I have a client with a very annoying little bug that I am struggling with support to send it to dev to fix… So I am posting here to see if I can grab the OCD of any Epicor Employees and get this fixed.
The case is CS0001632677 - TO DM Lot Tracker Attachments
What the trouble is that when there IS an attachment on a Lot and either through Lot Entry or Lot Tracker, the Toolbar and Tree indicators do not show an attachment, nor is the attachment acceptable, UNLESS the user select’s the Lot Number field (and a few others). Usually the Toolbar and Tree icon indicators seem to be updated on a Sheet (tab) change, not on a field change.
This is a problem because users are checking Lot’s for an attachment and since they are not selecting the Lot Num field assume there are none and then in their process end up doing the wrong thing.
We have informed the users that they need to select the Lot number field to see the attachments, but this is confusing and causes doubts about attachments.
It is a workaround, but let’s remove the needless and confusing UI/UX friction here.
If anyone else has experienced this issue, please reply, like, mention, etc.
Thanks!
Hey Rick - This may be annoying - particularly in the Lot forms - but it is working as designed and you can see the same behavior in many other forms including Order Entry.
The Attachment Indicator and the ability to accept an attachment is based on the Table referenced by the control in focus or the last control in focus if control transfer to something other than a bound control. The indicator lights up if there are attachments on that table and attachments cannot be added if the table does not allow attachments.
In the case of the Lot Tracker form, there is a PartList table for Part Num, Class, and Type and there is a PartLot table for the other controls. PartList does not accept attachments (likely a logical / virtual table) while PartLot does. As a result, if focus is on one of the PartList table fields, the Indicator is off and attachments are not accepted.
You can see this same behavior in Sales Order Entry. If you add an attachment to a Line, you will not see the Indicator “on” when focus is on a Header or Release field. In fact, if you go to the Release Sheet and set focus to the Line field of a line that has an attachment, the Indicator will turn on. If you then tab to the next field - a Release bound field - the indicator will turn off. The same behavior as you are disliking on the Lot Tracker.
My suggestion for you / your customer is to create a Row Rule that will highlight a field (or the whole row) on the form when there is an attachment on the PartLot row. You would setup a Cross View Rule by having the Rule View on PartLot and then
Select View: AutoAttachPartLot
Select Field: Company
Rule Condition: Equals
Rule Value: Constant:Company
Rule Action - set the LotNum to be Highlighted
That rule will fire when there is at least one attachment on the PartLot table.
Except in Lot Tracker, we’re not switching tabs.
The indicator seems to be triggered by changing fields, which I have not seen that type of behavior with attachment indicators. For instance, in Job Tracker, no matter where you navigate, the Job head attachments are always visible in the tree view, no so with Lot Tracker.
(BTW - to be clear no one is wanting to add attachments in Lot Tracker, just view them.)
The Indicator is triggered by changing fields. The attachment framework looks at the Table portion of the EpiBinding on a Control and if there is a matching Attachment Table for the EpiBinding Table and there are records in the attachment table, we light-up the indicator.
On Lot Tracker the fields at the top of the form - Part Num, Description, Part Class, and Part Type - have an EpiBinding to the PartList Table: PartList.PartNum, PartList.PartDescription, PartList.ClassID, and PartList.TypeCode.
The dataset for Lot Tracker does not include a table called AutoAttachPartList so the Attachment Icon in the Toolbar will not have the attachment indicator as there are no attachments on that table.
When you tab or click into the Lot Number field, the EpiBinding is PartLot.LotNum and there is a table in the dataset called AutoAttachPartLot and if there is at least one record in that table, the Attachment Icon will have the attachment indicator visible.
You can see the exact same behavior on the Sales Order form, Release Sheet (tab). On that Sheet the Line Number field is bound to the Order Line table and there is an AutoAttach table for Order Line. The next field on the form is the Release Number and that field is bound to the Order Release table which does not have an attachment table. The attachment Icon will light up if there is an attachment on the Line when focus is on the Line Number field but will then go away when focus is placed on the Release Number field.
Maybe a simple dashboard is faster then. You can see the attachments on any lot from that. In fact, you can even deploy the dashboard, and the customize it so when you double click an attachment path, it opens the file.
We also have the same annoyance.
When we click on the Lot Number, for sure the Attachment icon is clickable but in the Tree the attachment doe not appear. 
This is different in the Lot Entry when the tree changes appearance.
Not sure how to explain this to the end users…
Thanks Jason, but my point is about base functionality and UX friction, and this is an example of something that, while it can be explained, causes confusion unnecessarily.
Rich,
Thanks, that all makes sense, but I’m not looking for an explanation nor a justification for why it behaves it way it does, those are always in abundance. Epicor Support has been explaining design and weird behaviors to me for over a decade. My concern is with intuitive and obvious behavior to the end user. It’s not about IF we can explain it, it’s more about… why do I have to explain this… anytime attachments are used with Lots. It’s just feedback on the end user experience. Like it or not, to them it looks and feels buggy.