Epicor University Goes Kinetic

https://players.brightcove.net/5502556969001/default_default/index.html?videoId=5968108967001

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Will ya look at this beauty! Love seeing kinetic sneaking into unexpected places! Now if only lowly customers could get a hold of itā€¦ #AskingForAFriend #IHaveTheSDK @Edge @Bart_Elia :slight_smile:

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A big improvement on the previous versionā€¦

The search is really slick.

Iā€™ll get right to work on breaking it :stuck_out_tongue:

Person @Chris_Conn = new Person();
@Chris_Conn.PersonType = PersonTypes.WIR;

public static class PersonTypes
{
  public const string WIR = "WreckItRalph";
}
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I dunno if that class accurately describes me. I am more dynamic and almost always return null.

letā€™s sum it up to the forever ā€œbrokenā€ DIV by Zero error

And Iā€™m so full of it, I often times get an overflow.

So not an Overloaded Method?

Iā€™m a consultant so the overloaded is implied :stuck_out_tongue:

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Maybe off topic a bit but is there any information on how this is all going to work in the application or where itā€™s going to show up? Iā€™m excited to see it but just curious to know, down the road, what it will take to convert, if necessary, our current form customizations. Are all the customization tools changing too?

I think we all have the same questions. All the more reason to give it to @josecgomez first! So he can teach everyone else here! haha!

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You share our concerns on the roadmap. Anything of this magnitude is not done without massively review that kind of impact. To be honest, we donā€™t have a specific answer which is why we are silent.

I have gone through ā€¦ ?9? overhaul the company / flagship product across several companies and the pattern is always the same so I am not giving away any company or competitive secrets here. If a company / partner is not doing this, Iā€™d be concerned about your selection of company to build upon :wink:

You try a few ā€˜spikesā€™ of research into approaches. Those give you ideas and feedback on where to go next. Each effort reviews impact and you go a different direction or determine how to mitigate issues. When enough parts are wired together to identify the effort to go a direction, then itā€™s full production to analyze efforts, dependencies and resources to get the work done. You need to staff roles and educate them on the new tech. You need marketing, support, education, consulting all ramped up as well.

I could use that paragraph to describe my first project our of Uni in 1987 or the current Kinetic efforts. The big thing about how the industry works now versus 30 years ago is the openness. Look at the difference between how Apple historically shared nothing and ambushes the world with a new offering and MSFT, Google, etc work in an open source world. Iā€™d say Epicor is straying towards the openness approach as most of the industry is doing.

The Good? It gives everyone lead time to start thinking about impact. The devs and consultants can start learning typescript, javascript, angular is they want to peek under the covers.
The Bad? Why isnā€™t it here yet! I donā€™t think we (or anyone) will be as bad as the Windows Longhorn / Vista debacle that took forever to get to market but that is always a concern for folks before over sharing. Itā€™s always difficult to be patient while waiting for whatever. Kinetic or the v6 Ranger I want that Ford is not bringing out in 2019 :wink:

It seems like there will always be that little kid in all of us being impatient for Christmas to unwrap a package from Santa and see what you have to play with. But we are not kids and this is serious planning to be concerned with around our future. We respect that and will share as we can provide valid and valuable information.

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I hope you guys continue down this path - it would be great if there was an ecosystem of open source integrations and customization for Epicor. I think many of us work on things that other Epicor users would have use for, but there is no easy way to collaborate or share right now.

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If I would hazard a guess, there is also the issue of current partner relationships. Itā€™s like the auto companies would like to sell directly but theyā€™ve got this dealer network that brought them to the danceā€¦ I mean, why pay to be a certified partner if any Jose, Josh, or Conn man can have the same access? :thinking:

However, it would be nice if there was a place in-between partners and end users like the Microsoft Insider program. Increasing the surface area to enthusiastic users would give Epicor a lot of early feedback with all the protections of ā€œthis is not a productā€ warnings.

I can see why Epicor wants to wait. They spent a lot of time separating out the UI, repository, and business logic. It would be very easy for users to break this model by putting business logic into the UI because they know JavaScript. And they have to think hybrid. The solution needs to work in the cloud and on-prem. In this way theyā€™d be building a platform more like Microsoftā€™s than SalesForce. Also, itā€™s good to ā€œfail fastā€ than to get too far down the road with a product nobody wants or one that canā€™t pivot to new technologies. I have to say that Epicor has navigated itself quite well through some really big changes throughout the years ā€“ and this wasnā€™t by accident. So give credit where credit is due.

But we :wink:wouldnā€™t mind helpingā€¦