Sure. I can give you general tips or ideas. I can even provide some code review as well. I do have to warn you though that my level of participation has to be somewhat limited, I can’t write it for you (Although you can book me thru my employer for as many hours as you want )
Up to this point, I’ve tackled many a custom T&E solution. (I notice my official “Certified Epicor Consultant” title just got updated. Free likes for everyone!)
Btw - looks you could benefit from an external app that just watches a drop folder for files to import and process. You could have it automagically enter your work order and t&e
General tips and ideas are what I need. I do not want to you write it. I have to learn to be able to do this.
I just need help understanding the information so I can start formulating a plan of action and figure out what out best method would be,
On the external app idea, we had something similar at my last job. It was developed to work with service connect. Service connect inputted the data after the program brought it in and was verified. Worked pretty well.
At this point, your advice has been very helpful. I think once I figure out the trace, I can approach it better.
Sounds good. I think now that you’ve got a few more ideas on tap, you’ll be more effective in your meetings with the end user as well (at least thats how it seemed to work for me)
I actually just recently converted a SC workflow to an external app for T&E
Thanks again for your input. I think I have a much better idea on how I can approach this. You mentioned a customized T&E, what if I added that to the Maintenance Job Entry Form? Again I was thinking out loud. I just need to work through it.
Ideally yes I would like to import a file. But that may have to come later. What I have learned is that they are using the maintenance job entry and then go to T&E to enter the techs time. So I am thinking for efficiency sake give them one screen. Then maybe look at doing a mobile dashboard. I have a lot of ideas on how but not sure the best approach until I can get all the information from the end users. Does that make sense?
@Chris_Conn, I met with the end user and have determined what they enter as far as the T&E screen. I developed a BAQ for manual purposes of entering the data. I think if I determine how the LaborHedSeq and LaborDtlSeq can be generated, I may have a way for them to enter via spreadsheet. Worse case, they just use the dashboard to add the data rather then going into T&E Entry and enter one at a time. Does that make sense?
I can screen shot what I have done and you can give me some pointers on maybe the code to use.
Any special code that I need to use? I want to have the following fields update automatically when I add a labor record: LaboeHedSeq, LaborDtlSeq or will the system do that when I add the row from he dashboard?
The business objects take care of that. It’s really one of the more complicated services. Lots of moving parts - especially when approvals are in play. In DMT, leave blank when adding but you need the Seqs when updating. If you don’t have auto-submit enabled then you’ll need to do that too.
@Mark_Wonsil, I have a BAQ that can update the approval in the labor record in the LaborDtl on the Time & Expense. My end users are only updating the labor detail on the Time expense. SO, I think I can use the same BAQ with tweaks to update the labor detail table via an Updateable Dashboard. So the business objects do that for me but how? I am trying to understand how it works or if I need to add something to my BAQ in order for it to properly work. I have the laborhedseq and labordtlseq as part of the my BAQ.
Darn,
Did this at my last place with ESC… Jira worklogs to E9… There were some caveats. Can I remember…I think I might have posted some stuff on that here.
Don’t forget if you are adding time post end of month for the previous month and inventory earliest apply dates are updated it will stop time and expenses being entered.
If revenue recognition (or is it COS/WIP) is run it will post all the laborhead records and you won’t be able to add a new labordtl record to that laborhead. You need to create a new Time (in the GUI)/Laborhead. So as Mark said there are a lot of moving parts.
Submit on save is another thing to take into account as well as how the Time and expense approval is configured against the individual employee. Perhaps Autoapprove is an option.
We are using the maintenance module so there is not a revenue recognition that is being run The time is for the labor to complete a repair or PM on our assets. Having said that, does that eliminate some of the need to have all these moving parts per se?
If you run Time and Expense Entry manually, you’ll notice that LaborHedSeq and LaborDtlSeq are not there - in view anyway. My understanding is that you’ll get one LaborHed record for each comp-employee-day combination and then you add the labor detail records to that. So you’re dashboard should mimic that behavior. If you trace the entry (Just do a punch-in) then you’ll have the Business Object calls for that operation. Then add some labor for that employee on that day, then you’ll see what BO methods are used for labor detail entry.
It helps me not to think about database tables per se but the data sets that the business objects require. I have no idea how Epicor stores that in SQL Server and I shouldn’t care. This is object oriented programming. Let the framework do the work. As Darth Coder says, “Use the Framework, it is strong in you.”
LaborhedSeq record = the time and attendance record which is created when you click on the “New Time” button/menu item. The system (at least in E9) doesn’t stop an employee having more than Time and Addenance record per day. A time and attendance record can have more than one time detail record. If you do run revenue recognition it will “post” the Time and attendance record preventing any new time detail records being added, you can create a new time record and add detail entries to that one. The rev rec process will post that one the next time it is run as long as select the right parameter to pickup up older transactions since last run. I can’t remember the exact parameter name.
Mark is right though, let the framework do the heavy lifting, just be aware there are some quirks with regards to the different methods that get fired, which @Chris_Conn mentioned before they do behave funnily and if you do use service connect pay close attention to the Row mod value on some of the methods or they won’t fire correctly. That last comment was when I did the work on 9.05.701, it may have changed since.
I need to double check on their sequence. I am not sure if they are clicking new time when they enter the time details because it is a maintenance job. They simply go to time detail and add the operation and labor time. I am going to run a trace as soon as I can so I can see what BO are being called out. This information is great information and I appreciate all the help.
Ok I ran a trace log. I can see a view different BOs that are being called. I think I know which ones are the ones I’m looking for, but could use some help.
(Although you can book me thru my employer for as many hours as you want 
)
