Management Event

Here you go

Business process monitoring was introduced in Acumatica ERP 2018 R1. By using the Business Events (SM302050) form, users can configure the system to monitor company data and to perform an action or multiple actions in the system based on the record change or on the schedule. These actions might include sending an email notification or performing the instructions defined by an import scenario.

Configuring business events may be a challenge for even advanced Acumatica ERP administrators. In this article, you will find various tips, tricks, and resources related to the configuration of business events.

Generic inquiry requirements

Business events use generic inquiries that define the data for the system to monitor. Most of the errors and other problems associated with business events can be solved if you follow the rules below when you are choosing or creating a generic inquiry to be used:

1. Do not use substitute forms (that is, generic inquiries that substitute data entry forms) as generic inquires for business events. We recommend that you create a simplified generic inquiry instead. The use of substitute forms for business events can affect the performance of the application for all users.
2. Include only the required tables and fields in the generic inquiry. Avoid joins if possible, especially multiple joins. If no fields of a table are used on the Results Grid  tab of the Generic Inquiry (SM208000) form, you probably don't need this table in the generic inquiry.
3. Do not use generic inquiries that have grouping specified on the Grouping tab of the Generic Inquiry form. These generic inquires are not supported by business events.
4. On the Results Grid tab, do not forget to add key fields of all tables used in the generic inquiry.
5. On the Results Grid  tab, delete fields highlighted with the A Data Field with the name <FieldName> cannot be found warning.
6. If you plan to send push notifications to users of the Acumatica mobile application, make sure that the generic inquiry includes the NoteID data field for the entity that you plan to display when a user taps a notification on the mobile device.
7. If the generic inquiry contains custom fields, make sure these fields are added to a custom data access class (DAC) or a DAC extension in a customization.
8. If a business event needs to be triggered by the changes made in Acumatica Self-Service Portal the related generic inquiry must be added to the Self-Service Portal site map. If the related generic inquiry is used as an entry point, then the entry point form should be added to the Self-Service Portal site map. In Acumatica Self-Service Portal forms are added to the site map on the Portal Map (SM200521) form.

Troubleshooting

You may need to apply the following troubleshooting tips when business events are not working as expected:

• Note that changing of calculated fields does not trigger business events.
• If a business event is triggered on a schedule and the schedule does not work, try to restart the application on the Apply Updates (SM203510) form.
• If a business event doesn't work, the cause can be another business event that has failed earlier and hasn't been deleted from the system. To resolve the issue, open the Process Push Notifications (SM502000) form, find the recent business events that have not been triggered, and delete them. 
  This is a known issue for all builds earlier than Acumatica ERP 2019 R1 Update 6 (19.106.0020). For more information, see the AC-136002 issue in Release Notes.

Known Issues

The following known issues have been identified related to business events:

• Known issue: If the screen used for the automation schedule was deleted, it could prevent executing other automation schedules configured in the system, affecting the following builds of Acumatica ERP:
  • 2020 R1 Update 15 (20.115.0039) and earlier
  • 2020 R2 Update 9 (20.209.0027) and earlier
  • 2021 R1 Update 1 (21.101.0047) and earlier
• Known issue: Actions that triggered push notifications or business events could result in performance issues, affecting the following builds of Acumatica ERP:
  • 2019 R1 Update 18 (19.118.0026) and Update 19 (19.119.0011)
  • 2019 R2 Update 11 (19.211.0011)
• If an attribute was added to an entity and then used in a generic inquiry, the business event configured to trigger on the attribute change could fail to trigger.
  To work around this issue, use user-defined fields instead of attributes. For more information, see the AC-168700 issue on the Known Issues page for the Acumatica ERP version, in which you encountered the problem.
• A business event was not triggered by a record change if the Location table was used in a generic inquiry.
  This issue was fixed in Acumatica ERP 2019 R1 Update 6. For more information, see the AC-132393 issue in Release Notes.
• A business event was not triggered by a record change if the changes were made by another business event. 
  This issue is a known issue for all builds earlier than Acumatica ERP 2018 R2 Update 9 (18.209.0021). For more information, see the AC-126812 issue in Release Notes.
• A business event was not triggered if the fields used in the event were used in the conditions of the linked generic inquiry. 
  This issue is a known issue for all builds earlier than Acumatica ERP 2019 R1 Update 5 (19.105.0032). For more information, see the AC-134946 issue in Release Notes.
• When a user sets up a business event notification to create and send a new email after an event is triggered, the exchange integration did not process the email because it had been created with an empty Owner box. 
  To work around this issue, create an additional business event to be able to specify a default owner for an email activity without an owner. For more information, see the AC-125269 issue on the Known Issues page for the Acumatica ERP version, in which you encountered the problem.

Integration scenarios as Subscribers

When you change the source generic inquiry in an inactive business event that uses an integration scenario as a subscriber, remember to update the import or export scenario accordingly. To remind you about this, the system generates the following warning: The screen ID in the data provider of the selected import scenarios differs from the screen ID in this business event.

To resolve the warning, do the following:

1. Open the import or export scenario to see which data provider the scenario uses.
2. On the Data Providers (SM206015) form, update this provider by specifying the new screen ID on the Parameters tab.
3. On the Schema tab, update provider mapping by clicking Fill Schema Objects and Fill Schema Fields for both the Results object and the PreviousResults object. 
   The list of fields that are used by the corresponding import or export scenario are updated.  
4. Review the scenario and remove the fields highlighted with the This field doesn't exist warning.
5. Open the business event and verify that the warning about the data provider has disappeared.

For more information on configuring subscribers, see Subscribers of Business Events in the Help.

Additional resources

For an example of report mailing triggered by a business event, see the How to configure Additional Remittance report mailing using business events article.

For more information on monitoring and managing events, see Monitoring and Managing Events in the Help.

For a short tutorial and explanation of business events in Acumatica, see Technical Tuesday: How to Use Business Events in Acumatica to Automate Processes in the Acumatica blog.

For a demo video that shows how to send notifications from Acumatica ERP to a mobile phone, see Mobile Notifications and Business Events on the Acumatica YouTube channel.

Best regards, Irina