2-step Transfer receipt, can't complete in mobile app 2021R1?

You’ll need to map the SmartPanel on the mobile site map. See this article for details on how to do that.

https://help.acumatica.com/Help?ScreenId=ShowWiki&pageid=e238d9b9-2d0c-4335-b74c-e64054c1bdda

I’m needing this exact function as well and am in the process of creating the MSDL code. I’ll post it here when I’m done

See this community post for the code on how to add the SmartPanel to the mobile app for transfers. I’ve removed quite a few fields that we don’t use. Customize the code to your taste.

Unable to upload attachment on Purchase Receipts mobile screen | Community (acumatica.com)

Here’s the bare minimum code you’ll need for this functionality. Note that this adds both the “Add PO” action and the “Add Transfer” action.

update screen PO302000 {
  update container "DocumentSummary" {
    add recordAction "AddPOOrder" {
          displayName = "Select Purchase Order(s)"
          behavior = Void
          redirect = True
          redirectToContainer = "AddPurchaseOrder$List"
      }    
    add recordAction "AddTransfer" {
          displayName = "Select Transfer Order(s)"
          behavior = Void
          redirect = True
          redirectToContainer = "AddTransferOrder$List"
      }
  }
   update container "Details" {
  add container "AddPurchaseOrder" {
        visible = False
        fieldsToShow = 6
        listActionsToExpand = 2
        formActionsToExpand = 3
        containerActionsToExpand = 2   
        type = SelectionActionList

        add field "OrderNbr"
        add field "Description" {
            weight = 2
            }
        add field "Status"
        add field "NoteText" {
            weight = 2
            }   
        add field "Date"

        add listAction "AddPOOrder2" {
        displayName = "Add & Close"
        behavior = Void
        after = close
        }
    }

  add container "AddTransferOrder" {
        visible = False
        fieldsToShow = 6
        listActionsToExpand = 2
        formActionsToExpand = 3
        containerActionsToExpand = 2   
        type = SelectionActionList

        add field "ShipmentNbr"
        add field "Description" {
            weight = 2
            }
        add field "FromWarehouse"
        add field "OrderNbr"    
        add field "Date"

        add listAction "AddTransfer2" {
        displayName = "Add & Close"
        behavior = Void
        after = close
        }
    }
}

You’ll need to paste this into a customization project and then publish that project. See this section of the help wiki on working with the mobile app:

https://help.acumatica.com/Help?ScreenId=ShowWiki&pageid=5dacbf34-ac82-41b4-b498-839c173f587c

@Dana Moffat  Are there any particular questions you have?

@Dana Moffat I’ve been doing a lot of work with your mobile app and inventory purchases/receipts/moves, etc.

One obvious hole I see here is the inability to execute a transfer like this from the WMS part of your mobile app. I think the much more common scenario is that someone in the office (read: not the warehouse) decides that an inventory transfer should occur from one branch to another, and then the warehouse is tasked with executing that transfer. So the screen that is being referenced above probably doesn’t need to be in the mobile app in most cases. What does need to be in the mobile app is the ability to execute that transfer, by selecting the appropriate inventory, scanning it onto a truck or other appropriate method of transportation, and then receiving it at the destination warehouse. There should also be appropriate APIs/webhooks/integration points for a third-party WMS to accomplish the same.

I made this comment in another thread, but I will repeat it here. Acumatica would do well to have their developers get some experience in a real warehouse operation. It will do wonders for their understanding of how real warehouses work, and the necessity for clear, understandable and most of all simple processes for accomplishing most warehouse tasks. Warehouse workers are often wearing gloves, riding arond in forklifts, and managing other tasks. It is important that WMS functions be easy to understand, with big buttons and text. You should have mandatory field trips for anyone working on a warehouse management software tool at your company.

Hi @Dana Moffat,

I have found another purchase/receiving shortcoming with the mobile app that I opened a case for and received an extremely poor workaround with no indication that it was being looked into.

A user cannot perform a purchase receipt transaction in WMS and just save it in the mobile app for someone else to review and release it. This means that the person on the receiving dock must enter the receipt and release it before inventory will show on hand.

I’m happy to talk about both of these situations and the frustration it has caused my customers.

Thank you,

Donna 

Absolutely

Hi @Dana Moffat -

That is good that you are giving the developers some exposure to real life warehouse environments. My suggestions with regards to your WMS product are the following:

1. Performance matters. The mobile app is currently laggy when switching between screens, and the way label printing is currently configured basically guarantees you will have non-optimal performance. The number one way to guarantee no one uses your product is to make it too slow to use on a day-to-day basis. With warehouse operations, time is money, and no one wants to be waiting for a screen to load, especially if they might have to perform that same task 1000 times per day. It is easy to underappreciate how different this is from the desktop paradigm. With desktop, some lag between screens is acceptable, because you may not be switching screens all that much (the salesperson is probably hanging out in the quote screen all day). But especially with a small screen mobile device, warehouse workers almost by definition are task switching all day, every day.
2. Less is more with WMS workflows. The current screen layouts in your WMS have repetitive options “Receive and Put Away”, “Scan and Receive”, “Scan and Transfer”. For more “manual” workflows like “Scan and Receive” and “Scan and Transfer”, the system asks you for inane information like which warehouse you’re currently in, and which location you’re at. Having played with your app quite a bit now, I now understand that “Pick, Pack and Ship” and “Receive and Put Away” are proper mobile workflows, where as Scan and Issue, Scan and Receive, etc, are basically just mobile views of their desktop parent screen. Most people, however, will look at those manual screens and just be confused, and perhaps write off your product altogether. You should focus on clarity and simplicity, and lack of duplication in workflows. Someone should be able to look at your product for 10 seconds and immediately know what to do if they want to transfer a product to a different location, for example. Right now, they will probably load the “Scan and Transfer” option, after which it will ask them to enter what warehouse they are in, which makes no sense. If you want to transfer inventory, a system usually asks you as the first question “What inventory item(s) do you want to transfer?”….in most cases, it should already know what warehouse you’re in based on the thing you’re trying to transfer and proper defaulting in the app.
3. Optionally allow the rollup of inventory attributes into a single identifier. In our warehouse, we call this in an I-tag. It is a single identifier that ties back to the original purchase receipt. Let’s say that you receive 3 bundles of product id MYPROD. Each bundle has a different lot number for that inventory. In your current system, in order to identify that inventory, you have to scan the item id, the location and the serial number every time you want to do anything with each bundle. That is a repetitive stress injury waiting to happen (and its error prone). If you have a single identifier per bundle, all you have to do is scan that identifier and you know the product id, the lot, the location, any other attributes of the item, etc.
4. Document the platform more extensively. I got into a 20+ post thread to figure out how to add a “Print” button to the mobile inventory lookup screen. Spoiler alert, it’s rocket science:

   Acumatica has a great opportunity to make an extensible WMS platform, which basically doesn’t exist in the market today. But it will help your platform grow if you can focus on the most common use cases and make those things easy to do.

5. Consider open sourcing the native Android app container. Acumatica’s strength is in it’s open platform; it is the main reason I am interested in the solution. If you open source the mobile app container, you can encourage end to end development on the mobile side that will greatly accelerate its progress. This will make it easier for customers to produce their own custom enterprise apps (https://www.android.com/enterprise/), but update them when there are changes to the Acumatica base source code. I can’t think of a single competitor that is doing this, so this another oppportunity to be a market leader.

I could rant on for days. Happy to talk in person if you think that would be helpful.

Thanks,

Jonathan

Hi @Colin MacMillan , 

My issue with the steps you’ve outlined above is #3 where the Purchase Transfer Receipt has to be created in the ERP system and cannot be created in the mobile app by the receiving warehouse.

I’ve considered using a business event to automatically create it, but the receiving warehouse wouldn’t know what the receipt number was or would have to search through a list of transfer receipts (or emails if there was a notification that it was created), with a risk of potentially selecting the wrong transfer to receive.

Ideally, the receiving warehouse would be able to create the purchase transfer receipt in the mobile app when the shipment hits their dock, just as a regular purchase receipt is done.

Hi @Dana Moffat 

They could, but it sort of defeats the purpose of using the mobile device.

Customers want to be able to meet the truck on the receiving dock and do an immediate receipt of goods. Many distributors and manufacturer don’t have desktop computers anywhere close to receiving docks so they would have to pull the packing list from the shipment to determine what they received and go to wherever the computer is to create the purchase transfer receipts. 

Hi Dana, looking forward to talking with you about this :)

Client on 2022 R1,

Warehouse can scan the PO number and it will create the PO Receipt using Mobile.  It would make sense to scan the SO Transfer number and have the system create the PO Transfer Receipt.  I tried both the SO transfer number and shipment number; both errors; so my guess this functionality is not ready yet.    Is this on the radar?

Hi Dana,

I think either number would work. For my customers, they print a packing list with both the shipment and SO transfer number on them (barcoded) and it’s sent with the shipment.

When a Transfer Purchase Receipt is created, either of those numbers can be used for lookup to add the transfer to the receipt.

The WMS application needs to allow warehouse users the ability to search for transfer numbers and key in what was received from the app along with using the scan gun for SKUs with barcodes and serial numbers.