Visual Scheduling Blog

New software, new struggles, right? Let’s hope not! So, you’ve got the Visual Jobs Scheduler (VJS) or the Visual Production Scheduler (VPS) for Dynamics 365 Business Central, you understand the basics but can’t seem to fully get it? That’s fine! Let me tell you something. You have a visual scheduler installed because someone thought it was a good idea. 

And here’s why. With a visual scheduler, you can view all your orders at a glance, and you can change the production dates and resources. You can even create links between orders or jobs and much more, by only using your mouse. There’s no need to drown in dozens of Business Central cards anymore. The first step to embracing it is to own it. No, I don’t mean the license, but to personalize it. 

In this blog, I will address the steps to personalizing your new visual scheduler. And, I will refer you to our articles on the topic for clearer instructions. 

I met Bart Pattijn from Belgium for the fifth episode of the Business Central Manufacturing Show. He is ERP consultant at Christiaens BV, and actually didn’t start his career in an IT company. Instead, he initially was a production manager in several food companies. Hence, he has plenty of real-life experience when it comes to manufacturing and planning. He has been working with Navision since 2004. Our conversion quickly became very hands-on, and Bart managed to unveil two underestimated superpowers of Business Central to me: this is the upgrade-ability and the extensibility. Both in combination enable manufacturing companies to achieve more with Business Central, and to cope with the ongoing need for speed and need for change.

First of all and beyond anything I hope you and your relatives are well and healthy!

It's been not so long ago that I've informed you of the 1.5 release of both the Visual Production Scheduler (VPS) and the Visual Jobs Scheduler (VJS). In the meantime, the world as we have known it has changed completely and the days when I wrote this blog seem like forever ago. But as you all know, it's no use complaining so we at NETRONIC rolled up our sleeves and settled in our home offices. Thankfully, none of our team members has gotten sick yet and due to our well-organized and well-working hard and software we are fully operational as our CEO Martin pointed out in his blog  How we ensure our operational agility for you - and for ourselves some weeks ago.

So you can be assured that the new version was worked upon with the same care and dedication as you are used to from us. Also in version 1.6 we continued the process of streamlining the products and improving the user experience - and let me tell you here we have achieved a true leap in performance! - but we also came up with a couple of  nice useful new features for you.  

As always, the complete release information can  be found in the respective notes for VPS and VJS. As of now, both new versions are already available in AppSource :-)

In this episode of the Business Central Manufacturing Show, I met with Sune Lohse. Sune is Chief Strategy Officer and Business Unit Manager Supply Chain at Abakion from Denmark. He holds a bachelor in “manufacturing engineering” and helps customers optimizing supply chain processes. Sune is author of the book "200 ERP Questions: The most important things to think about when considering Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central" and initiator of the free Microsoft Dynamics learning portal UseDynamics.com, where he has contributed with more than 500 videos on Business Central. Our conversation started with some Marketing best practices, but then quickly turned into a round-trip from material requirements planning (MRP) to shopfloor execution, which culminated in the similarities of raising kids and raising Business Central manufacturing clients.

How we have been keeping busy

The whole world has been affected by the recent COVID-19 pandemic. This has changed how many organizations around the world work. As a company, we had to adjust to continue an unchanged delivery of our services to our partners and customers (see an earlier blog post we wrote about how we are currently working).

For those of you who are stuck at home and want to learn something new, we have recently launched our Visual Scheduling Academy, which aims to educate people about our newest extension for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central: the Visual Advanced Production Scheduler (VAPS). I’m pretty sure this has kept several of our partners busy during this time.

What about you, what have you been up to during self-quarantine and isolation?

I had the opportunity to conduct an interview with AJ Ansari as third episode of the Business Central Manufacturing Show. AJ is Chief Operating Officer with Dynamics Southwest from Houston, Texas. However, more than that he serves as a volunteer in various committee roles with NAVUG, IAMCP, Dynamics Credentialed Professionals (DCP), and Directions North America, and has been recognized as a Microsoft MVP. In our conversation we also came across his passion for football and developed the idea of situational manufacturing by learning from successful football teams.

The bridge between Business Central's resource utilization tables and your schedule.

What would you buy with $1,500 USD?

You could get a 75” Sony LED screen or a fancy ViewSonic projector for the largest meeting room. You could also buy a Razer Laptop, or… an all-in-one resource view for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

Whether your company works with Projects, Services or Assembly, you can gather all information regarding the resources' utilization in a snapshot for just $1,500 USD. We call this solution: the Visual Resource Viewer (VRV).

I met Peik Bech-Andersen from Denmark for my first interview in the Business Central Manufacturing Show. He is a solution architect and senior developer, and he first saw Navision back in 1984. Peik and I actually got to know each other in the year 2014, when he was writing his book “manufacturing with Microsoft Dynamics NAV. A comprehensive guide to the manufacturing module in Microsoft Dynamics NAV”. Here is what Peik has to share on Business Central and manufacturing.