks in all functions together with the employees who perform them. What do they do during a workday? It must be a description of what actually happens, not what should happen in theory.
You don’t have to do all the work yourself. The employees in the individual departments know their own work tasks best. Your role is to start the mapping, ensure that it gets done, and consolidate the result into an overall picture of how Business Central supports the company’s operations.
Why the overview is never finished
The task is relevant both in new Business Central implementations and in solutions that have been running for many years. Processes change all the time, new employees find new ways, and nobody uses Business Central the same way as when the solution was first put into use. Your overview must be maintained continuously.
What you can use the overview for
With a consolidated overview you can assess:
- whether a Microsoft update affects work processes
- whether you can do without a customization (PTE) or an app without affecting the work processes
- whether you can optimize a process with measures in Business Central
Without the overview, you are left guessing and hoping that things go well.
Homework 2: Get a technical overview of your Business Central solution
Your second homework is about the technical overview. You need to know which parts of the solution are in use and how they work together.
Business Central has grown into a large system over the years. You have standard functionality, apps from Microsoft Marketplace, custom-built PTEs, API integrations, web services, job queues, and approval workflows across all departments. It all hangs together, and it all changes continuously with updates from Microsoft, from your app vendors, from your ERP partner, and from your own organization.
PTEs, apps, and integrations: three categories you need to keep track of
| Category | What it is | Who knows what it does |
|---|---|---|
| PTE (Per Tenant Extension) | Customizations developed specifically for your company | Only you |
| Apps | Functional extensions from Microsoft Marketplace | Usually well documented by the vendor |
| Integrations | Send or receive data, may create journal lines | Depends on the vendor and on your own documentation |
It is unfortunately common for the ERP manager to lack insight into the functionality of PTEs. You may have inherited them from a predecessor, or it may be a long time since they were developed, and nobody remembers the details.
Why missing PTE overview becomes urgent at updates
Everything works fine until you need to upgrade. Every six months Microsoft releases a major release, and all your PTEs and apps must be compatible with the new version before the update can go through. A PTE or app that is not compatible blocks the entire update.
Then you stand with the question: what does this PTE actually do, and can we do without it? You should be able to answer that without calling your consultant. That requires you to have it all described.
Watch out for the big “black box” PTE
If you or your predecessor have split customizations into separate, named PTEs per functional area, it is far easier to keep track of what is what. You can investigate them one at a time, and you can phase out a single customization without touching the rest.
Many companies have consolidated all their customizations into one big PTE, typically named after the company itself. That is a black box that is hard to see into and even harder to take apart if you eventually want to phase out parts of it. If you are sitting with such a PTE, it is worth asking your partner to split it up at the next major change.
Minimum description for each PTE and app
For each PTE and app you should as a minimum have the following documented:
- what it does, described in plain language, and which business processes it supports
- when it was developed, and on whose initiative
- which other parts of the solution it interacts with
- how critical it is for the company’s operations
The description must be available to you, to your successor, and to your management. It is a way to make your role visible and the value you create. You probably can’t maintain the description on your own, so make demands of your partner to get apps and PTEs described in a format you can use.
Companies with no PTEs at all
A growing number of companies have no PTEs at all. They use only the standard solution plus apps. That is a strong position because you don’t own the technical debt yourself. It sits with Microsoft and with your app vendors. You still need to keep an overview of your apps and integrations, but you have one less worry.
Use AI to document PTEs and apps
Documentation has always been an area where good intentions and reality rarely meet. Most ERP managers know they should have better documentation but don’t have it, or it is outdated because nobody maintains it.
You need to do something about it. Focus on what has the biggest effect. Create overview in plain language rather than going into technical detail. Keep it simple. Then you’re underway, and then it needs to be maintained.
As an ERP manager you should be the central hub for all changes in work processes that need to be supported by Business Central. All requests to your ERP partner (new wishes, bug reports, configuration changes) should go through you. Otherwise you can’t keep the overview and maintain the documentation.
Use AI to read .app files
The classic challenge with documentation is that it becomes outdated the moment someone changes something in the solution without telling you. AI tools have made the documentation task much more manageable.
For an app, you can take the technical file with the extension .app and ask an AI tool to read through it and describe what it does, both technically and at user level. Consultants normally spend days and weeks on that task. AI can write correct and usable technical documentation and user documentation in a few minutes.
Use AI to open inherited “black box” PTEs
If you have inherited an old customization that nobody really knows the contents of, AI can open the black box and tell you what is inside. You probably need help from a consultant to get access to the right files, but the analysis and documentation itself can be handled by AI.
Make documentation a part of every change
When you use AI to analyze files anyway, do it continuously. Not as a big project every other year, but as a natural part of every change. When you change something, you run the file through and update the documentation. It is a manageable task, and there is no longer any excuse not to have it.
Use AI to assess the risk of new apps
You can also use AI to assess whether a new app risks colliding with something you already have running. Put the technical files from your existing PTEs in together with the new app, and ask AI to identify the places where they touch the same tables or processes. Those are precisely the places you need to test extra carefully.
It doesn’t replace a real test in a sandbox, but it gives you a far better starting point for knowing what to test.
Homework 3: Clarify your mandate with management
Your third homework is about getting clarity on what management expects from you and from the Business Central solution. The first two homework assignments give you a picture of how things look today. The third is about where the company wants to go.
Questions you need answers to
You need clear answers from management to a number of questions:
- Is there an IT strategy that sets the direction?
- Is there willingness to invest in new opportunities like AI, automation, or new apps?
- Is the position that the solution must run stably with as few changes as possible?
- How much can you decide on your own, and what requires a management decision?
Why the mandate affects your everyday work
Decisions at the strategic level affect your concrete everyday work. If management wants to be early with new functionality from Microsoft, you need to plan updates differently than if the strategy is to wait as long as possible. If there is an appetite for AI optimization of processes, you need to have an overview of where the potential is greatest.
The mandate defines your position
A clear mandate from management makes it easier to prioritize, easier to say no to what doesn’t fit in, and easier to argue for the resources you need. Clarify expectations with your manager before you take on the rest of your work.