Kinetic - Custom End Activity

Kinetic 2024.1.5 On Prem. Running the Kinetic forms.

I thought this was pretty simple. I created an App Studio customization on the End Labor Activity screen, saved and published. I thought the only thing I needed to do was go into Menu Maintenance, pull up PROCESS items, pulled up PR000019 (Erp.UI.EndActivityEntry.dll) and pointed it to my custom layer.

I then get log into MES, pull up a Labor Transaction and click End Activity - it doesn’t pull up the custom form. I added just a dummy button to the screen without any logic just to see if I could see the button, nothing there.

Am I missing a step?

NOTE: I am NOT customizing the main MES menu. I know that involves adding a UD Menu item to the config file. I am simply trying to apply the customization to End Labor Activity.

Run the MES in customization mode (with -MESC switch on shortcut).

Then open up the End Labor Activity screen. There should be a popup that will tell you exactly which menu item is actually being called.

If all else fails, you can also try to add an entry in Process Calling Maintenance.

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Kevin, you will need to go into MES, create a app studio layer, need to redirect button click event to open “End Activity” app and add your layer name there. Unfortunately, this is the work around for now.

You can find some help here too:
https://www.epiusers.help/t/issue-with-creating-a-drop-down-menu-in-kinetic-data-collection-using-application-studio/116702/8?u=itsme

Just now getting back into this. I’m wondering if there are issues with 2024.1.5, as it doesn’t appear to allow me to add a button to the MES (Data Collection) main screen. I had a button added for a different task in 2023.2 which upgraded. I even created a new blank layer.

Steps to duplicate:

  1. Open MES with no custom layers, go to App Studio.
  2. Create a new layer, call it Custom2.
  3. From the Toolbox, click the Button tool, drag over to anywhere in the Data Collection Menu. I tried putting a new button below the current End Activity as well as other places along all those buttons (Start Production, Start Indirect, etc). When I drop, nothing shows up on my canvas.
  4. Even something simple, like clicking the End Activity button and clicking the down arrow to move it below Part Tracker doesn’t appear to be working.

Any ideas? It’s almost as if the App Studio layer is read only.

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Not sure what’s going on. I’m rebuilding app studio layers that got corrupted, went back to this one tonight. It’s working now - so no idea what the issue was before. Assume I did some no-no somewhere.

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Shot in the dark.

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Did you click A instead of B? A is dumb and won’t let you do things.

I believe I clicked A. But A was dumb and wouldn’t let me do things. So then I clicked B.

That’s my technical answer and I’m sticking to it.

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@lindsayc got that KB handy?

KB0132464 - Steps to Deploy a Kinetic Customization to a Kinetic 2023.2 Data Collection Button

It is different depending on which version of Kinetic. 2023.2 has the option to override the original mapping to the base form. This is on the MES main form after you do the layer on the underlying application.

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Prior to the advent of Override you can just hook it to a Before event and then throw in an Exit at the end.

We just ran into an issue with the End Activity control while testing 2024.1. We are currently on 2023.2 and found that the base control we copied (and did the override on to call our layer) had changed in 2024.1 giving us an error. I had to re-create using the new Base control to get it working again.

2024.1
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2023.2
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I asked Support and not surprised that it has to be redone.

Here was my write up on this issue a few weeks ago, if it is helpful.

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I ran into this same problem with our testing. By starting over at the new base MES form, that resolve the issue. It didn’t like the new event on the new base layer with the old custom layer on top of it.

By the way, there was one step missing in the KB article under certain circumstances. For the End Activity button, the app-open widget is opening Erp.UI.EndActivityEntry and putting the layer name in the parameters worked well.

I did this same thing with the “Return Assembly/Material Request” button. In this case, the event did an app open of DEGO1050 (the menu item). Along with following the steps in the KB article to use an override, I also had to go into Menu Maintenance and add the Kinetic Customization Layer to the menu entry.

I did something similar with “Move Inventory” or “Inventory Transfer” to depending on where you are in the application.

The other thing I would note is that if there’s a larger change to the base layer then the other layers will likely need to be updated as well. We found in going from 2023.2 to 2024.1 that there was enough of a change that not all of the form customs worked as designed in 2023.2.