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
Thanks so much @Freeman Helmuth!
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
Hello posters and followers on this thread. I would like to learn more about this topic. Please comment on the thread here, if you would like to explore this topic with me. - Dana
@Dana Moffat Are there any particular questions you have?
Hi @Freeman Helmuth , i would like you to walk me through what you did to get this working the way that you wanted. From what i’m understanding from the thread, you had to code and then customize? I would like to set up a one-on-one meeting and have you be my tour guide.
The fact that you’re having to customize would indicate a product need. I would like to confirm that and am hoping that you can do a show and tell with me. - Dana
@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 @rosenjon ,
Thank you for replying to the post and providing feedback that can help us to improve. And your idea about bringing the development team to visit customer sites and walk through a warehouse is something that we are doing. These in-person experiences are valuable to seeing and understanding how our end-users work day to day with our product and provide lessons and feedback that helps the team build better product.
If you’re willing, we could reach out to you for a one-on-one interview to do a deeper dive. - Dana
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
Hi @donnadeskins55 ,
Let’s have a one-on-one meeting. Can i please send you proposed meeting date/times so that we may discuss and hear your feedback? -Dana
Hi @donnadeskins55 -
In the mobile app, I can issue a purchase receipt from a purchase order, and then have it be in Hold status for someone else to release (or you can create a purchase receipt from scratch).
Are you saying that you want the warehouse user to be able to receive the inventory immediately, and then have someone else review the purchase receipt and release that at a later time (perhaps after everything is inspected for accuracy)?
I wonder if you are not running into the opposite of my problem before, where I would create a purchase receipt in the mobile app and a separate inventory receipt would have to be created in order for on hand inventory to increase (the solution was to check a box that ties those things together).
It seems that maybe you DO want to be able to issue an inventory receipt prior to the purchase receipt being released, so that the inventory shows on hand immediately, and the purchase receipt can be received later. Have you given this a try? It doesn’t seem like the auto-generated Inventory Receipt that is created with my workflow is tied to the Purchase Receipt in any obvious way, so it seems like you should be able to add to the inventory prior to formalizing the Purchase Receipt transaction. There is the issue of the Inventory Receipt not auto-populating from the Purchase Order if it is done outside the Purchase Receipt workflow; however, it seems like this can probably be managed with a customization.
Thanks,
Jonathan
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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
-
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
@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.
Hello @rosenjon ,
I believe what you are describing here can be handled as standard now.
- Create a Sales Order of type TR - Transfer (Performed by office staff).
- Create a Shipment (Picking document to leave Warehouse A, managed in WMS Pick, Pack, Ship).
- Create a Purchase Transfer Receipt (No automated way of doing this as far as I know but you could do so with a business event).
- When the goods arrive at Warehouse B, the Receive and Put Away WMS screen can be used the Transfer Receipt.
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.
@donnadeskins55 Could the receiving warehouse do Step #3, where the Purchase Transfer Receipt is created in desktop and then warehouse staff would receive and putaway into the warehouse location(s), Step#4?
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 @donnadeskins55, we’ve chatted before, virtually, about another topic. I just sent you a meeting invite with some proposed date/times for a deeper dive. - Dana
Hi Dana, looking forward to talking with you about this :)
@donnadeskins55 ,
Regarding paperless workflow, you could do the following:
- As described in step #3 above, when the Transfer receipt is created, add a reference to the Shipment Transfer in a description field, or a text description (needs additional custom field).
- Modify the Purchase Receipt on the mobile app to display the added custom field. This can be searched by the Goods-In person either by description (if no paperwork) or reference to the Shipment Transfer, which is on the paperwork.
- Note, you can add an Action to the Purchase Receipts screen to open ‘Receive and Put away’ from the app, which takes the user directly to the WMS screen (customisation required)
Best of luck
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?
@phillipmarotta and other posters on this thread.
You mention both the SO transfer number and the shipment number. Wanting to get a sense from posters on this thread if one or both of these is required.
Thanks,
-Dana
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.
I just wanted to touch base on this. We have a lot of people looking to get a 2 step transfer for overstock, but cannot do it on WMS.
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.