I am not experienced when it comes to dashboards but have a general question
Can you create a dashboard that has some extra text fields per line that notes can be added to through the dashboard itself? or does that text field need to live somewhere in kinetic and be updated in that specific space?
We are trying to make a dashboard that tracks our machine ops for programming. Setting up the dashboard to gather the job entry operation codes and start dates is not a big deal but currently we have a standalone excel list to try to keep track of these which allows us to put custom notes in while we model and program parts… who is going to program them and when they are checked and complete.
My only thought is we would have to add some fields to the operation in job entry where this information could be stored. This would mean the programmers would have to go into the job operations in order to populate these fields. Would be nice if that could just be done in the dashboard itself somehow.
What do you guys think? Is there an easier method?
The real reason I want it linked to kinetic is there is less chance of our dates being wrong in excel or just simply forgetting to add a line in excel… the machine operator gets the part and is wondering where the program is… now we have to drop everything and make one so we don’t hold them up.
It sounds like you would like to add some user defined columns to the job operation table using UD column maintenance. If you do this, you could create a dashboard populated by a BAQ data view where this information could be viewed and saved.
That is the only thing I could think of to make this actually work.
The only down side is it may take a little extra time for the programmers to get in and out of the job just to check some boxes that they were easily doing in excel… We will have to make that decision I suppose.
Question…
If we make these custom fields and we pull details from this job into a new job will these fields also copy over already filled out?
If you mean you set the first job as a template and then do the Get Details from that job, no, UD fields do not copy over, you can write a BPM/Function to add this functionality but out of the box, that UD data is not copied.
Right, do the dashboard instead. Updatable BAQ. Then you have your grid like Excel again. It’s a great way to make everyone happy and force good data.
Interesting, thank you for the quick response. It might be beneficial for them to be copied over because we would know if that program has been done in the past when the details are copied to the next job.
Could these same fields be added to engineering work bench and quote engineering? We pull details from these 3 different places so it would be nice for them to share the UD fields.
I don’t think I’ve ever added fields to the Revision tables but I don’t see why you couldn’t, you would face the same limitation AFAIK though, you would need to add the functionality to copy those UD field values into the appropriate UD fields in the Job/Quote.
And yes, if you setup the UBAQ properly it can add, delete, modify data in Epicor like you would in excel.
That is a good question and I’ve not done this specific thing before so I am not 100% but I believe it may even have to be un-engineered depending on what your company settings are. Generally speaking if you can’t make the change on the Job Entry screen, the UBAQ would not be able to either, it follows the same logic & restrictions as using the entry program itself.
You could do this. Or you could put your custom fields on a UD table and link this UD table to the correct operation/job though the key fields. THe UD table columns would update regardless of if the job is released.
That can work but it will likely be multiple saves, at least once to un-engineer, one to make the UD field changes and once to re-engineer/release. I’m not an expert on this particular piece so someone may know how to do it with a single save but I believe Epicor will reject the update if you try to do it all at once.
A different option may be to store the UD fields in a UD table and update the values there instead of on the job itself then you just connect them in your reporting.
It also sounds/seems like maybe something like NestLink might be an option for you, we’ve looked at it before to bridge the gap between lasers and epicor.
Yes, but make sure that you update the UD Column Map for all of those tables (in both directions, i.e. Source: PartRev to Target: ECORev, and Source: ECORev to Target PartRev). That will handle, for example, writing from Engineering WB to the Method when you check the Rev in and writing properly to the Job from the Method when MRP/Quick Job Entry/Get Details from Method/Job creates the job, etc.
