EDGEBIC + Syteline Integration FAQ: 12 Questions Plants Ask First

These are the questions Syteline plants ask in the first conversation, answered without hedging: there is no certified connector, the interface is your existing exports, nothing is installed inside the ERP, and nothing you import can disturb a job already running. Each answer stands on its own, so skip to whichever one you came for.

EDGEBIC by User Solutions is a finite capacity scheduling platform that sits beside your ERP. The full walkthrough is the complete Syteline integration guide, and the field-level detail lives in the Syteline to EDGEBIC mapping reference. Because Syteline is part of the Infor family, the Infor integration FAQ covers the shared ground.

Is there a certified Syteline connector?

No, and it is a design decision rather than a gap. EDGEBIC integrates through reusable import masks that read Excel, CSV, delimited text, or a database source. You map your export's columns onto EDGEBIC's fields once and save the mask; every run after that is two clicks. The same architecture serves Syteline, SAP, Odoo, and home-grown systems identically, so there is no per-ERP connector to certify, version-match, or repair when either side upgrades. A connector is a dependency. A file is not.

Syteline includes APS. Why add EDGEBIC?

Because EDGEBIC is a second finite capacity model you fully control, without touching the planning parameters your production instance runs on. It reads the items, resources, current routings, and job orders Syteline already holds and schedules them against your real shifts, machine counts, and a sequence-dependent setup matrix, with a proven optimality gap and a multi-run layer guaranteed never worse than its baseline. The wider category comparison is on the RMDB versus Infor APS page.

Does EDGEBIC replace any part of Syteline?

No. Syteline stays the system of record for items, planning, costing, and shop transactions. EDGEBIC reads exports, builds a finite capacity schedule against real shift hours and real machine counts, and hands dates and dispatch lists back as Excel. Order entry and planning keep running exactly as they do today. The general case for that split is in why ERP needs a scheduling add-on.

Does anything get installed inside Syteline?

No. Nothing is installed, no customization enters your instance, and no interface object joins your upgrade path. The only artifacts on the Syteline side are the exports your team builds, which are ordinary reports and views run by people who already have the authorization to run them.

What exactly has to come out of Syteline?

Four exports carry a complete scheduling model, and a fifth is optional. Items (an identifier is the only mandatory column). Resources (an identifier, plus capacity detail). Current routings (end item, step name, an operation flag, and hours per unit). Open job orders (item, quantity, and a date). Optionally, labor transactions (job number, work center, date, and hours or pieces). Any report or view in your environment that saves to Excel or CSV is a valid source.

How long until the first real schedule?

Most plants see a first finite capacity schedule from their own data in the first working session, and a tuned one inside two weeks. The documented benchmark in the User Solutions lineage is the Plastilite integration: 5 days, Monday to Friday, from first export to a complete optimized schedule with dates synchronized back to the ERP. That figure belongs to that case rather than being a blanket guarantee, but the method is what repeats: export, map, import, schedule, tune.

Do we have to clean our routing data first?

No, and trying usually costs a month. Import what Syteline holds today, schedule it, and compare the dates with what your planner believes. The disagreements are your defect list and they arrive specific. Because a routing re-import wipes and recreates that item's steps, each corrected file replaces the last cleanly rather than layering on top of it.

What happens when CloudSuite Industrial is upgraded?

Nothing, in almost every case. The integration reads files rather than calling an interface, so there is no connector version to track and nothing to re-certify. If an upgrade renames a column heading in an export, you re-map that column in the mask once, which takes minutes.

Our times mix hours and minutes. Do we rebuild the routings?

No. Conversion factors are set per column, so one file can carry both. Leave a run-time column that is already hours per piece unchanged, and put 0.016667 on a setup column quoted in minutes so it divides down to hours during import. A per-100-piece time uses 0.01. The factors are saved with the mask, which makes the conversion permanent and auditable through the per-run log.

Do imported orders schedule themselves?

No, and the separation is deliberate. An import changes data; the scheduler changes the plan. Newly imported job orders appear as unscheduled demand and stay there until you run the scheduler. Before the run starts, a confirmation states the scope in plain numbers: how many jobs are new and how many existing jobs are being rescheduled. An import can therefore never silently rearrange a plant. The modes are covered in EDGEBIC scheduling modes explained.

Can an import disturb job orders already running?

No, for two independent reasons. Every scheduled job carries a frozen snapshot of the routing it was planned with, so a routing change affects future jobs and leaves work in progress alone. And recorded work is never moved by any run: an operation with an actual start and an actual end is historical fact. On top of both, imports never schedule anything.

What if someone runs the same file twice?

Nothing bad happens, on any entity type. Master data comes back Reused (matched and left untouched) unless you explicitly enabled updates. Routing imports wipe and recreate an item's steps rather than appending, so steps never accumulate. Actuals always overwrite the days a file carries, so a double import never double-counts. The import system assumes files get re-run, because in real plants they do.

What can import never bring across?

The settings that most change what a schedule looks like, because no Syteline export has a column for them. Work center groups (interchangeable machine pools re-shopped on every reschedule, with per-member efficiency factors). The sequence-dependent setup matrix that lets the optimizer sequence work to cut changeover. Operator skills and rosters. Bottleneck anchoring. Lot streaming with transfer batches. Each is configured once inside EDGEBIC and then applies to every imported order afterwards. The EDGEBIC product overview maps them.

Who runs this day to day?

The planner, in about twenty minutes each morning, without IT. Involve IT exactly once, to turn the four exports into saved reports that land in a known folder with stable names. After that the routine is export, run the saved masks, run the scheduler, publish the dispatch lists. For the same questions answered for other platforms, the Odoo and Fishbowl FAQs follow the same shape.

Still deciding?

The fastest way to settle any of this is your own export. Pull this week's open job orders and a current routing file, then bring them to a demo: mapping them live takes minutes, and you leave having watched your own plant scheduled against its own capacity.