Multi Company Setup

We have a multi-company setup @ my client.
They have around 10 companies.

Now my user in Purchasing, does not want to keep changing his company to view the relevant info in that company.
He needs all the info in one scr

Company Data1 Data2
123 D1 D2
456 D2 D3

I can only think of reading all the data from the various companies and dumping it into
one table with the relvant company # and then build the session to read from this table.

I know that this request is stupid and makes no sense.
I don't want to implement this solution.
But "they" need reasons why it'll be a bad idea.

I was wondering if you gurus out there could list some disadvantages.
We are on IV c3.

Please help.

Actually it is fairly simple (if you know how to write Baan SQL) to build/edit sessions/reports that will read from more than just the current company. The key is to include all companies in the program/report script select statements using <tablename>._compnr index (or other methods) to pull the information from the various companies. Hopefully they don't want every session they use edited or this would be quite a task. See if you can get away with telling them that they have to do their entry in the various companies and you can change a few key reports to pull from all companies.

thanks evertsen for your post.

they need it for 14 sessions (as of now - they started with 4).
including some maintain sessions.
i can see myself doing this for then next couple of months :(

either way it's a lot of work for something which I personally feel is trivial.

any ideas on how to convince them not to go for this?
thx

I agree that they are being overally demanding but then I'm not in purchasing :)

Ask them if the companies are going to be set up exactly the same. There may be parameter settings, supplier information, tax codes etc. that need to be different for each company and therefore require the sessions to be run independently in each company.

It also depends which sessions they are asking to have modified. Some information may need to be company specific in order to provide the proper financial integrations (you might be able to get your finance dept. on your side at this point).

Also, any customizations can slow down problem resolution especially if you need to apply a patch as you will need to recreate your custom sessions based on the patched code.

Not to mention that there is little benefit to be gained (considering the work involved). If they need to have the same information in each company just share the appropriate tables with session ttaad4120m000.

Dear BigJohn,

The multi company set up in BaanERP was of course designed for real multiple companies, i.e. group of companies where each company has their own purchasing department and so on. It's designed not to optimise inter company switching, but rather consolidation of purchasing department of each member company, for example. This makes BaanERP very secure for real multi company conditions (probably you can sell the idea of security to management). Indeed it would be tedious if same buyer have to take care the procurement of 10 companies in your set up.

Sorry I have to ask, but do you really think 10 companies set up is the best for your condition?

Rgds,
Paul