Are Epicor Widgets Broken? 🤐

[SAD (Sergey Davydkin)]

Just do not forget, that code generated now can be completely different from the code that BPM/EFx will generate in the next release.

[hkeric.wci (Haso Keric)]

I do like widgets or coding in blocks, it also lets me visualize the BPM Flow better. I do appreciate your time SAD. I am not bashing widgets; actually I want to use them. But I feel like I can’t without cluttering my flow with “hacks”.

I’ve done plenty of:

I do prefer this more:

I want to get to this:

But I always end up with pockets of Custom Code

[SAD (Sergey Davydkin)]

@hkeric.wci

BeforeImage is when you are in a POST and you do GetByID and you make a change, before you call Update or UpdateMaster and sometimes other Methods…

Thank you! Never heard about this recommendation. I never saw directives with such code. More precisely, no one sent such directives to me for review.

Just in case, modern versions (probably starting 10.2.700 or 2021.1) support BufferCopy-like stuff to clone the whole tableset.

Also, one of the things that I would like to see in BPM/EFx is clone widgets. But again - no requests mean no features :(.

[SAD (Sergey Davydkin)]

@hkeric.wci

Do you not get to think for the users anymore

Do you work with management on your features? I guess it should be clear that management doesn’t want to invest in development if no requests come.

[KevinK (Kevin Krumwiede)]

@SAD

Custom code is either hard to or even impossible to upgrade.

Because the APIs the code is using are mostly undocumented in the sense of not being published and supported. When they change, no thought is given to backward compatibility. Evolving an API in a backward compatible way is a burden, but a much smaller burden than figuring out how to upgrade code after a breaking change. The problem from Epicor’s perspective is that they didn’t design these APIs to ever be supported. Supporting them would lock them in to their current design. And supporting them doesn’t align with their marketing.

[hkeric.wci (Haso Keric)]

@SAD

Thank you! Never heard about this recommendation.

I think between some of us we can send you some examples on email. Happens here and there

Update BO Deleting PackSlip

I’m sorry did you say it Deleted a pack??? Do me a favor and pass in the BeforeImage let’s see if that helps using(var shipBO = Ice.Assemblies.ServiceRenderer.GetService<Erp.Contracts.CustShipSvcContract>(Db)) { CustShipTableset cTS = new CustShipTableset(); cTS = shipBO.GetByID(packNum); //Create Before Image var origRow = cTS.ShipHead.NewRow(); BufferCopy.Copy(cTS.ShipHead[0], origRow); cTS.ShipHead.Add(origRow); …

[SAD (Sergey Davydkin)]

@KevinK

Because the APIs the code is using are mostly undocumented in the sense of not being published and supported.

Not only. For example BPM and EFx can be moved out of proc and start working with Epicor API via REST/gRPC/etc. In such a case, widgets will work after the upgrade. Custom code… Most likely does not.

[SAD (Sergey Davydkin)]

@hkeric.wci

I think between some of us we can send you some examples on email. Happens here and there

You are welcome. It can be a good input for the analysis.

[SAD (Sergey Davydkin)]

@KevinK

Evolving an API in a backward compatible way is a burden, but a much smaller burden than figuring out how to upgrade code after a breaking change.

BPM is not about the full-fledged coding approach. It is about low-code customization. And we tries (mostly successfully) to support backward compatibility for them.
Custom code is a kind of last resort. And upgradability of them is not guarantied.

[hkeric.wci (Haso Keric)]

One last note on UpdateExt. I do know it does Multiple. But we have stumbled plenty of time with it causing a Row has been modified by another user… especially when we did alot of Service Connect. So switching to a loop and individually calling Update resolved many of those headaches.

I dont f with UpdateExt anymore I am all the way Update; lol

I do agree with you on so many things @SAD I hope that my bitching doesnt convey a negative image. I will try to make some Idea submissions and let them get evaluated.

As a full time Epicor developer; sometimes I feel like only Kinetic gets loved and everything else became second class citizen

I will for sure put the Set Field RowMod idea in

Also is there any plans to stop people from joining ttTable to DbTable.

Off to day job.

[hkeric.wci (Haso Keric)]

@SAD

Custom code is a kind of last resort. And upgradability of them is not guarantied.

I saw that when we switched from 10.1 to 10.2 EF4 to EF6… had to rework a bunch of queries especially ones that used conversion helpers.

[KevinK (Kevin Krumwiede)]

I’ve actually never had custom code break after an upgrade. It would probably break if Epicor ever cleaned up their BO APIs in preparation for documenting and supporting them. I still wish they would…

[TomAlexander]

One more thought. While we are sitting here debating whether code or widgets are theoretically / inherently better, at the end of the day it comes down to execution. A well crafted chain of widgets is better than garbage code. And well written clean code is better than a nightmarish impossible to follow chain of dozens of widgets doing things like joining Db tables to in-memory tables…

[SAD (Sergey Davydkin)]

@hkeric.wci

One last note on UpdateExt. I do know it does Multiple. But we have stumbled plenty of time with it causing a Row has been modified by another user…

Agree. Moreover in some cases UpdateExt in magnitude slower than a few Update calls :(.

@hkeric.wci

especially when we did alot of Service Connect.

Wow. You are one of the quite small team of SC users! Funny, it is another product where I participated in the original design

@hkeric.wci

As a full time Epicor developer; sometimes I feel like only Kinetic gets loved and everything else became second class citizen

Sorry, it is a bar’s talk thing…

[SAD (Sergey Davydkin)]

@KevinK

I’ve actually never had custom code break after an upgrade.

You are lucky. As you can see even in this thread others had such issues.

[hkeric.wci (Haso Keric)]

@SAD

You are one of the quite small team of SC users! Funny, it is another product where I participated in the original design

Wow!
Honestly I like SC. Not even sure why the push for the very expensive Jitterbit. I dig SC its not bad. We’ve done over 30 complex workflows.

Innovation

Last Year: Centralized Engineering in Epicor with Parts, Revisions, ECOGroups being managed at Global Company. Then Local Companies who have the Part Linked get Synced and there are options to manually Pull Revisions down (Sync Down). It was a long year long effort to hash out bugs and honor PartPlant settings among other things. If a ECO Group had Parents or Children (Materials, Phantoms, Sub Assemblies etc) it would also bring them down, with the Revisions, Link them among other things… Mul…

[hkeric.wci (Haso Keric)]

@TomAlexander

One more thought. While we are sitting here debating whether code or widgets are theoretically

I have the next 2 days off for Holiday. I dont have a life, I can debate all day long. Plus im too broke to do anything outside of my front yard

[SAD (Sergey Davydkin)]

@hkeric.wci

Not even sure why the push for the very expensive Jitterbit.

Yet another theme for bar’s talk :(.
The main reason - SC technically and technology obsoleted already.

[hkeric.wci (Haso Keric)]

@JasonMcD

Right, and that’s not a trivial distinction. I mean, a tech ref guide to BPM custom coding would be great

This is the main way I learn.

Are your BPM Sources Missing?

[BPM Sources] If you are like me, you benefit from the Server\BPM\Sources folder. You can use it to learn how Epicor generates code when using Widgets You can keep track of revisions to your BPM (until an upgrade) You can keep track when someone changed a BPM (until an upgrade) You can easily grep them and find all BPMs you are using certain column [image] You would be able to find generated sources and a wealth of code samples here for: Method Directives BPM Data Directives Updatable B…

Followed by using dotPeek, dnSpy, Reflector or owning the SDK for a wealth of code examples.

Not sure how folks on SaaS do it

[SAD (Sergey Davydkin)]

@Are your BPM Sources Missing?

If you are like me, you benefit from the Server\BPM\Sources folder. You can use it to learn how Epicor generates code when using Widgets You can keep track of revisions to your BPM (until an upgrade)

Need to comment aboves. Starting with 2021.2, BPM stops dumping generated sources by default.
You can either enable it on per-method (MD)/per-table (DD) base. Or enable old behavior with customizationSettings section of web.config. Documentation describes both ways.

Also, if BPM compilation fails, then BPM dumps sources independently from other settings.