Pick Ticket ICR

[kbieber]

I need to use the Pick Ticket Integrated Crystal Report in 7.5.103f. I have 2 questions - is there any way to modify the checked options on the range tab of the report - I would like some of the check boxes to default to unchecked.

Also, I noticed that the Pick Tick ICR does not update the picked_dt field in OEORDLIN_SQL table. This can't be by design (?) - has anyone else found this problem and what kind of workaround was used to fix it?

Assuming that I'll have to code my way around this mess, is there a way to use the standard Macola pick ticket print screen and re-route the print to a Crystal report instead of the Macola pick ticket?

Thanks for any suggestions.

 

[abaldwin]

You are correct and here are some suggestions.

None of the integrated crystal reports do any processing of the data after printing. You can code these changes somewhere with flex but I recommend the following.

Use the standard reports and print them to a printer that is acutally a print to file printer.

Then use the ICR's to reprint the needed items. I am assuming that you want the ICR because of the look and feel you can change.

One example of this is with some of our clients and printing invoices. Instead of using CheckFactory some of them print the invoices ot a print to file printer and then use the re-print posted invoice ICR to get the actual invoice that has their logo and what not on it.

Andy
Andy Baldwin

 

[kbieber]

Thanks Andy, that helps. Do you know if the lack of update capability will change in future releases? Kind of undermines the benefits of the ICR if you need additional keystrokes/programming to complete the transaction.

 

[abaldwin]

The only future versions of Macola is the ES product. 7.6.200 is "suppose" to be release here pretty soon. I view it as another bug fix or patch rather than a new version. ICR and all other functions are more or less the same as Progression is now.

The ES product uses a crystal based reporting system for most reports. The rest are Excel based and I am told that they are in the process of converting the remaining COBOL style reports to Crystal.

I have always thought that they never went far enough with the ICR's Very powerful thing they had going there and never capitalized on it. Basically the current Macola canned reports dont actually do the data changing. The data gets changed once you answer the question of "Are the invocies printed okay" or whatever. Crystal has no writeback abilities.

Andy Andy Baldwin

 

[dgillz]

kbieber,

I would use a third party electronics form package sucj as Check Factory or ReForm to get the professional looking forms which the native Macola forms cannot create (but ICRs can). This way, you can print your forms, get neat looking output, AND it will update the picked date field.

Let me know if you have any questions.
Software Sales, Training, Implementation and Support for Exact Macola, eSynergy, and Crystal Reports

http://www.trianglepartners.com

dgilsdorf@trianglepartners.com

 

[MacolaHelp]

kbieber: w/regards to your original question about changing the check boxes on the first screen of the ICR interface. My understanding is that if you own Flex/ERS 5.0, that you have access to changing the programming logic on the check boxes. I haven't yet tried to do this, but there are several programming gurus out here that could probably give you the simple fix for changing the switches if you own Flex. Unfortunately, Crystal doesn't have a write back option to the order status field in oeordhdr. That makes it difficult when you print/reprint picking tickets, etc. I would imagine that someone with programming expertise should be able to add functionality to the end of the ICR picket ticket print job to question "update order status" & switch the status from "1" booked to "4" picked after completing an ICR run.

abaldwin: have you ever tried to put that piece of code in? If you have & it didn't work, do you know what caused it to not work? If that can't be done with the ICR processing, then we have no choice but to print the pick tickets to file using generic macola in order to keep the order status updated. Doing so, however, means you really lose control of where you are at with printing originals & duplicates. Particularly at client sites that continue to live by the immediate pick ticket print philosophy even if they aren't shipping the item for weeks. Sigh. Changes to orders are really problematic & duplicate shipments can often result with this philosophy of printing the paper pick ticket immediately & shuffling the paper instead of using reports like an open order report by date to determine which pick tickets to print for the next day or current day shipments !!

 

[kbieber]

Thanks for all of the suggestions - here's what I've done so far. The project took a slight turn in the middle and required some modifications to the original plan, as usual. The requirement is to print all shippable pick tickets in an hourly batch. Shippable means inventory is available, the ship date is less than or equal to today, the customer is not on credit hold, and the pick ticket has not printed before. In addition, we use about a dozen locations, so using the standard Macola screen to print pickets has always been a problem since the screen does not allow 'ALL' locations. Therefore, I've created a SQL stored procedure to select and timestamp the shippable pick tickets which then calls the Crystal report to print them. We will use the Macola screen for reprints and printing any picks which do not fit the batch selection criteria.

 

[chrism1]

Kinda a sideline...but we also have a need to automate this process.

For various reasons we have customer service people who will hold an order -- not credit hold. We are trying to come up with a way to flag the order so a print ticket will not print until the order is released by customer service.

Any ideas?

Thanks

 

[kbieber]

A few questions before I could answer:

Can you specify what 'released' means? How do they know when to release the order? For instance, our process looks at the required ship date and inventory status to determine when and if a pick ticket is printed. What happens if the pick ticket is not shipped the day it is printed? Are re-prints allowed or is the document held until needed? Do you have Flex/VBA capability? Integrated Crystal reports?

 

[MacolaHelp]

chrism1: the ICR is broken right now to disable printing orders on hold, but the cobol version works. Technically, you could allow CS to put orders on hold (even though not credit hold), but accounting probably doesn't want to give them access to the release process to release credit hold orders.

I would suggest a procedure I have used before: enter a ship date on the header screen that is far enough in the future that pick tickets wouldn't be grabbed by the cutoff date, like 12/31/2010. After CS "releases", they can change to the correct ship date.

Again, if you are printing pick tickets as designed, you should be printing only today's shipments or maybe tomorrow's for staging. If you are "holding" orders because someone needs to get information or order something or check with someone on the order, the ship date is probably in the future, not today or tomorrow. You can also use the quote processing in macola to manage some of these tasks & convert to an order after everything is finalized.

 

[chrism1]

MacolaHelp: Your last paragraph kinda is on the money as why cs wants to hold the orders. We've thought about pushing the ship date out for this.

Question:

They enter the order and push the date out to hold. Later that day the cust calls back,completes the order, and wants to ship that day. CS then changes the ship date on the header to today so the ticket gets pulled.

I believe changing the ship date on the header does not change the ship date on each line item -- how does this affect the process?

We do use Crystal and Flex.

 

[abaldwin]

If you contact Triangle Partners (Logo listed above) I have written for them and can get installed for you a piece of flex that will allow you to change the date on the header of an open order and thus change the dates on the line items while maintaining the audit trails if you have them turned on.

This highly automates the changing of the dates back and forth and is particually handy on orders that have numerous line items.

Andy

Andy Baldwin

 

[MacolaHelp]

chrism1: You can put an order header date in of 12/31/2010, for example. You can change line item ship dates at that point to today, ro whatever date they really want the product to ship. However, once you leave the order & go back in, changing the date on the header does not change the lines. You have to change each one manually. As long as you've flagged the order on hold at the point of order entry, the pick ticket doesn't print through the generic macola pick ticket print if you disable print orders on credit hold. You can also add codes to the "hold" field such as "C=CS hold", "R=CS released", etc. By allowing access to "Hold Override" in oe setup, you can let certain people change this status by password protecting the field. However, you may still find that accounting will not want you to allow CS to change this value if a customer has a legit credit hold. If so, you could have a crystal report for CS that allows you to print pick tickets with the hold flag = to this predetermined status that is specific to a CS hold release.

Once you've committed the order to 12/31/2010 on both the header & in the line items section on the initial order entry, then you would be well advised to get Andy's Flex code to change the line item dates to the order header date. Especially if you have many lines on many orders.