We have scenarios where the same Operation is used for both Internal & Subcontract. Our operations have been setup and used this way for the past 5 years since we went to E10 and in Vantage prior.
We recently noticed Epicor has changed the Operation dropdowns in some Kinetic menus (e.g. Quote Entry, Job Entry, Eng Workbench) to enforce the values displayed based on the Operation Maintenance > Subcontract Operation checkbox.
This change puts us in a dilemma and I am trying to understand the impacts if we continue to use the same operations for both Internal & Subcontract. To date we have not run into any issue. Any thoughts would be appreciated!
I’m curious how you got that to work, as they weren’t compatible as far as I know. Since the setup is different, I thought you had to make sure to pick the right one. That’s why they added the filter, we asked for it.
I agree with @Banderson… they really were not compatible concepts. You cannot report labor against a sub-contract, and if it was marked as an internal operation, the system would not create a PO Suggestion. It was deemed as a bug that you could choose the wrong type. In fact. before this was fixed, many times I would recommend that Engineering use a Prefix on the operation description to help them know which was which.
My suggestion is to create special subcontractor operations
@Banderson…All of our Operations are setup with the “Subcontract Operation” unchecked. Then when an operation is added to a Quote, BOM, Job - the operation is added as either an internal Operation or a Subcontract Operation.
Well, I’ll be damned. Not saying I didn’t believe you… but I didn’t believe you so I tried it, by adding a subcontract operation and picking a normal operation. Seems like adding the operation then all the way through generate suggestions and po creation works fine. I distinctly remember this causing problems somewhere though, and since I haven’t run all of the things that relate to the operation I’m still not going to rule that out, but I just don’t remember where, and don’t have time at the moment to run the full test.
Using the same OpCode for internal and subcontracting would cause bloody hell with our reports. I’m also surprised it work(ed) for you guys for so long.
@timshuwy your suggestion would be simple if we were just starting out. We have years worth of data to consider. BAQs used for reporting, BOMs and Jobs that would need to updated, etc. Our jobs remain open for a long time. If we change operations now our history will not match. Copying a Job would pull in the old operations and require updates. And who knows what we haven’t considered yet as we are still researching the impact.
We have not had issue entering labor or creating PO Suggestions since the operations are created correctly when added to the applicable Quote, BOM, Job.
@Patrick…Epicor has already magically changed the Operation drop down on Kinetic Quote Entry, Job Entry, Eng Workbench menus with no warning! Fortunately, we still have the classic menus and we were not dead in the water and this is just a drop down filter and not major code (or at least from what I seen so far). We discovered this change when our users could not add Subcontract operations as there were no values in the Kinetic drop down.
True! Anytime you change the way you process data it can cause a break in continuity. The best way to deal with this is to let the current jobs that are setup incorrectly phase out and close naturally. Use DMT to make edits to the operations on the part masters. That way, when you make new jobs/quotes they will already be setup with subcontract ops. While this process is not quick or easy, it is totally doable. I think it would be better to get your part masters correct as soon as possible to avoid prolonging the break in continuity.
The Epicor Idea is still in “Gauging Interest” and has been open for 2 years. There is no indication in this Idea that it was approved. I would have expected to see this on an Upgrade Change List…unless I missed it.
so, yes… this idea was out there for quite a while, and garnered a bunch of votes. Upon looking at it, we agreed that this was the original intent of how the software should have worked, and it does cause challenges when misused.
We turned it into a STORY as part of the UI/UX enhancement EPIC for Kinetic 2023.2, and it was delivered as part of 2023.2.
I just marked it as delivered (I am a little behind on updating delivered ideas).
I don’t remember specifically, but it has to do with reporting quantity vs receiving a PO and if they aren’t the right type is doesn’t work, or when saving it says they aren’t compatible or something like that. It’s been a long time since I’ve tried it because I’ve known they weren’t compatible for a long time.
Maybe they’ve changed something and now it works differently but I didn’t know and operated under the assumption that it doesn’t. I don’t know.
so I tried it, by adding a subcontract operation and picking a normal operation. Seems like adding the operation then all the way through generate suggestions and po creation works fine. I distinctly remember this causing problems somewhere though, and since I haven’t run all of the things that relate to the operation I’m still not going to rule that out, but I just don’t remember where, and don’t have time at the moment to run the full test.