Method:Classic General Q&A

Re: Estimates Screens

Anonymous — Wed, 16 May 2012 18:48:50 GMT

At this point we have gone as far as we can in this forum thread to address your issue using the free support options. In order to keep assisting you with this issue, it will be necessary for a Method consultant to review your screen and actions and determine where your issue is. This would be considered paid consulting. If you're stuck on this issue then a consulting session might be helpful to get you up and running.

Your original question about Estimates should be answered in this thread and we've confirmed that the original screens do work as intended.

Re: Estimates Screens

MikeB — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:30:11 GMT

Method_Chad:

MikeB:
My original question was: how do I incorporate/link Estimates to my user (ABC) interface and have the estimates populated in the transactions tab of each Customer screen?

The Transaction table has all the information you need here, the Txt Type field lets you know if its a Sales Order, Estimate, Invoice, etc. If you want to incorporate estimates into a screen then you'll be looking at the Transactions table filtered on Txt Type.

OK, I think I'm beginning to understand this. So, I chose Edit for a copy my ABC_EditCustomer screen, and the "New Transaction" button was hidden. After unhiding it I see the Go To... links to create new sales orders, estimates, etc. But none of these work. I have to add links to these actions, right?

So I edited the action called "Sales Order" and added the tab link Customers>>Sales Order, also choosing "Is a child screen of the current screen" (which I'm not sure is the right option, but that's a separate issue). Anyway, the links worked.

So my final question is: when I link to Customers>>Sales Order, I'm believe I'm accessing the ABC_Invoice screen. I don't see an ABC_Estimate screen available for me to link to, so I guess I have to make the QuickBooks_Estimate screen a part of my "Customers" tab group, and then it will work if I link to it, correct?

Re: Estimates Screens

Anonymous — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:22:13 GMT

MikeB:
My original question was: how do I incorporate/link Estimates to my user (ABC) interface and have the estimates populated in the transactions tab of each Customer screen?

The Transaction table has all the information you need here, the Txt Type field lets you know if its a Sales Order, Estimate, Invoice, etc. If you want to incorporate estimates into a screen then you'll be looking at the Transactions table filtered on Txt Type.

MikeB:
I viewed the CRM_EditCustomer screen and none of the links worked...

Which links? If you're talking about the New Transactions > Invoices link then if you review the action on that button you'll see it calls a Go To Tab Link ... Customers > Invoices. These links should not be broken by default on the stock screen.

MikeB:
Opening that screen only with no company linked to it shouldn't work, right?

It should work, it'll just go to the tab link for under Customers to Invoice.

MikeB:
... when I open a sub-form like CRM_EditCustomer without going through the CRM_CustomerList screen first, I shouldn't expect a working sub-form, right?

If you open a screen like CRM_EditCustomer, without going through a Contact's Go To link from the CRM_CustomerList screen, then you should see a working screen minus any information for a customer (since you haven't selected one).

MikeB:
I am taken directly to my ABC_EditCustomer screen in the user interface... Does this make sense?

Yes. If you review the action on the Go To link in the grid on CRM_ContactList you'll see calls a Go To Tab Link action for the page Customers > Edit Customer.

Re: Estimates Screens

MikeB — Wed, 16 May 2012 12:37:50 GMT

When logging in as a user, I am accessing the customized screens, which include Customers and Sales Order (linked to customers). Everything works fine. For example, if the company name is ABC, then the screens called "ABC_EditCustomer" and "ABC_Invoice" work fine. The Invoice screen is actually what's used as the Sales Order tab.

My original question was: how do I incorporate/link Estimates to my user (ABC) interface and have the estimates populated in the transactions tab of each Customer screen?

So, I went to the Customize tab and looked around in copies of the CRM_Customer, CRM_EditCustomer and QuickBooks_Estimate screens to see how those links worked and how I could mimic those in my custom interface.

But things degenerated when I viewed the CRM_EditCustomer screen and none of the links worked. But I think none of them should have worked, right? Opening that screen only with no company linked to it shouldn't work, right? That is, when I open a sub-form like CRM_EditCustomer without going through the CRM_CustomerList screen first, I shouldn't expect a working sub-form, right?

Conversely, if I view the CRM_CustomerList screen and select a customer, I am taken directly to my ABC_EditCustomer screen in the user interface. The CRM_EditCustomer screen is not opened up within the Customize tab. Does that make sense?

Re: Estimates Screens

Anonymous — Tue, 15 May 2012 21:08:04 GMT

MikeB:
The Sales Orders screen does not exist in my list.

By default the Sales Orders tab link should be part of Customers tab - if you were missing this then is was deleted at some point. Add the Sales Orders screen back on your Customers tab links and the action set should work as intended. Your tab link names are important here, if the action is looking for the "Sales Orders" tab link then you should have a tab link called "Sales Orders".

Re: Estimates Screens

MikeB — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:42:52 GMT

OK, so digging deeper, I notice that if I edit the CRM_Edit Customer tab, go to the Transactions section and edit the "New Transaction" button, the second screen shows the embedded actions.When I use the filter to see the "Sales Order" action, the coding says Go To Tab ink >> Go To Sales Orders. The Sales Orders screen does not exist in my list. If I edit that action and add a tab link to open the Customers >> Sales Order screen, it works. I'm just not sure why the wrong link was there in the first place, to a screen that wasn't there...

Re: Estimates Screens

Anonymous — Mon, 14 May 2012 16:25:34 GMT

MikeB:
I do not believe that I have broken any links.

Without seeing your screen I can definitely say yours is not behaving like the stock Method CRM screens. From Customize > View > CRM_EditCustomer screen, all the sub-tabs are blank but none of them cause errors.

The stock CRM_EditCustomer screen more actions buttons are delete customer and notes - this is correct.

MikeB:
Should the screen be populated with nformation at all?

The screen should only be populated if you're viewing a customer, if you're seeing information when you're not viewing a customer then you've customized something on your end.

MikeB:
I realize that opening "CRM_EditCustomer" on its own doesn't link to a particular client, and maybe that's why the links for new transactions don't work?

When I view the stock CRM_EditCustomer screen and click the new transaction button, all these links work for me. None of these buttons are broken.

Re: Estimates Screens

MikeB — Mon, 14 May 2012 12:46:22 GMT

And to elaborate a bit on the above, when I Edit a copy of the "CRM_EditCustomer" screen and go to the New Transaction button within the Transactins section, the first Action for the button (regardless whether I choose a Sales order or an Edtiate) is called "AssignValue To Action Result" and the notes are "Assign FullName to resultTransactionEntity". Since I'm opening up a copy of CRM_EditCustomer screen on its own and it's not linked to anything, I should expect an error when I try do do a new transaction, right?

Re: Estimates Screens

MikeB — Mon, 14 May 2012 12:38:34 GMT

Again, I'll detail what's happening:

If, within the Customize environment, I view the "CRM_CustomerList" screen and select a particular customer, I am taken to the "Edit Customers" tab for that particular customer within my custom environment.

If, within the Customize environment I view the "CRM_EditCustomer" screen, the main form fields and all the sub-tabs (Transactions, etc.) are blank, and I'm not able to investigate new transactions (ie. I get the error pressing the button)

If, within the Customize environment I view the customiaed "Edit_Customer" screen, the main form fields are blank, but the sub tabs (like Transactions) contain all the records for all customers. And I'm still in the Customize environment. However, the only options available to me in "More Actions" are either "Delete Customer" or "Notes".

I do not believe that I have broken any links. I may just not undersnd how to edit a copy of the "CRM_EditCustomer" screen properly, or what I should be seeing. Should the screen be populated with nformation at all? I realize that opening "CRM_EditCustomer" on its own doesn't link to a particular client, and maybe that's why the links for new transactions don't work?

Re: Estimates Screens

Anonymous — Fri, 11 May 2012 19:17:04 GMT

You're not wrong to expect that but the fact that you're seeing behaviour different from the stock screens suggests to me that you've broken a link on the stock set of screens. Without seeing your screen it's impossible for us to provide a solution to fixing the link on your stock screen.

At this point we've exhausted all options we can over the forum. The next step would be to book consulting with one of our consultants to review the changes you have made and narrow down what the problem could be. Please let me know if you're like a consultant to contact you.

Re: Estimates Screens

MikeB — Fri, 11 May 2012 14:40:01 GMT

Are you asking me to log into my Method environment as a user? When I do what you say, there's no Transactions tab at the bottom. Only Activities. Either way, the Method environment for users/staff/mamagers is working fine, no links are broken.

Regardess, that's not what I'm looking to do. I'm investigating how to link the Estimates screens to my custom Customer (ie. Edit Customer) screens. This means that I went into the Customize section and looked around at the available screens. I did the following:

I Viewed the stock Quickbooks Estimate screen and entered an estimate (which I can still see when I vew that screen).
I Viewed our custom Edit Customer screen, which, because I'm viewing the screen on its own, without connecting through a specific customer first, shows me all transactions (over 100,000 records). That's a good thing, showing that my links are fine. However, the estimated I created is not visible here - perhaps because there are no links to the estimate screen?
I Viewed the stock Edit Customer screen, which does not show the estimate in the transactions tab at the bottom, nor does it show any transactions at all. I thought that it would.

I can assure you that I have not broken any links. I am just not sure that I have explained what I have been trying to do.

I did not expect my estimate to show up in my custom Customer Transactions tab, because this has not been linked (I imagine that's why). But I did expect my estimate to show up in the stock Edit Customer screen. Was I wrong in expecting that?

Re: Estimates Screens

Anonymous — Fri, 11 May 2012 13:37:48 GMT

For a test,

Go to the Leads tab > Leads and Contacts list
Click Go To... on any lead
Scoll down to the section tabs and click Transactions
Click New Transaction... then click Estimate.

If none of thse pages were modified or copied then you should have no errors throughout the steps above. At some point you must have replaced the tab links to get the types of errors you're running into. The Go To... links are replaced when you copy and replace tab links. You will have to copy and replace the links with the original screen to bring finctionality back.

Re: Estimates Screens

MikeB — Thu, 10 May 2012 19:55:37 GMT

I do not think that I have changed any links. All I have done is made copies and selected: do not add a tab link every time.

Here are the steps I'm taking:

Go to the Customize>Screens
Select "View" for CRM_EditCustomer
The screen opens, but all fields are blank, which seems to make sense because I'm only opening the edit screen, which does not have a customer attached to it.
Is this maybe why the actions aren't working?

Re: Estimates Screens

Anonymous — Thu, 10 May 2012 19:19:58 GMT

In this case it sounds like you also changed the tab link for Invoices since my stock screen does not have this problem. If you've made a copy and replaced the tab links, it'll replace it everywhere, including the GoTo links.

Re: Estimates Screens

MikeB — Thu, 10 May 2012 18:56:40 GMT

Actually, when I View the original stock Edit Customer screen (which I can't mess with, I can only view or copy), I can't do any "New Transaction". For example, when I select Invoice from the New Transaction button, I get:

Could not run the 'Go To Tab Link' command, as there was a problem locating the Tab Link 'Invoices'. This Tab Link may have been deleted, or if you copied the original Screen from another account, you may also need to copy the Screen this Tab Link 'Invoices' belongs to as well.

Additional Information

Action Sequence Order:3