Release 1.7 of VPS and VJS for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

Posted by Ute Gillet on Jun 26, 2020 12:16:41 PM

The summer has arrived and who would have thought that the situation is still as exceptional as it is - I hope you are all well!

At NETRONIC we are all still working from home and - what can I say - everything runs smoothly and effectively as it has been during the last three months.

So - on time like a clockwork and sticking to our promise - we released version 1.7 of both the Visual Production Scheduler (VPS) and the Visual Jobs Scheduler (VJS). While the focus of version 1.6 was mainly on streamlining the products and improving the user experience, the new version now offers a couple of handy new features.  

As always, the complete release information can be found in the respective notes for VPS and VJS. Moreover, both new versions will be  available in AppSource soon.

#1 Customizable bar label in VPS and VJS = really relevant information for the planner

A completely new dialog was implemented that - in analogy to the "Tooltip" dialog allows for customizing the information shown on bars. Up to now, the texts of the bar labels both in the  VPS and the VJS were preset by us. This didn't take into account the fact that for each planner different information is important. So we now offer you all D365 fields and some separators to really make your bar labels individual and, what its more, really meaningful for you. I'll show you how this is done by the example of the VJS, but in the VPS it works just the same.

In the picture below, the bar label contains 

  • the job number and the job description separated by "|"
  • the job ending date in a new line

VJS-configure-label-sample-bar

 

  • The new dialog can be found (in both extensions) by clicking "Configurations" in the "Actions" menu of the "User Setup" dialog:

VPS configurations menu

  • In the "View - select label" dialog, select the item and/or view for which you want to customize the bar label

VJS-configure-label-view-select-label

  • The “Edit – Define Configuration” dialog pops up:

VJS-configure-label-edit-define-configuration-job2

Here you can add, insert, edit, and delete fields as well as change their order. You can select the desired table name and field name from your Dynamics 365 BC data by clicking “…” 

Formatting the labels

Separate the field contents by a line break, a blank or a “|” by selecting the according separator from the  “VJS Format Strings”  table.

VPS-format-strings

The separators can get enhanced by the new function “Extendible bar text separator”  that has to be implemented by the partner. Please contact us for further information.

 

#2 Select the view the VPS/VJS start with

Depending on your planning situation you probably work in the same view most of the time so that perhaps you find it a bit annoying to always have to change the view after having started your extension. We thought about this problem and now offer you a new option in the "Setup" dialog so that from now on you can have the VPS/VJS start with your favourite and most used view

  • In the VPS:

VPS-show-start-view

  • In the VJS:

VJS-new-startup-view

 

#3 Appearance options for a better overview in VPS and VJS

Especially when it comes to working with really big plans, you'll always struggle with the size of display. For those cases, we added the new section “Appearance” to the “Settings” dialog where you can specify

  • the zoom factor in %
  • the layout: In the "Compact" layout, the display is reduced as much as possible to provide a better overview, especially with large plans.

See how this feature works using the example of the VPS and be assured that it works the same in the VJS:

Standard layout 


VPS-standard layout

 

Compact layout 

VPS-compact layout

 

 

#4 Storing the last settings in the VPS

This feature comes in pretty handy when you like to open the VPS not only showing your favourite view but also with some of your favourite settings, namely 

    • Show/hide setup times
    • Show/hide work free periods
    • Histogram aggregation

These settings get saved automatically upon closing the VPS and are ready and active the next time it gets started.



#5 Improved handling of reservation entries & linked production orders in the VPS

In Dynamics 365 BC, the planner can set the following buffer times :

  • "Default Safety Lead Time" in the Manufacturing Setup
  • "Safety Lead Time" on the Item card
  • "Inbound Warehouse Handling Time" in the Inventory setup

Now, we have made scheduling in the VPS  even more precise by taking into account these buffer times so that  when scheduling across production order lines that are linked by reservation entries, the above mentioned buffer times will get visualized. 

 

That's it for today - have fun working with the new versions  - and please stay healthy ;-)!

P.S. Watch out for my next week's blog about version 1.2 of our Visual Advanced Production Scheduler that has been released two days ago.

More information

 

Topics: Business Central Production Scheduling, Business Central Project & Resource Scheduling, Business Central Visual Scheduling Extensions, Release VJS, Release VPS