Kinetic 2021.1 First Look

It’s an entirely different architecture. Microsoft is moving away from WinForms (not abandoning it though!) because they want native cross-platform capability in a single code-base. Epicor is rewriting/has rewritten every single form in Angular for the Kinetic UI.

WCF is dead though. Everything will be https (REST) [and MAYBE gRPC] for communicating with the server.

As an Epicor Dev, we need to get back to basics. Separating the UI from the business logic. Epicor is providing App Studio which does most of the simple UI changes. Business logic will go into Epicor Functions. This is a good place to start: Kinetic Resources (epicweb)

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Thank you for this!

I see in some of the FAQs that C# custom coding will not be supported. So does that mean all my dashboards with extensive customizations in C# will break? I expected to have to redesign the layout for the kinetic forms. Now it sounds like I have to rebuild my dashboards from the ground up.

I have not seen what the new Dashboards look like. Yes, those C# customizations will not transfer over. Sorry. There’s been several discussions on the list (like this one: Planning for the Browser-based world, Kinetic - ERP 10) as a warning to others about putting too much effort into C# customizations.

It’s a good time to distill requirements again to make sure you have what the users need (outcomes - not specific solutions) and see how to translate that into the new world.

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Dumb question … on that Kinetic Resources (epicweb) page, the term “UX” is thrown around a lot.

Does that stand for “User eXperience”?

If so, why the new term? Did someone in Marketing feel the need to jazz up “UI” ??

edit

Never mind …

UX vs UI

UX Design vs UI Design - What's The Difference? (2023) - YouTube

Been around a long (Internet) time.

From the Kinetic What’s New 2021.1 PreRelease pdf on page 17:

Edit: Found the link - Log in to EpiCare, then go to Products > Epicor Cloud ERP > Documentation:

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The server code is still in C# and most of the code that you are using to do things (when you use the BO’s anyways) is very similar in BPM/Function land. So a lot of that code that you wrote for client side C# shouldn’t be too bad to convert to BPM’s or functions. You’ll be able to call functions from the customization with events (like button clicks), so it really isn’t that different. Mostly a different way of thinking. Right now, you make an event and it called a method that you wrote. In kinetic, you’ll make an event and it will call a server side function. We’ve asked many times to be able to fire a BPM with a button, this will basically be that.

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Are panel cards always full screen width? Can I make them half width and have two panel cards next to each other?

I do not know that yet. Layout stuff if going to be all new, that’s one of the things that won’t be preserved. It’s the logic that you can reuse.

You can put cards in a grid (I don’t remember the terminology)

But yes you have the ability to have something occupy only half of the screen.

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Running from CLIENT vs from BROWSER… some people don’t know how… here is how:

  1. when you run from CLIENT, you will see a web address at the top of your kinetic menu such as:
https://my.epicorsite.net/abc001
  1. COPY this value and paste in into your web browser but add /home to the end. This takes you to the web native version.
https://my.epicorsite.net/abc001/home

Note that the first time you launch a program, it may take a little longer to cache things, but the second time will be very fast.
Also, in the Pilot and test accounts, you may not be able to run the old client programs from a browser because you may not have purchased the EWA license for Pilot (I think that is what you need).
Below are some screenshots for illustration:

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And as a bonus, it looks like your password manager (LastPass I’d guess), will remember your login info for you.

image

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And as a bigger bonus, if you use Azure Active Directory, you don’t have to remember another username and password. Or a password at all if configured. Also, since Epicor would be a registered application, and if you use Microsoft’s Endpoint security, you get all the features (MFA, impossible travel, passwordless, …) that you can’t get with username/password.

Your :cloud: message of the day. I’ve been slacking. (Or Teaming? :thinking: )

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:100:

Yup… lastpass remembers the login and password.

All I see there is a my pilot server “https://centralusdtpilot01.epicorsaas.com/SaaS512Pilot”. Which gives a 403 error.

ok, you need to add “/home” to the end of that address. https://centralusdtpilot01.epicorsaas.com/SaaS512Pilot/home

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AhHA! That did the trick! Thanks!

I remember seeing somewhere that the SSRS report builder will change with Kinetic. Is that true? Will it come with a new report editor, or do I need to download a new one? I am still using SQL Server 2012 Report Builder 3.0

Kinetic 2021 still uses SSRS so no changes here.

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