22 February, 2023

Time and again we have talked with people at companies using Fourth Shift who have modules they don’t know how to use. Or worse yet, they have no idea what modules they do or don’t have.

How can this be, you ask? Let’s go back in time to look at how Fourth Shift was initially licensed and then move forward as SoftBrands and Infor made business decisions that impacted those companies running Fourth Shift.

When it was initially sold, and for a very long time, Fourth Shift was licensed on a module-by-module basis. For example, System Administration was a single module, as was Inventory Control, and every other module. During the run-up to Y2K, software was flying off the shelves as companies knew they needed to get in front of any potential issues with the date change. It was a heady period for folks selling business software, however, software sales slowed very quickly after 2000 and were depressed for some time afterward.

What to do?
There’s only so much you can raise annual maintenance & support charges to cover some of the lost revenue.  SoftBrands created ‘suites’ within the Fourth Shift Product Line. For example, Customer Operations Suite included Customer Order Entry, Advanced Price Book, and Sales Analysis Modules. The annual support charge now included all three, versus a single module – regardless of customer preference. SoftBrands determined the content of suites based on related modules, with the additional modules added to a suite impacting the annual maintenance charge. While companies didn’t have to license the additional software, they were now paying maintenance on it.

Below are the Fourth Shift product line suites:
Notice quite a few modules are single-module suites because there wasn’t a good way to group them with other related modules. Look at the list of suites to see which modules comprise your total installation of Fourth Shift.

Suite Name
Included Modules
System Administration
System Control
 
Data Import
 
Data Export
 
 
Config SQL
SQL Database Driver
 
 
CIM Customizer
CIM Customizer
 
 
Inventory Management
Inventory Control
 
Lot Trace / Serialization
 
Shipping
 
 
Product Definition
Bill of Material
 
Product Costing
 
 
Engineering
Engineering Module
 
 
Customer Operations
Customer Order Entry
 
Advanced Price Book
 
Sales Analysis
 
 
Sales Order Operations
Sales Order Processing
 
Advanced Price Book
 
Sales Analysis
 
 
Custom Products Manufacturing
Custom Products 

Rules-Based Pricing
 
 
Financial Management
Accounts Payable
 
Accounts Receivable
 
Cash Management
 
General Ledger
 
General Ledger Restructuring Toolkit
 
 
Manufacturing Operations
Manufacturing Order Management
 
Repetitive Manufacturing
 
Manufacturing Analysis
 
Shop Floor Tracking and Reporting
 
Management Reports 

Operation Performance Management
 
 
Planning and Scheduling
MRP Planning
 
 
Vendor Operations
Purchase Order Management
 
Approved Vendor Sourcing
 
 
User Licenses
Fourth Shift User Licenses
 
 
Ledgersoft Suite
Cash Collection
 
Cash Flow
 
Communications Server
 
Fixed Assets
 
PO Requisition
 
PO Tracking
 
 
Multi-Currency
Multi-Currency Module
 
 
Co-Products Manufacturing
Co-Products Manufacturing
 
 
Electronic Data Integration Tool
EDI Toolkit
 
 
Fourth Shift Transaction Interface
FSTI
 
 
Screen Customizer
Screen Customizer
 
 
Workplace Plus
Fourth Shift Workplace
 
Connectivity Toolkit
 
 
Document Management
Document Management Add-in
 
 
 

These groupings are how many companies have modules they know nothing about and probably barely use, if at all.

Modules added into suites to explore are included in the list below:
Advanced Price Book
Sales Analysis
Cash Management
General Ledger Restructure Toolkit
Repetitive Manufacturing
Shop Floor Tracking and Reporting
Manufacturing Analysis
Operations Performance Management
Approved Vendor Sourcing
.
If your company has any of these modules and employees don’t know how to use them, consider investing in training. This will take advantage of what you’ve been paying for over the years. There are many benefits that can be realized by implementing the functionality they contain – but only if it’s meaningful to the business.

For assistance with Fourth Shift training, contact your ICG sales rep! ICG’s Fourth Shift experts are knowledgeable on training users on all aspects of the platform.