Ryan: Just to be clear -- we don't care about copying the actual/physical/logical SO layout itself into Method, or making the Method screen "look like" the custom Sales Order we're accustomed to using. There's no need to redesign or customize the SO screen to make it resemble, or have the same look-and-feel, of our custom Sales Order. That's not the point of this line of questioning.
All I am trying to do is select the Sales Order layout *designation* (e.g. the SO template name) and have it *stick* as the value of the SO Template field - which I have added to our version of the SO screen. I'm optimistic that when an SO created in Method gets updated in QBooks, QB would accept an appropriate value in that field, and use that value to determine how to store and display the SO in QB accordingly, after the next synch.
However, I don't know this, because even though I can add the SO Template field to my custom SO screen (and have done so, several weeks ago), I can't seem to get it to 'load up' with the values in that field.
That sounds to me like a functional issue with Method, not a limitation of the SDK or a feature of QuickBooks. It would be a different problem, I suppose, if the SO Template field loaded up the values available to it, and *then* didn't do anything with them, but that's not what is happening. At the most basic level, I have added a field to a custom screen, and it doesn't appear to be working - that is, it won't load values that I know are there.
One further point: you observe in the above: "If you enter in the data into Method after you add those fields, you
can go into QB and switch the template to be able to view the new data." In this circumstance, it would be EXTREMELY INCONVENIENT if we had to manually find and open in QBooks every SO that was created in Method, simply to redesignate it as the proper type of SO (as determined by the SO template setting). That nearly obviates a key point of our having Method in the first place - which is to allow us to imput SO's remotely.
Lee