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Infor VISUAL and XA Legacy System Risk Assessment

Running VISUAL or XA is not a problem in itself; running it without support, documentation or a recovery plan is. This assessment scores ten areas of exposure and gives a band with concrete next steps you can take to your leadership team.

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1. How current is your vendor support and maintenance arrangement?

2. How many people can fix the system if something breaks?

3. What is the state of the server hardware and operating system?

4. How heavily customised is the system?

5. How are integrations (EDI, shipping, CAD, banking) handled?

6. How do you recover from a failure?

7. How well does the system support current security expectations (patching, access control, audit)?

8. How much of the business runs on spreadsheets outside the ERP?

9. Can the system support your growth plans and customer requirements?

10. Is there an agreed roadmap for the system?

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How to use the assessment

Answer for the system as it is today, not as you would like it to be. Involve the IT person who supports it and one business owner, because their answers often differ. Export the result and keep it with your budget papers. Repeat it yearly to show a trend rather than a single snapshot.

Answer with both IT and a business owner present
Be honest on backups and restore tests
Repeat annually

What the score measures

Each question scores up to ten points across support, skills, hardware, customisation, integrations, recovery, security, spreadsheet dependency, fit for growth and planning. The final score is shown as a percentage of the maximum. It is a prompt for discussion and not a verdict on whether to replace the ERP, because a stable system with a good recovery plan can be perfectly sound.

Acting on the result

Start with the lowest scoring answers, especially recovery and key person risk, because they are cheap to improve. Then decide on the larger path: stay and stabilise, upgrade, replace, or wrap the legacy system with a modern reporting and AI layer that reads its data. Each has trade offs in cost, disruption and capability.

Fix recovery and key person risk first
Cost the options over several years
Do not wait for a failure to decide

Frequently Asked Questions

Does a low score mean we must replace the ERP?

No. A low score points to exposure, and many risks such as restore testing, documentation and cross training can be fixed without replacement. Use the score to prioritise actions before making a bigger decision.

Is the same assessment valid for VISUAL and XA?

The questions apply to both because they cover support, skills, hardware, customisation and recovery. The details differ, for example SQL Server for VISUAL and IBM i for XA, but the risk categories are the same.

Who should answer the questions?

Ideally the system administrator together with a business owner such as the plant manager or controller. IT tends to know the technical state, while the business knows the workarounds and spreadsheets.

How often should we repeat it?

Yearly is enough for most sites, and again after any major change such as staff departure, hardware change or a significant customer requirement. Compare scores over time to see whether risk is rising or falling.

If the result worries you, we can help scope the options, including a read only AI layer over the existing system that reduces dependence on individual experts.

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