Knowing the Microsoft Dynamics NAV jobs module, and knowing our Visual Jobs Scheduler (VJS) add-in, you might be familiar with a kind of lack in the standard Dynamics NAV data model: you can only plan the hours needed per day, but you cannot define the exact time (e.g. 08:00 to 11:00) in which the task should be carried out.
Hence, many partners enhanced their Dynamics NAV project planning vertical soution by job planning line fields for the start and end times of the respective tasks. So, all is good and well in NAV but what about the VJS? Wouldn’t your customers want to have the enhancements made in NAV also take effect in the VJS? Only few additional measures are needed to make the VJS even more vivid and user-friendly.
Read this blog post to know which settings make the customizations of the NAV data table also work in the VJS.
Preliminary Remarks
First, let's have a look at the standard situation in the VJS - only the dates of the job planning lines (and the hours needed per day) are visualized and no further information is given as to their start or end times:
What we want to achieve is to visualize also the start and end times of a job planning line:
So, let's get started. There are only 4 steps that need to be followed.
Step 1 - Add fields
Open the Codeunit 80622 / 5416100 (NETRONIC VJS Management) in the Dynamics NAV Development Environment where you need to uncomment and fill out specific code lines. Those code lines are marked with a „##“. Therefore please search for the string ## by using the built-in „Find“ Function (Ctrl + F) :
This code enables the VJS to load the time information for the Job Planning Lines from the NAV Table.
Step 2 - Enable using the fields
Search again for the string ##
Setting “DataBuilder.PlanHourly := true;” enables the VJS to move Job Planning Lines from hour to hour.
If you want a more detailed control you can set the property “DataBuilder.PlanMinutewise := true;”. With this the Job Planning Lines can be moved from minute to minute. The step size for this mode can be changed with “DataBuilder.MinutesPerStep := x” (x is Integer). If you want Job Planning Lines to move from quarter hour to quarter hour you can set this Property to 15.
Step 3 - Enable storing the changes back to NAV
Search for ## one last time.
Now you have to make sure that the changes made in the VJS are being saved back to the NAV table.
Step 4 - Compiling
Finally, you need to compile the Codeunit 80622 / 5416100 and run the corresponding NAV Page for our Visual Jobs Scheduler.
Benefits gained
With this few modifications made quickly and easily you gain considerable simplification for working with the VJS. You can now easily change the start or end time interactively, the tooltip of course displaying the newly added fields, ...
... and thus modify the duration. Please note that you can only move the start/end date within the same day to keep your data unambigous:
As before, modifications will be shown in the histogram immediately:
Your next step
Want to learn more about how to visually schedule jobs, job tasks, job planning lines and ressources with a fully integrated Microsoft Dynamics NAV Gantt chart add-in? Schedule a demo now.
