Posting Flow Editor
Available from Version 3.6 of Mobile WMS for Dynamics AX/365FO
When posting orders through the mobile device, in some cases (typically during e.g. product receipt) the user is prompted for a packing slip number, before they can post.
A standard posting flow, asking for a packing slip ID.
In some cases you'd want to change the flow, the user is prompted with during posting.
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Consider a case where, during reception, you want someone to sign off on the reception of the goods. In this case you will need to add a step in the posting process, where the user is prompted for a signature before posting the lines received. |
In previous versions, this would require a customization in the module, but that is not necessary any longer, with the introduction of the Posting Flow Editor.
Entry
In your Dynamics, navigate to Mobile WMS/Setup/Posting Flow Editor. Here you can setup which order postings you will want to extend with additional steps. This entry can be set to active once you are completed with the setup.
Posting Flow Editor setup screen in Dynamics 365 for Operations.
Collection Steps
In the first column you can pick which order type you want to add to the posting flow for. In the above example we are setting up an extra flow for when the Purchase Orders are received.
To add steps to the flow, navigate to the Collection Steps tab.
Setup of additional steps when adding a signature and a note. Here we have added a signature step. To the far right we have the fields related to the signature. Here you can modify the displayed text on the mobile device.
Setup of additional steps when adding a signature and a note. Here we have added a step for a note.
In the above figure, two additional steps have been created. One for signature, and another for a note, if needed.
When adding an input type for each step, the required fields that needs to be filled, such as Label, help text etc. are automatically being populated in the right-hand grid.
The above setup of additional Collection steps will result in the following prompt, when the user tries to post a purchase order:
The new steps added from the setup in Post Flow Editor.
Method Parameters
But getting the extra data collected on the mobile device is only half the task. The data has to be put somewhere in Dynamics 365FO/AX.
Looking at the third tab in Posting Flow Editor, Method Parameters, you can indicate how this additional data should be handled.
On each entry, you can reference any class in Dynamics AX/365FO and a public static method, that should be executed with the data you just collected. In the above example our entry is the 'Purchase Orders/Receive'. The method attachBase64toCommon(...) on the class MobHelper is referenced, and once added, you click save and the required parameters are added to the grid just below.
The method mentioned here, can take a base64 string, which is a text string representation of binary data, and attach it to a given record in the Dynamics 365FO/AX. In our example we want to attach the signature to the Packing slip journal, that was the result of the posting process.
Setup of the processing of the extra collection steps.
This grid is automatically populated with the parameters for the referenced method. In the above example 4 parameters are needed, and here we can map our collected data to the parameters for this particular function.
Method Parameter - Name
In the fourth column, you can reference the steps setup on the Collection Steps tab. This means, that the data returned for these steps, from the mobile device, will be passed to the method on said parameters.
Method Parameter - Table Name
If you need the table, that the posting results in, you can also reference this. In this case two tables can be referenced, Packing Slip journal table (VendPackingSlipJour) and the Purchase order table (PurchTable). These tables are made available in the posting process, to any extension made. We have selected the VendPackingSlipJour table.
Method Parameter - Expression
The last column is the expression column, that uses the expression system in Mobile WMS. In this case we just add a text string, and that will then be passed to the method we are executing after Posting using the Posting Flow Editor.
You can find more info about the expression editor here: Expression editor
Final Result in Dynamics
Once this has been setup, and the mobile device has posted the order, a Packing slip journal has been created:
The Packing slip journal, with an attachment.
If we take a look at the attachment:
The received file, with the note entered in the last step on the mobile device.
And looking at the attached image:
The image attached to the Packing Slip, matches the signature on the mobile device.
So in this way, we have added additional steps to the standard flow, and executed business logic in the Dynamics AX/365FO to handle this new collected data, without the need to customize the Mobile WMS module.
That's a bit cool.