Can't have multiple tabs in the browser open at once

[spencer (Spencer Horelik)]

Hi everyone! This is half venting and half asking if other people have this issue. We already, have an open problem too, PRB0285492.

So this issue is consistent across various places in Epicor Kinetic in the browser like Customer Shipment, Quote, Order, and maybe more.

As an example, I will be on the Customer Shipment landing page where I will open a tab for shipment 1160 which will load fine, and then open another tab for shipment 1200. The shipment 1200 will open fine, but then change the 1160 tab to 1200. So, then both tabs are on the same shipment screen. It does not allow multiple tabs to be open for different locations. In my original or the 1st tab I will go home and go back to the Customer Shipment screen but it will skip or bypass the landing page and take me to a random Shipment I did not have open.

Is it a thing to request a Problem be escalated or at least planned for an upcoming release? Our entire company basically can only use 1 tab at a time which is very, very inefficient.

[jwphillips (Jonathan Phillips)]

In your example, are you opening using the context menu?

If so, that is the expected behavior - the tabs are linked.

I’m not sure how to open several from the landing page - other than to use duplicate tab and navigate directly.

[spencer (Spencer Horelik)]

Oh!

Epicor did not mention this. Is it also expected behavior then to have it skip the landing page if you have an open page in a different tab? Since they are linked like you mentioned in some way

[matt-s]

Seems like once this bug is triggered no matter how many tabs you open if you attempt to enter the same module, it will send you back into the same record. The only way to get out of this loop is to kill your session. Additionally, in the tab that was opened by right clicking a record > launch tracker/entry module, if you click the link in the top left to get back to the tracker/entry list, none of the records load anymore.

This part of the URL looks like it gets ‘stored’ to redirect you back to the record if you choose to go back into the same module after visiting the home screen.

&pageId=Details&pageChanged=true&KeyFields.QuoteNum=103116

I deleted everything after and including “&Keyfields” just to test it, and it turns out this is not a good idea, because now it changes that QuoteNum it has ‘stored’ to 0, and every single tab I had the quote entry screen open, changed to say “record not found. add new?” because I guess it was trying to create quotenum 0.

[jwphillips (Jonathan Phillips)]

I see that it’s buggy when opening several - and especially when opening from the target application’s own landing page…
It’s a feature that’s a hold-over from E10 - I don’t think you could have more than one instance of an application open at the same time. So instead the apps would then be linked, so you could move down a list of Customer Shipments in a BAQ or some other application and it would automatically advance to the next inside Customer Shipment Entry.
Now that multiple tabs are possible and reasonable … they’re going to have to rethink this feature

I know my users are interested in keeping the feature (particularly to open Part Tracker from Sales Orders … Part Tracker displays the Part of whatever line they have selected on the Order) … but maybe that will change as they use the browser more

[aosemwengie1 (Alisa Osemwengie)]

I am not seeing what you are talking about. Yes if you click to open it FROM something else, then it will continue to change records when you change your selection elsewhere - its supposed to do that. If you don’t want to do that go back to your home page and hold down shift while opening the same menu item again from the menu or just >open in new tab. That gives you a fresh unlinked tab of the same program.

[klincecum (Kevin Lincecum)]

Yep. Sounds like one of those things that translated poorly from client based to the web.

I’d argue that default publish / subscribe behavior was a poor design decision from the start in the client as well. Turns the whole thing into a giant dashboard. As an optional behavior… I like the idea, but not by default.

[aosemwengie1 (Alisa Osemwengie)]

@klincecum

I’d argue that default publish / subscribe behavior was a poor design decision from the start in the client as well.

Well, when kinetic originally did NOT have this feature, it was a deal breaker for many users. I think its a fantastic feature for certain types of tasks. And it IS optional, if you don’t want it linked, then don’t use open with.

[klincecum (Kevin Lincecum)]

@aosemwengie1

fantastic feature for certain types of tasks

Absolutely agree

@aosemwengie1

And it IS optional, if you don’t want it linked, then don’t use open with

I guess you and I have a different understanding of optional. Having a way to avoid a default behavior is not what I would call optional. That’s called a workaround.

Off by default with a way to trigger, or controlled by settings/preferences is what I would call optional.

[aosemwengie1 (Alisa Osemwengie)]

@klincecum

I guess you and I have a different understanding of optional. Having a way to avoid a default behavior is not what I would call optional. That’s called a workaround.

I feel an idea forming . .

[spencer (Spencer Horelik)]

I didn’t think this would make such a lively discussion!

So, it sounds like some of you are saying this is expected behavior while Epicor accepted my bug and it is not expected behavior or at least not expected for opening random quotes and shipments I did not choose. Me, personally if I right-click on something in a browser I expect the option to open it in a new tab and not change the behavior on my other open tabs.

But it sounds like I’ll need to tell Sales to duplicate the tabs for the different landing pages as many times as they need to open unique Quotes? Or at least for the time being?

@aosemwengie1

I feel an idea forming . .

I’ll start drafting one

[aosemwengie1 (Alisa Osemwengie)]

@spencer

Epicor accepted my bug

Sorry if I missed it somewhere in this thread - did you say what the PRB number is? Just curious how they wrote it up.

[spencer (Spencer Horelik)]

@spencer

We already, have an open problem too, PRB0285492.

It was in my original post at the top. The problem is PRB0285492

[jwphillips (Jonathan Phillips)]

@spencer

if I right-click on something in a browser I expect the option to open it in a new tab and not change the behavior on my other open tabs

A browser-first application should definitely behave like you say.

Epicor just has decades of desktop client background and it’s going to take some time to burn that out of them - and it’ll take time for user expectations to change.
I’m curious how they will fix this bug … make it work as expected without goofing up other tabs? or abandon the linked tabs feature? something else?

[aosemwengie1 (Alisa Osemwengie)]

Oh I see, I can reproduce it now if I follow the exact steps. I totally misunderstood what you were saying.

-Navigate to Sales Management> Customer Relationship Management> General Operations> Opportunity Quote Entry (KINETIC UI)
-From the landing page right click in any existing Quote Number and open Quote Entry.
-A new tab on the browser will open showing that quote record.
-Go back to the first tab, and click the home icon to go to Epicor’s main menu.
-Navigate to Quote Entry again.
BUG: The landing page will immediately launch a random Quote Record.

I have to say though, this is just weird. Once you get to the quote landing page, why are you right clicking to open a quote? Why not just click the link and open the quote?

[JennL (Jenn Lisser)]

I typically use right-click on the menu option and “Open in New Tab”. That might be a possible workaround for you.

[HLalumiere (Hugo Lalumiere)]

It’s something Epicor would have to correct… Link tags need to have a “target” property set to “_blank” to open in a new tab.

<a href="/bleh" target="_blank">Click here!</a>

They could also just add a little bit of script (or maybe you can inject the script with a browser extension) to make all local links open in new tabs:

jQuery(document.links)
    .filter(function() { return this.hostname != window.location.hostname; })
    .attr('target', '_blank');  

Also in most browsers clicking a link with the middle mouse button (or the wheel) opens it in a new tab.

EDIT: Re-reading the original post I might have misread the situation, sorry…

[spencer (Spencer Horelik)]

@aosemwengie1

Once you get to the quote landing page, why are you right clicking to open a quote? Why not just click the link and open the quote?

Our sales team works on multiple quotes updating and changing stuff throughout the day and that’s during the non-busy period. We could have a hundred Orders move through our Sales team in a single day so being able to just keep the landing page open all day and then open what they want as needed.

@JennL

I typically use right-click on the menu option and “Open in New Tab”. That might be a possible workaround for you.

Yup, I’ll offer your workaround. The other way I was thinking of offering them to use is to duplicate the tab for the landing page and not right-clicking on the Quote itself.

[josecgomez]

@aosemwengie1

-A new tab on the browser will open showing that quote record.
-Go back to the first tab, and click the home icon to go to Epicor’s main menu.
-Navigate to Quote Entry again.

This is akin to classic and if the implementation matches classic you can hold down Ctrl when you click and it will “break” the Publish and Subscribe.

I can’t test it at the moment but can someone try it? Hold Ctrl Down as you Click on the QUote Entry Context Menu.

[spencer (Spencer Horelik)]

I think this worked, thank you! I personally would prefer the right-click to break that link and Ctrl to have it linked. Maybe I’m alone on that island though

Can someone else test to make sure I’m not crazy?