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Friday, December 19, 2014

Tutorial: Auto-Complete functionality on form controls


I guess all of you are familiar with the Auto-Complete feature present in Dynamics AX. Whenever you type in a repeated value in a control on AX forms, an automatic suggestion pops up next to the entered characters and the user can choose to accept the suggestion (for example, by tabbing out of the control).
There are methods on the form (specifically, the FormRun class) that provide you with a more tight control over the auto-completion list available to the user, and this blog post will describe the behavior of these methods, as there are a few not obvious things there.

Method signature Method behavior description
getAutoCompleteString(int _elementIndex) Retrieve the auto-complete string saved under the specified index in the auto-completion list of the form.
The indexing is not control-specific, and is not very efficient at keeping the number of values in the list low, so you will see values from multiple controls here.

The method returns a container containing 2 values:
- the auto-completion string value
- the index of this string in the auto-completion list
getAutoCompleteString(int _startIndex, FormControl _control, str _searchStr) Retrieve the auto-complete string for the specified control, finding the first one in the list starting from the specified startIndex + 1.

If _searchStr is also specified, it will find the first matching entry in the list with index > startIndex. This is the closest behavior to what happens when a user types in a certain character in the entry control on the form and the kernel needs to search and populate the auto-complete value for it.

Note: There’s a small bug in this function, where it does not return the full string value for longer texts. A workaround is to use the above “overload” and retrieve the full value by index.
setAutoCompleteString(string _string, anytype _control) The first argument is clear, and that is the auto-completion string to add to the list of suggestions.

The second argument is presented as _control, but can accept either an instance of a FormControl, or an integer value of the list item index to set.

If the _string already exists in the auto-completion list for this control, nothing will happen. If it does not exist, a new item will be added to the list (number of items cannot exceed 300) with the next available index.
setAutoCompleteString(string _string, anytype _index) The auto-completion list item at index _index will be updated in the list with the specified _string value.

This method “overload” basically allows you to override a particular value in the list with a new value.
delAutoCompleteString() Deletes all auto-completion items from the list, regardless of which control they are bound to, if any.
delAutoCompleteString(anytype _index) Deletes the item with the specified index from the auto-completion list.
delAutoCompleteString(anytype _control) Deletes all auto-completion items for the specified control from the list.

When a value in one of the controls on the form is modified, this value is also automatically added to the auto-completion list. With the above methods, however, you can control, if this value should actually stay there, or be immediately removed.
This way you can, for example, restrict the user to only be provided with auto-completion hints from a certain list (similar to IntelliSense).

I created a simple form to demonstrate all the above methods in action.

Tutorial auto-complete capabilities form
Tutorial form to demo auto-completion capabilities

You can download the form from my OneDrive.


Apart from the above methods, there is also a global setting which allows you to control auto-completion list availability for a particular user. This is control on the User options screen, as highlighted in the below image:

Autocomplete in User options
User options form


If this check box is not set, auto-completion suggestions will not be shown to the user when entering data on forms, even though the auto-completion list is still maintained behind the scenes.

Wednesday, December 03, 2014

Tip: Connecting the Warehouse management device portal to a different company or partition in Dynamics AX

As a follow up to my blog post about fixing an annoying error with the warehouse mobile device portal (see original post here), I got a number of people asking the following question:
"How do I install/configure the mobile portal to work in more than one company/partition?"
This is possible, and relatively easy, even though it might not be the most intuitive thing to do. Here's a quick walk-through of allowing work users to access another company account portal.

The Warehouse mobile device portal (WMDP) as of today only supports connecting to a single company account in a single partition. This is driven by the Active directory account used as the identity for the IIS application pool that is used to run the WMDP.

Which means that in order to access another company, we need to:

  • Create another Active directory account
  • Install another instance of the WMDP
    • Use a different port number than the ones already installed
    • Use the above AD user as the identity for the app pool
  • Add a user in AX for the above Active directory account
    • Do it in the partition you want to connect to
    • Set the default company to the one you want to connect to
    • Don't forget to assign the correct security role
    • Hint: You can also set the default user language, which will impact the WMDP site as well
  • Create all the necessary Warehouse management data in the new partition/company. That includes the Display settings, Warehouse workers and mobile device users, warehouses, etc.

Note, that you should avoid having the same AD user (used for WMDP) be part of multiple partitions. Only the first partition (alphabetically) will be connected to, but it becomes confusing for people looking at the data.


Once these steps are complete, you should be able to use the new link (with the new port) to connect to the mobile device portal and log in as a work user from the new company account.

Monday, October 13, 2014

Tutorial: High level overview of entity statuses in the new Warehouse management solution

I’ve seen a number of questions on the community and yammer groups asking about the statuses for Loads, Work, etc, where people were not sure what that means. I dug up this document with a brief description of all the possible statuses for Loads, shipments, Waves and Work in the new solution.
Hope you guys find it helpful, as I did at some point.
Load
  • Open: Load has been created, but no other warehousing processes have been executed on the load. Some or all load lines are not part of a shipment.
  • Posted: Load has been released to warehouse; related load lines have been assigned to shipments. These shipments may or may not be on a wave. If on a wave, the wave has not been executed.
  • Waved: Shipments tied to the load have been assigned to a wave, and the wave was executed. Any work that was created through the waving process has not been started.
  • In Process: Work tied to the load has started being executed, but does not meet the qualifications for an “In Packing” or “Loaded” status (see below).
  • In Packing: Work has been created for the entire quantity of load lines. All work has been put down to the manual pack station.
  • Loaded: Work has been created for the entire quantity of load lines. If not using a packing flow, all work has been put to a final shipping “baydoor” location. If using packing, all containers have been closed (All quantity tied to the load is picked against the appropriate sales/transfer orders).
  • Shipped: Load has been ship confirmed.
  • Received: For inbound loads, product receipt has been run for all quantity tied to the load.
Shipment (similar to load)
  • Open: Shipment has been created, but no other warehousing processes have been executed on the shipment.
  • Waved: Shipment has been assigned to a wave, and the wave has been executed. Any work that was created through the waving process has not been started.
  • In Process: Work tied to the shipment has started being executed, but does not meet the qualifications for an “In Packing” or “Loaded” status (see below).
  • In Packing: Work has been created for the entire quantity of load lines associated with shipment. All work has been put down to the manual pack station.
  • Loaded: Work has been created for the entire quantity of load lines associated with shipment. If not using a packing flow, all work has been put to a “baydoor” location. If using packing, all containers have been closed (All quantity tied to the load is picked against the appropriate sales/transfer orders).
  • Shipped: Shipment has been ship confirmed.
  • Received: For inbound shipments, product receipt has been run for all quantity tied to the shipment.
Wave
  • Created: Wave has been created. The wave may or may not have shipments assigned to it, but it has not yet been executed.
  • Executing: The wave is in the process of being executed. (Useful status for long running waves)
  • Held: The wave has finished executing, but has yet to be released. Any work that was created during the execution process is frozen, preventing it from being started until the wave is released.
  • Released: Wave has been released. Any work tied to the wave is unfrozen and able to be executed.
  • Picked: All work tied to a wave has been completed.
Work (Applies to both work header records and work detail lines)
  • Open: Work or work line has been created, but not started by a worker.
  • In Process: Worker has started work or work line, but not completed either.
  • Pending Review: Specific to cycle count work header only. Occurs when worker counts incorrect quantity or dimensions, but does not have the rights to automatically adjust inventory.
  • Skipped: Applies to work lines only. Status is applied for non-mandatory work lines when 'Skip non-mandatory work' option is used for a selected load/shipment.
  • Closed: Work or work line has been completed.
  • Cancelled: Work or work line has been cancelled.
  • Combined: Applies to work header only. Occurs when executing the “Pick & Pack” RF flow which combines multiple work units into a single one.

Monday, September 22, 2014

Tutorial: Update product receipts for loads and how to handle items missing from ASN

In my post about the ability of receiving a mixed pallet through the License plate receiving method on the mobile device, I mentioned that once the receiving and put away is complete, the next step would be to update the product receipt document. With that, the purchase order status is updated to Received and all relevant GL postings are done.

Posting a product receipt for a load can be done from two places in the new warehouse management module:
  • For a selected load, whether that is from the All loads list page, Load details or from the Load planning workbench. This will execute the posting right away
  • For 1 or more loads, running as a batch job in the background, using the periodic operation "Update product receipts"
The actual business flow is more or less the same regardless of where you launch the update from, and I am going to describe it below, also doing a small demonstration of the forms and data that are relevant.

One thing that I specifically want to call out in this blog post is a piece of functionality related to receiving ASN documents, namely the receiving exceptions for items missing from ASN.

Preparation

So, i guess it's clear that the first step for us to look into the product receipt process is to get a load created and corresponding work created/executed for it. This is described in my post about importing an ASN and using License plate receiving to register their arrival and complete the put-away, so I will start here by just briefly listing the data I am going to work with in this demo:
  • A load with 2 purchase orders on it, with shipping carrier specified as JB Hunt:
    • PO #1 with 1 line for item 000148_202, qty = 2 PL (150 ea), WH = 42
    • PO #2 with 1 line for item 000147_202, qty = 1 PL (100 ea), WH = 42
  • A packing structure for this load (based on ASN received from the vendor)
    • 1 pallet with License plate LP2POs006
      • 75 ea of 000148_202
      • 100 ea of 000147_202
    • 1 pallet with License plate LPMissASN001
      • 75 ea of 000148_202
  • Work is created and executed for LP2POs006 through License plate receiving
    • LPMissASN001 has not been received, as it did not actually arrive on the truck.
What the last line essentially means is that the vendor planned to and believes he sent us the entire order (thus it is in the ASN document), but in reality, one of the pallets is missing. So somebody needs to get notified about this exceptional situation and act on it, ensuring we do not get billed for the missing goods.

In order to showcase the receiving exception related to items missing from load as compared to the ASN I have also specified the corresponding work exception code in the Warehouse management parameters, as shown below:

Flow description

Warehouse management parameters

The "Update product receipts" menu item is located under Warehouse management \ Periodic, and opens into a dialog, where you can select the loads you want to post product receipts for. The criteria could be, for example, the shipping carrier bringing in the loads. If you know that "JB Hunt" delivers before lunch, we can try posting product receipts for their deliveries at, say, 2 pm.

Note

The batch job flow is per my understanding going to be used more often, so this is what I am going to describe in this post. Manual posting is pretty much identical, with 1 difference mentioned below.


Once you confirm the processing, the job will be added to the queue on the batch server, and will be executed based on the recurrence you have selected on the Batch tab page.
For this demo I have not enabled it to run in the batch, so the execution happens right away.

Here's an attempt at capturing what is going to happen with the selected loads when you schedule the product receipt update for them:

  • Loop through all the selected loads
  • If Load has not yet been Received
    • check if the load has been ship confirmed, or the state of the related route (TMS functionality) if a load is part of a route. If it is not confirmed
      • ship confirm the load and all related loads that need to be confirmed at the same time (because they are on the same route)
        • if at least one of these loads cannot be ship confirmed, none of the loads will be confirmed. A number of things are checked here, but they are part of the transportation management flow, which is not the focus of this post, so I will omit describing them
      • As a result, the status of the load changes to Shipped 
    • check the document status of the purchase orders related to the load
      • if the purchase order is not confirmed, confirm it.
    • This entire step is executed within 1 transaction, while the below steps are part of another transaction. So if you for example cancel the actual product receipt, your loads would stay ship confirmed.
  • Loop through the load lines
    • Compare the load line to the related ASN item lines, finding discrepancies between the "planned" receiving quantity on the load line and the quantity work was actually created for based on the ASN packing structure. To rephrase, we compare, how much we ask the vendor to deliver in the selected load and how much he actually delivered.
      • If a discrepancy is found, create a receiving work exception with exception code selected in Warehouse management parameters \ Code for missing items from ASN
Note: We currently do not record the actual quantity discrepancies, just that there was a difference, as well as the load and order line information
    • For each purchase order linked, prepare the order for posting product receipt. All load lines will be posted as part of 1 large update, so if multiple orders exist they will be posted in 1 go, with the same ParmId.
      • Actually post the product receipt for all relevant orders. 
        • Display the Posting product receipt dialog. Note the product receipt IDs are generated as _#, so you should be able to later identify all product receipt documents posted for a load based on such a condition (if you do not override the number with the actual vendor IDs)
        • Select to update only the Registered quantity, as that is what we have received according to the warehouse
        • As a result, the status of corresponding purchase orders is updated to Received, or stays Open if some of the quantity was not received in full. 
      • Update the load, removing load lines that were not received at all and decreasing quantity on those that were only received partially.
  • Update load status to Received
    • Update status of all shipments that are part of the load to Received

Manual posting difference

When posting the product receipt manually, the button to post is actually disabled until the purchase orders in the load are all in Confirmed status.

Demonstration

Navigate to Warehouse management \ Periodic \ Update product receipts, and configure the criteria for updating all loads delivered by JB Hunt that have not been Received yet. 

Update product receipt selection criteria


When you confirm the update, the above flow is going to execute, confirming the inbound shipment and displaying the product receipt posting dialog with both purchases shown. Notice the product receipt numbers assigned, and that only the registered quantity is updated. Confirm the processing.

Product receipt posting dialog


Once the update is complete, we can go back and check on the load. As you can see, the Load Status has changed to Received, and the quantity on the first load line has been decreased to match what we actually received.

Received load information


At the same time a receiving work exception has been logged in the system, pointing to a discrepancy of type "Missing item from ASN", as shown below:

Work exceptions log


If you now take a look at the purchase orders from the All Purchase orders list page, you will see that one of them was fully updated and thus has a status of Received, while the other is still Open and has an expected delivery for the quantity that was missing from the ASN. We'll now need to contact the vendor/carrier and figure out what went wrong with this shipment.

Youtube video walkthrough

As an experiment, I have also recorded the above flow in a screen cast and uploaded it to my Youtube channel. Take a look and let me know what you think. Is that helpful at all? (I take any kind of feedback very well :))

Summary

This post was trying to address two main goals:
  • Explain and demonstrate, what happens behind the scenes when posting a product receipt for loads
  • Show, how you can set up a receiving exception, that will allow more easily tracking cases where something went wrong and we did not get the goods we were supposed to.
I hope it's more clear now and you'll be able to use AX to the full extent when it comes to inbound ASNs.

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Tutorial: Generating shipping labels using the GS1 SSCC-18 barcode format

As a follow up to my previous post about printing labels using the new WHS solution, I wanted to describe an extra feature that is available out of the box in the new Warehouse management solution and allows to generate the license plate shipping label in the format of an 18-digit serial shipping container code (SSCC), which is "used by many companies to identify a logistics unit, which can be any combination of trade items packaged together for storage and/or transport purposes; for example, a case, a pallet or parcel.", as quoted from GS1.

Here is an example of an SSCC-18 barcode (description of each of its components is provided here):

Configuring the SSCC in Dynamics AX

Let's take each part of the code above and see where we set it up in Dynamics AX:


  • Application Identifier for SSCC is always 00 and is therefore also hard-coded in the X++ code
  • Extension Digit in AX is used to specify the type of the logistics unit - pallet, case, etc. This is set up in the Unit sequence groups by specifying a digit 1-9 in the field License plate packing type, and is during work execution retrieved based on the item being processed. If no item is specified, Extension Digit will be set to 0.

Note

There is currently no validation implemented for this field, meaning you can type in any integer. Typing in a value that is more than 1 digit will obviously compromise your SSCC integrity

Here is how I have set up my Unit sequence group "Ea PL" for this demonstration:


  • GS1 company prefix is set up in the Warehouse management parameters and thus will be unique per company in Dynamics AX.

Note

There is currently no validation implemented for this field, meaning you can type in any string with a length of 8 or less characters. The requirement is of course that you only type in numerical data. Note also that according to the standard, the company prefix can be as large as 10 digits, which is not supported in AX right now, but is rather easy to customize if necessary.

Here is how I have set up the GS1 company prefix for this demonstration:


  • Serial reference is currently only set up to be generated based on a number sequence for License plate IDs. Many people request that the Container ID (used as part of manual packing or containerization flows) is used instead, but that's as of right now not possible and requires a customization. 

Note

There is currently no validation implemented to ensure the length of the generated number is within the required 6-9 digits, or that the generated string actually only consists of digits. It is therefore your responsibility to ensure the corresponding number sequence segments are set up correctly, ensuring that the combined length of GS1 company prefix and generated license plate ID is always 16 digits.

Here is how I have set up the License Plate ID number sequence for this demonstration:


  • The check digit is calculated automatically based on the generated ID and appended as the last symbol. No extra setup is required for this.

Mobile device menu item configuration

In order for all of the above to work, we need to make sure that the license plate is generated automatically by selecting the "Generate LP" check-box on the corresponding mobile device menu item.

Here is how I have set up the menu item for executing sales picking work for this demonstration:



OK, that's pretty much it. Now every time that a new target license plate is generated as part of picking sales orders, it will be in the format of a serial shipping container code. All you need to do is actually configure the work template to print the license plates, as shown in the above-mentioned post about printing labels.

The same will apply not only to sales picking work, but to many other types of mobile device flows, which as part of the flow generate a new license plate, both inbound and outbound.

Actual demonstration

To start off, I have configured the work template for sales orders to include an additional step to print the label, as shown on the screenshot below:


Next, I created a new sales order for 75 ea of item 000148_202, where a unit conversion is set up so that 1 PL = 75 ea. The order line is to be dispatched from warehouse 42, as shown below:


I reserve the line (you need to ensure there is sufficient on-hand inventory available for item 000148_202, and it is in a location, which is part of your location directives setup for Sales order picking), and release the order to warehouse, which, in turn, based on my wave template, creates a new wave and processes it, resulting in the creation of picking work that is shown on the image below:


As you can see, the Print steps is there, and the work lines are for 1 PL, which means that when printing the label, PL will be used to determine the value of the Extension digit.

Since the actual printing is already described in my previous post, I will use a different approach this time and will not setup the document routing at all. This will generate the label for me, but won't actually print it.

OK, so now let's proceed and actually execute the work. At the Pick screen, you will see the generated license plate ID, and can confirm that the format is right.


Note

The field is currently editable, so the work user can accidentally overwrite the generated value. This might improve in future AX releases to prevent human error.

Hotfix

I am afraid the contents of the generated ID are a bit off at the moment. If you type in the below SSCC code into a check digit calculator (e.g., here), you will see that the calculator produces a different check digit as compared to Dynamics AX. This is a product issue Microsoft is aware of, and it has been hot-fixed since RTM. The KB article number is 3001157 (should be available on LCS soon).


Once the Pick line is executed, the printing itself will happen, and will create a record in the License plate labels table. Go ahead and complete the Put, and let's review the label information that was persisted by navigating to Warehouse management \ Inquiries \ License plate labels. I took the liberty of hiding the uninteresting fields from the view.


As you can see, all the vital information about the license plate label, as well as the context in which this label was generated are stored, and can be used in the future.
You can, for example, reprint the label, if necessary, using a mobile device menu item with an Activity Code = Reprint label

That's it for today! Stay tuned for more.

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Printing labels with the new Warehouse management solution

Hi all,

This blog post is based on a document I got from BoÅ¡tjan Golob, a solution architect working with Dynamics AX. You can connect with BoÅ¡tjan through LinkedIn.

I really enjoyed the information he provided and therefore wanted to share it publicly so all the AX community can learn how to configure and print labels with the new warehouse management solution. So here it is, enjoy:

Step 1: Understanding

How does AX actually print the labels? It is important to know that most label printers currently in use (such as Zebra brand printers) include some sort of a programming language interpreter and that the print job sent to a label printer is actually a small program. This is no different than with larger printers that use Postscript (there are web servers written in Postscript). In label printing, the feature set of a command language is usually quite rich: you can control the cutting of labels, the printer itself knows how to draw barcodes, you can select fonts that it has loaded in its memory and so on. This is an example of a ZPL (Zebra Programming Language) program:

CT~~CD,~CC^~CT~
^XA~TA000~JSN^LT0^MNW^MTD^PON^PMN^LH0,0^JMA^PR2,2~SD15^JUS^LRN^CI0^XZ
^XA
^MMT
^PW320
^LL0160
^LS0
^FT20,58^A0N,28,28^FH\^FDNalepka:^FS
^FT20,81^AAN,18,10^FH\^FD$LicensePlateId$^FS
^BY1,3,17^FT20,106^BCN,,Y,N,N,A
^FD$LicensePlateId$^FS
^PQ1,,,Y^XZ

AX can print a very sophisticated label by sending such a »program« to the label printer, while at the same time knowing absolutely nothing about label layouting. The labels stored in AX are command snippets like above. These are stored in Document routing layouts (Warehouse management – Setup – Document routing – Document routing layouts).
Knowing when to print a label is the job of configuration of menu items and work templates. AX can initiate printing of labels at work creation (for example in receiving scenarios), or during work execution. Which label to print is the job of document routing setup, where we tell the system, based on what we are currently doing, which label to pick and which label to send it to. We well get to configuration later.

Step 2: Getting the label in a text format

In order for this walk-through to be as comprehensive as possible (and as easy to click through without any annoying »this is left as an exercise to the reader« parts), the process of creating a small demo label will be demonstrated. I will use the NiceLabel labeling software (Made in Slovenia).
First, get the NiceLabel Designer Pro from the web site (www.nicelabel.com) and install the 30-day trial. Also download the NiceLabel Label Printer Drivers, as we will need them to create a dummy printer for NiceLabel to adapt the label to. This is important – label designs can be printer dependent and if you use multiple types of printers, it's best to export the labels with NiceLabel set to every different printer you will use the label with!
Before creating the label, follow these steps to create a dummy printer:
  1. Open the »Devices and Printers« in Control Panel, click on any printer and from the toolbar, select Print Server Properties.
  2. In the next form, select the Ports tab.
  3. Click Add Port…
  4. Select Local port and click New Port…
  5. For the port name, enter a file name (I use C:\_TEMP for misc. crap, so I put in C:\_TEMP\ZEBRAPRINT.TXT)
  6. OK out of everything.
  7. Run the installation program for the NiceLabel Printer Drivers and select a printer you would like to use (I have chosen a pretty basic »ZEBRA GC420d ZPL« printer).
  8. Select the port you have just created.
  9. Finish the installation.
  10. Rejoice!
After the printer is ready, open NiceLabel Designer and create a new label, selecting the printer you have just installed. You will get a blank canvas and you can start drawing. I have created the following layout using the Text and Bar code tools:

Label designer

The second text field is a variable field with the variable name LicensePlateId and the same variable is used for the bar code as well. You can design the label with fixed values, but you will then need to change the text in AX. NiceLabel also comes with plenty of out of the box sample labels, including GS1 SSCC label and so on, which can also be used as a starting point.
To get the text version of the label, you can use several options. NiceLabel Designer Pro supports export of templates for use in external systems. First, let's configure the AX specifics for export. Select File – Export – Printer Template Export Configuration and Add a new system. Give it a name (Dynamics AX WHS) and an extension (txt) and in the Variables tab page, enter $[Name]$ in Variables field like so:

NiceLabel Printer Template Export Configuration

This will cause variables used in the label to be exported in the generated file as $VariableName$, which is the format expected by AX when it does its own substitution of variable contents.
After you are done with this definition, click File – Export – Dynamics AX WHS and NiceLabel will create a nice text file which you then copy and paste into AX:

Document routing layouts

Step 3: Configuring document routing

We will use this label as part of the receiving put-away process 24 PO Direct, so we need to configure the document routing record. In the Document routing form, create a record similar to this one:

Document routing

I have used my dummy printer that I have installed on the AOS. Feel free to experiment with other filter values, which you will probably use in production, at least to differentiate to which printer you want to print the label (note to Microsoft: some web browsers can print to locally attached printers that people carry around with them, so printing could also be done via the web interface). Again – to use the printers, AOS will need to be able to print to them. I would strongly suggest using networked printers, not printers connected locally to computers in the warehouse and then shared, at least from experience. It is best to log on locally to the AOS as the AOS service account and check if you can print to the printers.
Lastly, we need to configure the work templates to print the label as part of the process. To do this, insert a Print step in the Work Template. In our example, 24 PO Direct gets another work step:

Work templates
 
The same approach can be used in the Sales order scenario as well, to create shipping labels for the picked license plates.
In case you would like to print your own labels as a part of receiving goods, you can use the "Print label" check-box on Mobile device menu items for several Work creation processes (PO receiving, Report as finished, Load receiving, TO receiving, Kanban). There is also an indirect activity "Reprint label" for later printing of LP labels.

Step 4: Demo

Create a purchase order for some goods and receive it using the mobile device (web or AX form). There will be no visible change from the user perspective, but, if all goes well, the file you set up for the dummy printer should appear and under Inquires – License plate labels, you should be able to see the newly created label. If you open the file using Notepad, it should contain ZPL with LicensePlateId substituted for the actual license plate number:

CT~~CD,~CC^~CT~
^XA~TA000~JSN^LT0^MNW^MTD^PON^PMN^LH0,0^JMA^PR2,2~SD15^JUS^LRN^CI0^XZ
^XA
^MMT
^PW320
^LL0160
^LS0
^FT20,58^A0N,28,28^FH\^FDNalepka:^FS
^FT20,81^AAN,18,10^FH\^FDTESTLP00001^FS
^BY1,3,17^FT20,106^BCN,,Y,N,N,A
^FDTESTLP00001^FS
^PQ1,,,Y^XZ

To see how the label would be printed out, you can use for example the Labelary service. The above example can be rendered using this URL.

Giving a nice result like this:
Printed label

That's it, you are all set to explore this on your own further, and thanks to BoÅ¡tjan again for providing this comprehensive description of the process.


Monday, July 14, 2014

Announcement: Warehouse management system implementation guide for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 is now available for download

If you have been following my latest posts on the new Warehouse management module in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3, and are curious to find out more, you should check out the new implementation guide that has been released today.

You can download it through the following link:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=43660

If you have any feedback on the guide itself, or on the information missing from it, feel free to reach out through comments to this post, and I will convey the message appropriately.

Enjoy the read!

Saturday, July 12, 2014

Walkthrough: Cancelling put-away work in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3

In the new Warehouse management solution shipped with Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3, any movement of inventory in the warehouse would normally have a corresponding piece of work registered together with work lines detailing where the warehouse workers should pick the goods from and where they should put them.

Therefore, it is no surprise, that when you receive a purchase order (or any other inbound order, like a transfer or a return) through the new mobile device portal, work will be created to put away the goods into a storage location (or QA or whatever you set up in your location directives). The closest analogy for those who know the existing WMS II solution that I have is the pallet transports used in conjunction with arrival journals, where goods get physically registered at the inbound dock, and a pallet transport is created to move the pallet to the location found based on the put-away rules selected on the arrival journal line (Check picking/bulk locations). The new solution allows a much better level of control over all the warehouse operations.

What I want to talk about today is the cases where the created work is not satisfactory and needs to be modified / canceled.

There are three scenarios I would like to mention:

  1. The put-away location needs to be changed, because the suggested location is unavailable or another location is simply preferable.
  2. The put-away work needs to be canceled, where a decision about the put-away location will be taken later
  3. The put-away work needs to be canceled, because the receipt was incorrect to start with



1. If the warehouse worker doing the put-away is an experienced user who is allowed to make on the spot decisions about modifying the suggested flow of inventory, he can override the put location, storing the goods away into a different location at the warehouse.

This is controlled by a policy on the setup of warehouse workers, accessible through Warehouse management \ Setup \ Work users \ Worker, as shown in the below screenshot:

Work user policies
Allow work user to override put location when executing work

2. Another way to achieve this would be to cancel the pending put-away work, ensuring that workers do not see it on their mobile devices as something they should execute now, and creating a manual movement to a location of choice when the decision where to move the goods is made. This would be a decision done by a receiving clerk / warehouse manager. 
It could also be due to some extra paperwork or inspection being done on the items, where it's yet unclear if the system-selected put-away location is OK. (If it is, the warehouse manager could simply block the work until a decision is made, which would prevent workers from executing on it)

In order to cancel the work, simply press the "Cancel work" button on the Work details form (or corresponding list page). See a step-by-step walk-through below.


3. Now, sometimes, due to input errors or other factors, you would want to not only cancel work, but also make sure the goods are not physically at the warehouse either, reverting the entire receipt as if it never happened (you'll still have a trace of it happening). This could, for example, be useful if the receiving clerk was logged in to a different warehouse and accidentally received a purchase order to that warehouse instead of the one the user was actually at (Note: Not possible in RTM, need a corresponding hotfix installed).

This additional step of unregistering the items is controlled by a policy on the Warehouse management parameters, called "Unregister receipt when canceling work".

Warehouse management parameters
Warehouse policy - Unregister receipt when canceling work


Here is a step-by-step description of the cancel workflow:
  • Create a new purchase order for a WHS-enabled item to a WHS-enabled warehouse
Purchase order details
Purchase order with one line for a WHS-enabled item to a WHS-enabled warehouse
  • Using the mobile device portal, register the receipt of the above purchase order (Hint: use a mobile device menu item with Mode = Work and Work creation process = Purchase order item receiving)
PO receipt
Purchase order receipt on Mobile Device Portal

  • View the inventory transactions for the above purchase order, and confirm that they are registered at the default receiving location at the selected warehouse (Note: It is the warehouse the user was logged in to when doing the PO receipt from the mobile device)
Inventory transactions
Purchase order inventory transaction with Receipt status = Registered

  • Open the created put-away work (Hint: You can navigate directly to the new piece of work from the purchase order details form, by clicking on Work details button in the Lines section), and click on Cancel work.
Work details
Canceling put-away work

  • Confirm that Work status of the work header and lines has changed to Canceled, and (depending on the above warehouse management policy) the purchase order line inventory transaction is back in Ordered receipt status. 

Note: This policy is currently implemented only for Purchase orders and Transfer order receipts. It will not come into play when registering the receipt of a return order or any other inbound order types.


I would also be interested in hearing your scenarios, which require canceling put-away work, and the reasons behind them. So if you use this functionality for reasons other than described above, please leave a comment below.

Thanks

Friday, June 27, 2014

Tool: Update: Automated way of setting up the Application Integration Framework

In November 2009 I have posted a blog post that presented a tool I wrote for quickly setting up AIF for testing purposes. You can find the original post here.

I have since received requests to upload a new version of that tool, that would work with AX 2012 R2.
Well, now, only 5 years later :), here is the updated tool, that works with AX 2012 R3 (Note: should also work with R2, but I have only tried it on R3).

You can download the xpo from my OneDrive.

To briefly describe the changes, as compared to the version from AX 2009:

  • There is no longer a concept of endpoints in AX 2012. Instead, there is a concept of inbound and outbound ports, so I have replaced the corresponding creation so that 1 inbound and 1 outbound ports are created, both using the File System Adapter, and dropping the files in a location on drive D. Note, that I have not done anything in terms of ensuring AOS has access to that folder, so if that is not working, ensure the right access is granted.
  • Channels are now created implicitly for each port, depending on the Adapter class you select.
  • I am not explicitly creating data policies now, which seems to mean all XML fields are enabled. If you want to restrict the schema to only certain fields, you will need to deactivate the port, and modify the data policies accordingly manually.

Note: Only services for Invent*, EcoRes* and WHS* prefixes are registered, and only their service actions are added to the ports. If you need additional actions in your tests, modify the code and add the extra prefix.

I have tested that the WHS ASN service works after executing the tool, both for inbound and outbound, and will describe the use of this service in a blog post on the SCM msdn blog shortly. If you however find stuff I have missed, let me know.

Thanks

Friday, May 09, 2014

Walkthrough: Fixing error "Incorrect Mobile device display settings..." on the mobile device when trying to sign in

All the people who have tried the new Warehouse management mobile solution by now have probably hit the issue below and were confused about the error message displayed, as well as how to fix this.

The scenario is simple:

1. Install and Configure the Warehouse Mobile Device Portal through setup.exe.
As part of this step, you will need to specify a domain account to use as the identity of the IIS application pool that is used to run the Warehouse Mobile Device Portal (WMDP in short).

Warehouse Mobile Device Portal Installation Wizard

2. Completing the installation process will create a site in IIS. You can access this site, and it will open the WMDP home screen. If you now click on Log on to the mobile device, you will get the below error, if the domain account from the IIS app pool is not added as a user in Dynamics AX, or if he does not have sufficient privileges to run the mobile device portal.

WMDP error - insufficient privileges to connect to AX

3. After adding the user to AX and assigning the appropriate roles to him, you can try logging on to the mobile device again. Now, you might get a different error, like below

WMDP error - display settings are not configured

If you read the error message, you can see it complains about the mobile device display settings not being configured. Well, let's check them out, under Warehouse management > Setup > Mobile device > Work user mobile device display settings
As you can see on the below screenshot, I have them defined, and the setup is valid. Hmm, what is the above error about then?

Work user mobile device display settings

Root cause:
The problem is actually with the default company set for the above AX user. By default the portal tries to connect to the company set as the default for that user, and thus cannot find the display settings, since they are created per company and don't exist in DAT (most probably).


4. After assigning a valid default company to the AX user, the domain account of which is running the IIS app pool for WMDP, we can try logging on to the mobile device portal again. Now we can see that we reach the Sign in screen, which means all is good in the world. :)

Warehouse Mobile Device Portal Sign In page

Hope that helps avoid initial confusion when trying to use the mobile device portal!

Walkthrough: After setting up a work-related Mobile Device menu item the user is constantly logged off when trying to use it on the device

Hey guys

As some of you might know, I was part of the team that released the new Warehouse and Transportation solution as part of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3.

As with any first version of the product (and this is a huge solution), there are certain issues that we simply did not have time to address. Some of them are however pretty hard to figure out the root cause for, unless you spend time debugging or know where to look to start with.

When setting up Mobile Device menu items to use at the warehouse, you have a couple of possibilities for what type of menu item it is going to be. Specifically, it can be a non-work related activity, a work-related activity, which results in creation of new work, or processing of existing work.

I won't go into the full description of how to set this up - you can easily find this information on technet, MSDN, etc.

Here's the short version of the flow, and the problem you might experience.

  1. Navigate to Warehouse management > Setup > Mobile Devices > Mobile device menu items
  2. Create a new menu item, and fill in the fields. Select Mode = Work, Use Existing Work = false.
  3. Select Work creation process = Load item receiving
  4. Save the record. It should look like below
  5. Add the created menu item to one of the available mobile device menus.
  6. Log in to the mobile device with any available work user and navigate to the menu item created above.
Mobile device menu item
The created Mobile device menu item

Possible result of executing the above steps:
Sometimes, without any explanation, the user is consistently logged out of the mobile device, when trying to use the newly created menu item.

Root cause:
The problem can be that when creating the menu item, you accidentally selected an Activity code, changing its value from None to the next value on the list, which is Log off. This can happen quite easily, especially if you normally use the keyboard and not the mouse to click around. 
Now, even though you later changed the Mode to Work, the system still remembers the selection in the Activity code, and will apply it when using the menu item, resulting in a log off.

That's quite annoying, but also very easy to fix, just flip Mode to Indirect, revert the Activity code value back to None, and flip the Mode back to Work. All your settings for work creation setup should stay intact. 


To finish off, I just want to encourage all of you to install Dynamics AX R3 and try out the new modules, and send us feedback through Connect, Yammer, or comments on the SCM blog or here.

Thanks


Monday, May 05, 2014

Q&A session: Working with UtcDateTime from X++

There were a couple questions asked in the post I wrote a while back about the use of UtcDateTime in AX.

Question 1:
Hi. how can put date in a field utcdatetime?
Answer:

The method newDateTime from class DateTimeUtil can be used to accomplish this, as it takes the date and time parts in separately as arguments, followed by the TimeZone enumeration in case a timezone offset needs to be factored in. Otherwise the UTC timezone will be used.

static void CreateUtcDateTimeFromDate(Args _args)
{
    date locDate = mkDate(5, 3, 2014);

    info(strFmt("Date converted to DateTime, with 0 for time and no timezone offset = %1",
        DateTimeUtil::newDateTime(locDate, 0)));
}

The result of executing this job would look like below:

Date converted to DateTime, with 0 for time and no timezone offset = 3/5/2014 12:00:00 am


Question 2:
Hi...Can you please tell the difference between UtcNow() and getSystemDateTime(). Both are returning GMT time only. But where as in msdn they described differently...
Answer:

The difference is you can "fix" the systemDateTime either through the API (DateTimeUtil::setSystemDateTime()) or through the Tools in the Dynamics menu, as shown on the screenshot:

Dynamics AX session date and time
Session date and time dialog

static void DifferenceBetweenUtcNowAndSystem(Args _args)
{
    info(strFmt("getSystemDateTime = %1", DateTimeUtil::getSystemDateTime()));
    info(strFmt("utcNow = %1", DateTimeUtil::utcNow()));
}

So, after having fixed the system datetime, the output from executing this job would be like below:

Info Message (11:01:28 pm) getSystemDateTime = 5/1/2014 12:00:00 am
Info Message (11:01:28 pm) utcNow = 5/5/2014 09:01:28 pm

If the system date time is not fixed, it will return the local system datetime, pretty much like utcnow.

Note, that msdn actually also describes a slight difference in how utcnow works - it seems it always runs on the server, so always returns the AOS datetime. I can't test it right now because only have a dev.setup with everything on 1 box. Once I get a 3box one, I will update this post with a confirmation.

Q&A session: Working with MorphX project nodes from code

I had some spare time today, so started answering some of the comments I had through the blog and through e-mail. I decided I'll just open up a new section on my blog, called Questions and Answers, in which I will slowly answer the questions from my backlog:

Question (related to post about the DEV_CreateNewProject tool for AX):
So could create ConfigKeys Macro and I wanted, and could throw them into the project that was created, but I can not throw them within their respective nodes, so they are loose in the project, you can help me put them within your nodes?

To summarize, Gustavo wanted to create some AOT elements from code (specifically, configuration keys and macros), and add them to a new project into respective groups, similar to how it is done in DEV_CreateNewProject tool.

I wrote a small job that does that, and can be downloaded from my OneDrive. The code is also pasted and explained below:

static void Tutorial_CreateProjWithGroupAndElement(Args _args)
{
    ProjectListNode     treeNodeProject;
    ProjectNode         upgradeNode;
    ProjectGroupNode    child;
    MacroBuild          macro;
    #AOT

    str projName = @"Project01";
    str groupName = @"macroGrp";
    str macroName = @"macro01";

    treeNodeProject = SysTreeNode::getPrivateProject();
    treeNodeProject.AOTadd(projName);
    upgradeNode = treeNodeProject.AOTfindChild(projName);
    upgradeNode = upgradeNode.getRunNode();

    upgradeNode.AOTadd(groupName);
    child = upgradeNode.AOTfindChild(groupName);
    child.projectGroupType(GroupNodeType::Macros);

    macro = new MacroBuild(macroName, true);
    macro.addSource(@"isConfigurationkeyEnabled(configurationkeynum(WMSAdvanced))");
    macro.save();

    child.addUtilNode(UtilElementType::Macro, macroName);

    upgradeNode.AOTsave();
}

  • SysTreeNode class is used to retrieve the object for the root of the Private projects node. This class contains a number of interesting methods for anyone who wants to navigate and manage AOT nodes
  • Standard AOTadd and AOTfindChild methods are used for first creating and then loading the contents of the node into a TreeNode object for processing.
  • getRunNode is used on the project node so that it is not just loaded for processing, but also opened in a new window to show the result to us after executing the job
  • MacroBuild class is used to creating new Macros, and is similar to a ClassBuild that I described previously
  • addUtilNode is the key method Gustavo was missing, and allows to add the macro created to the project group node. 
  • AOTsave() is used to persist all the changes done to the project as well as the new macro.


You can see the results immediately after executing the job.