Visual Scheduling Blog

The Visual Advanced Production Scheduler, which you already might know as VAPS was a product we started working on around middle of 2019 in collaboration with our friends from TecMan from the UK.

The VAPS is the first finite capacity visual scheduler fully integrated into Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. As such, the VAPS is the big brother of the Visual Production Scheduler (VPS), which you probably already know about. Although both products work with Business Central’s manufacturing module, they are still quite different.

The Visual Production Scheduler (VPS) has been our signature software since 2013. With the experience from more than 300 VPS customers using Microsoft Dynamics NAV, we knew that there are a lot of manufacturing clients that have higher scheduling requirements as what can get fulfilled with the standard Dynamics NAV, respectively Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central functionality.

For this reason, we very consciously decided for a two-pronged approach when we transferred our IP from Dynamics NAV to Dynamics 365 Business Central. On the one hand, we rebuilt the Visual Production Scheduler to prove customers with an easy-to-use visual drag & drop front-end to standard Business Central manufacturing. On the other hand, we started the development of the “bigger brother” to the VPS, which we named VAPS – Visual Advanced Production Scheduler.

The idea was, and is, to enhance the Business Central manufacturing module by those functions that the standard seems to lack, and that larger manufacturers require to better run their shops.

As of today, both the VPS and the VAPS are available on AppSource for Dynamics 365 Business Central addressing to improve the same module: Manufacturing. Then, what are the main differences between these two extensions?

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.

Scheduling is no easy job. You need to match a production order to available machine times, skilled resources, required material, and a few other variables. An ERP, like Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is perfect for gathering the information you need to start scheduling. The issue being: Business Central displays all information as tables or within tables. There’s a great search field and filter functionality on top that eases the data hunt. But it would be simpler to see it in one view.

Who hasn’t heard the phrase “A picture is worth a thousand words”? Well, that’s basically our motto. At NETRONIC, our goal is to turn your production schedule into a dynamic visual. As you may know, we accomplish that using Gantt charts. But we work to boost up the contributions of a Gantt chart for project, resource and production planners. How would you benefit from having a Visual Scheduler? Allow me to explain...

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 :-)

Did your customer ask for a visual scheduler, but you have no idea where to begin with? You thought of us, maybe you showed a video, or we participated in a demo and now you're considering how to continue. I know what you’ll say next: “My customer wants to try the software before making a decision”. I get you. But this is when I’ll reply, “I can offer you our Quick Start Package”. Here is what this is all about and why we decided for an alternative to the free trial.

Version 1.5 of both the Visual Production Scheduler and the Visual Jobs Scheduler have been released as of lately. These releases don't offer as many new features as you may be accustomed to from us, but this doesn't mean, of course, that we have been idle. On the contrary, to further improve our products and offer you the best possible user experience we decided that in this release we would do a lot of streamlining and consequently have strongly focused on product maintenance in the form of bugfixing and performance improvement.

For you and me, this means that we have more space and time to deal with the main new feature of the VJS and explain it in detail, with a little theoretical excursion into the world of formulas. As always, the complete release information can  be found in the respective notes for VPS and VJS.

I hope you liked the new features of the Visual Production Scheduler I presented you with last week and are now eager to see which functionality we have on offer with the November release of the Visual Jobs Scheduler.