evert Bos SIKICH Solution Architect

The user interaction with existing item templates is just not acceptable.

Updating and deleting of templates has no normal user interaction. You can't save, there is no save button, you can't confirm a delete. It is a rather programmer -like experience. The user has no idea whether his actions took effect. The updates do work but I suggest the maintenance of item templates, any template, is brought into a normal user dialog.

The new Job card device in MFG execution is a winner but it is missing quite a few things the old operator terminal had.

One of them is the "assistant" function. Two people working on the same job together.

Although the job card device SEEMS to support it, because two names show up on the job when two operators clock in or 'start' the job, there is no functionality , there is only a route card generated for the first operator.

We really want the assistant functionality to be available on the job card device too.

Attached the details of simple suggestions to improve the resource assignment screens in project module. For a long time I thought they did not work. Turns out it is a matter of the wrong fast tab being open when you come in.

The other improvement is the "retention' of user settings for the period in the setup screen. The system should remember that user A always looks at things in monthly view, user B in weekly view.  The system is now reverting to always weeks in one screen and always days in another . See attached.

The EXCEL export option is available when on the BOM designer. It has three options. The third option makes sense.

 The user expects that the third option "Export BOM LINES" would result in an EXCEL with all the BOM lines (multi level).

Nothing exports.

We suggest strongly that this feature will be actually working.

It is very common having a BOM in Excel for review and possible BOM Comparisons.

Dimension display menu choice is not always under an inventory pull down menu.

In the Purchase line and the Sales line we have an example.

In addition it is sometimes in the top of the screen above the action bar, then other times in the middle right above the line, in a blue colored "inventory" pull down menu.

It makes it quite hard for the beginning user. The entire idea of this screen-specific dimension display has to be re-engineered.

 I suggest a centralized dimension display per user, that is filled in only once. The user never has to worry about not seeing a field . This would be an enormous improvement for user friendliness Even experienced users get exhausted of always having to click on the display fields they want to see. (in D365 a bug , not resolved as of today, makes it impossible to "save" your user settings so each time, you have to set them again.

Customers are always confused by the terminology in the default order parameters. middle section "inventory". If I put a lead time here, what does that mean? In item coverage the language used is not so ambiguous : purchase, production or transfer That is more like it. We need the same clarity here. Production lead time, and the min, multiple and max apply to Production. Then we need a fourth section that is for transfers. Min, multiple and max. This would make the setup of the item a lot more user friendly

Each project that wants an WBS has to put a scheduling calendar in first. If you forget, you get an error message.

Once you are creating tasks in the WBS however the system converts your estimated hours into working day using hard coded 8 hours. (I am all for 8 hour work days, that is not it) But suppose your calendar is different. Should the system not follow the scheduling calendar day length? That is why we have a scheduling calendar.

I can have a scheduling calendar with zero hours per day, or with 24 hours per day, it does not make any difference. So I suggest as an improvement one of two things:
- remove the requirement to have a scheduling calendar on your project

OR

- follow the day length in the calendar when converting hours into working days.

There is no good category for this problem. It is about submitting a case, a tech support  case. The final page shows your name and three mandatory fields.

Your phone number, your country and your time zone. In the old version of the tech support case software this defaulted in, at least the country and my time zone.

Now it does not. . That creates a lot of extra , useless work, to scroll down until you finally find the united states, scroll again to find your time zone.

Unacceptable. Should be fixed!

USers are always flummoxed by the double approval of the BOM. In 2012 when one creates the BOMs from the released product, the user experienced a single approval . Behind the scenes the system took care of the other one. When you create BOM's via the BOM menu choice, (nobody uses that by the way), you saw the double aprpovoal . One for the BOM itself and the other one for the link between BOM and the parent.

I can guess why this double approval seemed like a good idea but I have never seen two different item numbers being linked to the same BOM. It is always 1- 1.

The vast majority of discrete manufacturing customers would have a sigh of relief when we don't have to deal with that double approval anymore. in D365, bad news, the double approval became visible for the user even while creating BOM from the released product. There is a slider to do the 2 approvals in one click but if you miss that, the user approves the BOM, then wants to activate it and gets to hear "not approved". profoundly counter-intuitive. I can explain many times, the users keep walking into that trap. And for  what? Who needs two approvals? IS there 1 business scenario where I reallyl use that? I have never seen it. It is a design completely detached from the world of manufacturing, based on database structure. We still have a chance to fix it. I am pleaing to finally simplify that approval to one.

The average user is very thrown off by the way the WBS is constructed and appears in the Item req sales line.

In the WBS you see WBS id with lower level children tasks. All very clear. Indented structure.

When you link your item req line with an activity, you see no WBS id, you see activity numbers that you never have seen before.

I realize the need for something like an activity number, but should that not be in the background so the user can recognizably work with the WBS and pick the WBS id he wants to link to the item requirement