Custom workflow automation templates vs standard templates in logistics management: flexibility, maintenance, and upgrade impact

SCM Infor SCM
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1

We’re debating whether to build custom workflow automation templates or stick with Infor’s standard templates for our logistics management processes. Our operations have some unique requirements around multi-modal transportation routing and carrier selection that don’t quite fit the out-of-box workflows.

Custom templates would give us the flexibility we need for our specific business rules, but I’m concerned about the maintenance effort long-term and whether custom templates will survive version upgrades. Standard templates are easier to maintain and guaranteed upgrade compatibility, but we’d need workarounds for our edge cases.

What’s been the community’s experience with template customization? Is the flexibility worth the maintenance overhead?

2

Having managed logistics workflow templates across multiple Infor SCM implementations, I can provide a comprehensive perspective on all three decision factors you’re weighing.

Template Flexibility - Making the Right Choice:

The flexibility question isn’t binary - there’s a spectrum of customization approaches:

Level 1 - Configuration Only: Use standard templates with parameter configuration (routing rules, carrier priorities, cost algorithms). This covers about 75% of business requirements with zero custom code.

Level 2 - Template Extension: Inherit from standard templates and override specific decision points or add custom validation steps. This handles another 20% of requirements while maintaining upgrade path.

Level 3 - Custom Templates: Build from scratch when your processes are fundamentally different from standard logistics workflows. Only about 5% of organizations truly need this.

For your multi-modal transportation routing, you likely need Level 2. The carrier selection logic can be a custom extension that plugs into the standard route optimization template. This gives you the flexibility to implement your unique business rules without abandoning the supported template framework.

Maintenance Effort - The Hidden Costs:

Maintenance effort scales dramatically with customization level:

Standard Templates:

  • Annual maintenance: 2-5 hours per template for configuration review
  • Upgrade effort: Minimal, usually automatic with release notes review
  • Staff requirements: Business analysts can manage
  • Long-term cost: Very low

Extended Templates:

  • Annual maintenance: 10-20 hours per template for extension review and optimization
  • Upgrade effort: Moderate, test extensions against new base template (1-2 days per major upgrade)
  • Staff requirements: Technical resources familiar with workflow framework
  • Long-term cost: Manageable, scales with number of extensions

Fully Custom Templates:

  • Annual maintenance: 40-80 hours per template for bug fixes, optimization, and enhancement requests
  • Upgrade effort: High, complete regression testing required (1-2 weeks per major upgrade)
  • Staff requirements: Dedicated development team with deep Infor workflow expertise
  • Long-term cost: Substantial, often exceeds original development cost over 3-5 years

The maintenance burden compounds when you have multiple custom templates because they often interact, creating complex dependency testing requirements.

Upgrade Compatibility - The Critical Factor:

This is where many organizations underestimate the impact:

Standard Templates:

  • Upgrade compatibility: 100% guaranteed by Infor
  • Breaking changes: None, Infor maintains backward compatibility
  • Post-upgrade testing: Functional validation only (1-2 days)
  • Risk level: Minimal

Extended Templates:

  • Upgrade compatibility: 85-90% maintained
  • Breaking changes: Rare, usually limited to extension interface changes
  • Post-upgrade testing: Extension integration testing required (3-5 days)
  • Risk level: Low to moderate, depends on extension complexity
  • Mitigation: Infor provides extension migration guides for major releases

Fully Custom Templates:

  • Upgrade compatibility: Not guaranteed, varies widely
  • Breaking changes: Common, especially in workflow engine internals
  • Post-upgrade testing: Complete end-to-end regression testing (2-4 weeks)
  • Risk level: High, some upgrades may require template rewrites
  • Mitigation: Requires sandbox environment and extensive pre-upgrade testing

Real example from IS-2023.1 to IS-2023.2 upgrade: Organizations with standard templates completed upgrades in 2-3 weeks. Those with extended templates needed 4-6 weeks. Organizations with fully custom templates took 3-4 months, with some deferring the upgrade entirely due to complexity.

My Recommendation for Your Situation:

Based on your multi-modal transportation routing and carrier selection requirements:

  1. Start with Infor’s standard logistics workflow templates as the foundation
  2. Identify the 2-3 specific decision points where your business rules differ (likely route optimization algorithm and carrier ranking logic)
  3. Implement these as template extensions using Infor’s extension framework
  4. Keep 90% of the workflow standard - shipment creation, documentation, tracking, exceptions, etc.
  5. Document your extensions thoroughly with clear business justification

This approach gives you the template flexibility you need for competitive differentiation while keeping maintenance effort reasonable and upgrade compatibility high. You’ll spend about 20% more time on upgrades compared to pure standard templates, but 60% less than fully custom templates.

The key insight: Flexibility should be surgical, not wholesale. Customize only the parts that truly differentiate your business, and leverage standard templates for everything else.

3

Extended templates have much better upgrade compatibility because the base template gets updated by Infor while your extensions remain isolated. The upgrade process applies changes to the parent template automatically, and only your custom extension points need review. However, you still need to test that your extensions work with the updated base template. It’s not zero maintenance, but it’s 70% less effort than maintaining fully custom templates.

4

There’s a middle ground that people often miss - extending standard templates rather than replacing them completely. Infor’s template framework allows you to inherit from standard templates and override only the specific steps you need to customize. This gives you template flexibility while maintaining the core structure that Infor supports through upgrades. Your multi-modal routing logic could be a custom extension point while the rest of the workflow remains standard. This approach significantly reduces maintenance effort compared to fully custom templates.

5

I always recommend starting with standard templates and only customizing when absolutely necessary. Infor’s standard logistics templates cover 80% of common scenarios, and the maintenance burden of custom templates is real. Every upgrade requires regression testing of your custom workflows, and you lose the benefit of Infor’s continuous template improvements. That said, if your multi-modal routing is truly unique and core to your competitive advantage, custom may be justified.

6

We went heavy on customization three years ago and regretted it. The initial flexibility was great - our workflows matched our processes perfectly. But when we upgraded from IS-2022.1 to IS-2023.2, we spent four months fixing broken custom templates. The upgrade compatibility issue is not theoretical - it’s a real cost in time and resources. Now we’re gradually migrating back to standard templates with configuration-based customization instead of code-level changes.