Before creating custom reports, bartender stuff, baqs, etc. I was wondering if someone could educate me on something I’ve never understood.
One of the things I never took an extended ed class on, never seen a consultant walk through, never seen in the application guide (maybe cause I wasn’t looking for it) is how part labeling is supposed to work in Epicor through the whole mfg process.
The scenario that prompted this post is this:
We receive a tote of liquid, part number 123 with lot X.
They move 50 gallons of that part and lot to another tote.
They use 25 gallons of that second tote, sometimes they use the whole thing though.
They issue the 25 gallons back to the original tote.
Now in this example I see the need for the following labels in the respective steps:
A label for the original tote - currently printed at receipt, no problems there, pretty straightforward.
This transaction above results in a remainder tag needed for the original tote and a new tag needed for the other tote- but where do I print this if they are issuing material? Is there a tag for the remainder and for the new tote?
They use 25 gallons, now there’s 25 gallons left in the secondary tote… where’s the tag for this 25 gallons remaining?
They issue the remainder back to the original tote- how do I get the label for the tartget tote qty + the 25 gallons if they are the same lot?
I found something inside of the transaction log that you can use to “print labels” but it’s like, what labels from the scenario above? Does it take into account all of those scenarios? The remainder in the first tote, the new tote, the remainder in the new tote, the joining of new tote and old tote again in the end?
Is everyone just making their own auto print BPMs and doing their own logic given their scenarios? I just figured that it’d be built in somehow, but I’m not sure. I could easily do what’s needed to make this all happen, I’m just wondering if there’s anything already built in.
I’m really hesitant to reply because we don’t use labels properly yet either. However, we did research it, and it seemed pretty straightforward.
Receive a tote of liquid 123, lot x. Receipt Entry > Print Labels
Move 50 gal to another tote. Inventory Transfer > Print Labels (If you already did the transfer use the transaction log to print labels.)
Use 25 gal in tote 2. Quantity Adjust (Or Issue Material) > Print Labels
Issue 25 gal back to main container. Inventory Transfer (Or issue material) > Print Labels.
I think printing labels just shows the current status after you do all the issuing/transferring. Again, we haven’t implemented all this yet, but it did work in our testing.
I was hesitant to post too, just never really been told or seen what the proper process was out of the box- I’ve always hopped into companies that already had their own process and customizations and all that.
This for some reason does not work for me, what do you mean, does “print labels” pull up some prompt if you do it before the transfer vs after? I’m on 10.2.500 so I’ll try it in Kinetic in a sec, but I don’t get anything when I click this till I do the transfer and what I get after that is the “Inventory TRansfer Movement Report”
In Kinetic 2024.2 (I can test in 2026.100 too, but I’m assuming it’s the same) there is also no print until you transact, here’s a photo of inventory transfer before committing.
So yeah Nate, I did this, I had 300 gallons and transferred 50 to another bin…
When I go to the transaction log and print labels, I only can print labels for the -50 transaction and/or the positive side of it… but what about the label for the other 250 gallons in the original tote?
I just typed all of this, then goofed, so here goes again.
We use spools of metal wire - and use parts of the spools all the time. So we’re doing this same process all the time. Our conversion to Lot tracking and the Bartender startup project is what I’m doing right now to fix this process. For us, we chose a combination of Epicor’s MtlTags and our own Data Directives, Workstations, and Report styles to gain control of it all.
Report styles - we built a few Bartender styles on GenRcpt that point to the labels we want to print - barcodes during the receipts process (For ECM) and for new material labels; And on MtlTags, a modified style for the initial material labels. They allow us to have a lot of information on the tag, which is important for us.
On Parttran, we built a couple of DD’s that check for the details we’re looking for and then autoprint using the workstation’s default printer. This one is to print during the receipt transactions for ECM.
The autoprint widget has a way to specify a printer (from Kinetic Printer Maintenance), or to use the Workstation printers (that what we’re testing now) where the ELMW handhelds are selecting a workstation so they know where their transaction labels will print.
for our example, that’s pretty much it. Hope that helps.
It’ll take some creativity with the DD/Labels, but you can get the split tote labels to work too.
Thanks a ton Mike! for that partial spool that you’re putting back, are you doing some look up using LINQ to see how much remains after issuing some of it? Or is that number natively present in the RDD for the MTLtags?
Yes to everything posted so far, you typically can manually print tags for each type of transactions.
Another option is to use BPM’s on PartTran or other tables and use the Auto Print widget to print the tags to the assigned user’s workstation printer.
(See Workstations and Printer setups in Epicor)
Back in E9 or E10 there was a sort of guide to do this… it’s not that intuitive though as you have to set all the print action variables. Also I remember it being tricky with sharing the printers you need to print to properly so that the Epicor Task Agent user can access them properly. I think I ended up hosting them on the Application Server itself…
Cloud… I’ve heard of it being done, but I’ve not seen it. I think Epicor really tries to push you to BarTender for that… but SSRS can do it fine…
That’s what I’m working on next. Once we’re Lot tracking, then a quick query in PartTran for the last transaction for the lot will give us the Old qty, and thus Old qty - minus current transaction qty = new qty. Or something like that..
@Rick_Bird 's right as well. Don’t need to use BT, but we’re going to do some Non-Epicor things so we choose to go that route.
We host all of our printers on a PrintServer VM, then connect them via Epicor Printer Maintenance. and set a default printer on a one-to-one printer/workstation relationship (a workstation named for the printer), that way I can move the printer around in the building without it being tied to a specific department/function.
That’s the hard part of it all, you have the label creation process and then the way printers work in all of this and what your specific company is doing with printers… and that all may be why the guide was “not that intuitive” because it’s a lot to try and stuff in a guide @Rick_Bird.
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