The more time I have had to mess around with 2024.1 in the browser the more alarmed I am about this. Is this forum post considered the formal announcement of this change? I don’t recall this information specifically being shared at insights and can’t find anything about it on epicweb at the moment. I’m hoping this can be delayed at least until 2025 to give us time to adapt, or that there are simple solutions to my concerns that I am just not thinking of.
Right now, each user can decide which screens they are comfortable with in kinetic and which ones they need to keep in classic. They control this with their user preferences. Those user preferences do not appear to exist in the browser. Meaning the options are, they use kinetic, or I force EVERYONE to use classic via the checkbox in menu maintenance. With only a few months (if that) between the end of July when we finally receive the 2024.1 update, and the as of yet unannounced release date for 2024.2, there just isn’t time to get 250+ users up to speed in the browser ux in every single screen which will leave me the choice of causing substantial disruption (everyone goes to the browser for everything all at once without adequate time to train or test) or forcing the people who have already adapted to the browser back down to classic. What a terrible choice. We had counted on having at least a years’ notice that this was coming and that it wouldn’t be coming all at once.
While yes technically the classic screens would still be available (at least where you haven’t removed the menu items for them), the experience of launching each individual classic form from the browser is . . . not like greased lightening. Its a significantly less usable experience than launching the classic screens from the client. And once you have one screen open you can’t just open another one, you have to go back to the browser and wait through the whole edge agent launching process all over again. This will severely hamper productivity and make our users very very very unhappy. I can’t emphasize this enough. Its simply not going to work.
What about MES? Our MES is heavily customized. Based on Epicor’s previous commitment to give us no less than a year’s notice before removing any classic screens, we have not even begun to tackle this yet. How will we continue to use classic MES in 2024.2?
I think this is the type of change that needs AT LEAST a years notice if not 2 and lots and lots of announcements about it. You aren’t just taking away one classic screen in a few months, you are basically taking away all of them at once. I hope its early enough that this timeline can be reconsidered. Or like I said above, that there are simple solutions to these issues that are not apparent to me.
Well I missed it. Heard plenty about the browser but not specifically that the classic login was being removed in 2024.2. Not that hearing about it a week earlier would make any difference though.
I will have to check the check box on all menu items to launch in classic. (Or make an updatable BAQ which makes me nervus doing that to the Menu table or add the RunInClassic field as a screen mode in the classic menu)
Next when I close my Browser session I have to individually close all of my open classic screens since they are left running. Classic screens are slower to load from the Browser but you can click and fire a second one with out issue. This will have may users not waiting and firing off multiple versions of the same screen until they get use to the way it works.
When I first heard about this I thought they were just getting rid of the classic and modern options, but you would still log in the way you do right now. On the one hand, people are going to be pissy about it. On the other hand, maybe it will motivate people in the company to take the eventual demise of classic screens more seriously and start focusing on transitioning to kinetic faster…
Moving too quick to kill Classic Login and forcing “Browser First” will sour users instead of motivating them to move to Kinetic UI. I understand the band aide has to come off at some point but this would be better to go live when Kinetic UI is completely at parity with Classic.
The Browser First 2024.2 fall release, unless I’m totally missing something here results in: Loading Epicor in the Browser, and if you look at the Kinetic version of Menu Maintenance it greys out all the programs under System Setup and System Management from running in classic so be ready for that. All the tools you use for BAQs, Methods Directives, Data Directives will be the Kinetic versions. Just a heads up. A menu list would be nice to be specific instead of just saying Browser First.
I heard some heavy hints that they will be announcing the classic sunset for 2026 next year at Insights. With the Browser First (2023) and Browser Only (2024), it feels like it’s right around the corner.
Great. My boss no longer wants to do any updates because he does not want to go to browser based. Looks like we’ll be stopping updates sooner rather than later.
Before I get told how great the browser is, I would like to point out the whole reason we went with Epicor was the depth that we were able to customize. Switching to browser not only means rewriting a ton of customizations, but some of them will more than likely not work with some the restrictions this will cause.
We’ve decided on a 3 part plan, because not upgrading is not an option for us.
We will port what we can that makes sense, and can be done with a reasonable amount of work, with the current tooling.
We will adapt our processes to fit more with existing functionality, and pray for expansion of what we can do, and hopefully get more in later. This should become easier as well once all the big tinkerers here and all the consulting firms get fully on board, at least we hope.
Anything we just can’t adapt to, we will do outside the system using the REST API and functions.
Plans haven’t changed from before, but this will however accelerate them.
I’m still struggling to understand how Browser First works now and how it will change in 2024.2…
Is Epicor going to change the Kinetic.exe so that the executable opens a URL and not the smart client application? I’m optimistic @klincecum will come up with a way to get around that!
Nope nope nope That is if you don’t have the edge agent installed. Once you install the edge agent the classic screen launches (slowly) FROM the browser.
Even if I could, it would only be delaying the inevitable. I think I should spend my time making sure I don’t get fired because I can’t get products made or shipped
Someone want to hold my hand while I learn App Studio?
