We have come to the conclusion that if the date in the “Expiration Date” field on the Supplier Price List has past, Epicor uses 0 for the lead time. This in turn messes up our scheduling for purchasing (New PO Suggestions) and gives an order date that’s the same date as the due date. It really does make sense, since the price list has technically expired, however we don’t want the system to ignore the lead time field. We’d rather leave it open for the moment so suggestions still runs as we expect.
My quick thought was to export the entries from the VendPart database that do not have NULL values for the Expiration Date, remove the date and DMT back in. However, I can’t figure out how to DMT in a NULL value for a date. Has anyone done this before and knows what I should be putting for the value? Or have a quick alternative to what I’m trying to do?
I believe I have workarounds if this isn’t a thing that can be done, but figured I’d ask before I go trekking down another path that might take more time.
This is fascinating because I skimmed over many years of DMT files I archived, and I don’t know if I have ever blanked out a date in DMT before! I must have, but I guess it’s very rare.
More often than not I’d rather have a bogus date (like 2035) than a blank one. MRP and time phase do not like blank dates.
Same - never ran into an issue like this before, but hey - this is how you learn! One of my alternatives was a bogus date, which I don’t 100% like but it’s at least a solution.
Worst case scenario is exporting those filtered entries, deleting them through DMT and re-adding them without the expiration date column (this is how we originally implemented).
I just ran a test on JobHead.ReqDueDate. Left the field blank in DMT. It blanked out the date no problem. Make sure there is nothing else getting in the way. In my case, I had to unrelease the job before I could set the Reqdate = blank. Make sure to set DMT to Update only. Here is my DMT file:
I have left it blank - it’s not working (or I’m doing something wrong).
This is my DMT (just one part to test):
It runs into 0 errors, but it’s not getting rid of the Expiration Date in the table. I’m using the “Supplier Price List” in DMT - maybe I’ve got the wrong one?
I know I can go into Supplier Price List through Epicor and delete it manually - it changes it to NULL in the database. So I know it’s possible, I just can’t seem to DMT it…
DMT and REST both automatically dispose null or empty string entries rather than treating them as a valid intended value.
Super annoying when it’s a required field, that’ll state-trap things. But if you ask support about one of those they’ll almost always give you a datafix right away named something like AnnoyingBugFixOUTDATEDDONOTUSE - Copy(14) NewVersion2013-02-26 - Copy(37).df.
