Method Community

James,

While our staff likes to use description-only line items for generic notes, I agree that there are better ways that can be handled, ie text boxes and predefined fields. And yes, I've given up the attempt to work around the issue with a separate table for description only items: I couldn't get it to work, and even if I could I would dread configuring the Sales Order -> Invoice action set to handle that mess. 

No, the main reason I require this ability is for our third party software which only writes our tracking info back to the description line, and doesn't offer an option to assign the description to a generic item I create. The particular software I'm using is called OzLink, but I've encountered other software that makes use of the description section of Invoice line items. I point this out just to indicate that is likely not a unique requirement for me or my company.

It is not Method itself that presents the problem here: I can import QB Invoices with description-only line items, and view those Invoices in Method. The issue is when I try to generate a report from that Invoice screen: for some reason, the Report Designer filters out description-only lines in a way neither Method nor QB do.

Also, while I can understand why Method might decide to enforce data integrity by requiring an item code for each new line item, I actually disagree with the decision. Why? Because Quickbooks does not enforce that requirement, and Method should defer to Quickbooks requirements to allow for smooth integration. Certainly, Method should have better and more improved features... but it shouldn't have more stringent requirements, unless those are ensured to be compatible with all aspects of Quickbooks. Especially when we don't have knowledge going into Method of what those requirements will be!

But I will take your advice check out an export of QB data, to see if QB does in fact assign an item value behind the scenes. I don't expect it to affect the main issue of Method's Report Designer, but it may shed some light on QB's workings. 

Also, it's great to see a community outside of Alocet employees on this forum!

-Sam

Sam,

That all makes a lot of sense, now I understand.  I'm really curious to see how folks solve problems of customization in Method.  I've always had great support on the forum from the Method support folks, but I hate to post a question or issue for every customization question and I'm hoping to give what help I can to learn more from others.

Since all you have left to get working is the report, I think you'll be able to find a clever way to get it to work.  I agree that there woudln't appear to be a reason why the report tool shouldn't print these lines.  I'll try one in my reports to see what happens.

But, assuming there is no filter logic on the Detail Header of the report that prints the line items, and that it is the buried logic of the functioning of the detailed header on the records retrieved in the Generate Report query, then it might be hard to fix in the report itself, and given that there is no documentaion for the report tool, it's a bit more problematic than it might be. But, I am thinking that the logic that prevents the lines is some hard code of the report tool possibly from a third party, not directly under Alocet's control.

But, I think it could be very easy to fix up the lines of your invoice before the generate report action is launched.  When your user clicks the Print Invoice button an Action Sequence is launched to generate the report and the logic to fix up the Description lines might be very easy to implement.  For example you might use the Loop Through Grid Action which will inspect each line item in the Line Item Grid.  You can then use a simple conditional statement to check the line items to see if they each have the required information.  For example something like Item <> Null.  Then fix up the line items with missing information.  You would need to copy the Description Text into a temporary Action Result Variable since changing the Item to a generic, non-empty item, might stomp on the description field, but then you just copy the contents of the Description back into the field of that line.

Loop Through Grid works well.  Unfortunately I have had mixed results operating on Row Values and tend to get more reliable results updating Screen Values instead.  I've also had bad luck with Save Grid Row, I don't think it works, so you might just need to save the entire screen BEFORE printing your report.

Other than the Save All Sections operations, I think most of that logic will run fast since Loop through Grid should work on the line item contets already loaded into the browser session, and changes aren't posted to the DB until the save operation.  I think you need to Save the Invoice prior to printing anyway since any change a user makes won't appear in the report until saved.  This statement is probably already in the Action Sequence.

Please keep us updated with your findings.

Cheers,

James

Sam -

I'm coming in late here, but to me I think what you want is totally possible.

I tried on my side to create a sales order, on a standard sales order screen, with 2 lines, one that had an item and description and one that only had a description.  This worked for me.

I tried on my side to print preview this using the standard sales order screen.  Both lines showed up on my report.

I checked QuickBooks, and both lines synced nicely to QuickBooks.  

I recognise that there is a lot of information above, and to be honest, deciphering out the core issue is making by brain hurt!!! :)

So can you confirm that:

1. What I outlined above is what you can do, and that my steps aren't the issue.

2. That the real core issue is simply that while the item description prints out for you, you just want to hide the quanity of "1" and price of "0" if there is no item.

This should be possible with conditional formatting, I just want to make sure we narrow down the core issue before going any further.

(and....sorry if I'm having to make you repeat yourself yet again) 

Paul

Sam,

I just ran some tests that might help.

I CANNOT create a Description Only line in Method without an Item.

I CAN create a Description Only line in QB and it synch's to Method perfectly fine.  It will ALSO print on MY Invoice report.  All of my screens and reports are customized, so this doesn't inform what the Method report might do, but it suggests that the Report Tool itself does not have a problem with the record.  The Method default screens and reports tend to have a lot of extra configuration that isn't strictly necessary.  The good thing is that all the Method default screens are mostly only using the same configuration tools accessible to you and me, except lately they're starting to use some html/xhtml code in their screens to make them pretty.

I'll take a look at the Method Invoice Report to see if I can see what might causing that report to drop the Description only line, but I might run out of time to look.

Cheers,

James

Another test, sorry so verbose.

I can create a Description only line in Full Blown Method Invoice.

I can print the Description only lines using Full Blown Method Invoice and the default report.

So, I'm not sure what's not working, except that in my customized screen Method won't allow me to enter a Description only field without an item.  I might have some action logic that requires this, or the new Method "data integrity" checks only operate on customized screens and block the insert.

I'm at the same point as Paul, as it looks like it's all working.

Last update.

I've inspected the Description only lines of the Invoice, one as added by QB then synch'd, the other added in the Full Blown Method Invoice screen using the table export function.  Both look identical in terms of data stored.  Neither have an Item, both have a QTY of 1, both print using the default report.

Sam, how's it coming?

Hi all,

Sorry for the delayed response, I was gone for the weekend. Here's where I'm at after reading your posts and emails: 

The more important issue (resolved) :

ie, getting the Report to show the description only lines

I've just tested the standard Sales Order and Invoice reports that come with Method using both custom and original screens, and the description-only lines do indeed display as they should (Paul: my claim was that this was not the case). Since I'm not hearing that any changes have been made to the report designer or the reports, I'm guessing that I failed to test these default reports before claiming a bug.

It looks like my own custom Invoice report is the problem, and it gives me hope to hear that James' custom Invoice report can handle description-only lines. In any case, I realize this is outside of Alocet's responsibility, but many thanks for your help in pinpointing the issue. Time for me to go mess with the Report Designer some more. 

The less important issue:

ie, getting the Method screens to accept new description-only lines.

The original Quickbooks Sales Order screen does allow me to add description-only lines. However, if I make a copy of that screen (Quickbooks_SalesOrder) without doing any customization, I am no longer able to! The act of copying the screen seems to mess something up, even if I don't change anything else.

Can you guys confirm this? It still looks like there is a bug here. 

As always, many thanks to all for your time and help in my moments of frustration. It really makes a difference. 

bSam,

My custom Invoice screen does the same thing, it won't allow addition of a description only line item.  My screen is highly customized, but I have gone over every line of code, etc. in the default screen before making changes and my Invoice screen is working well with a lot of functionality built in, so I don't think I "broke" the default screen.  My suspicion is that the new Method validation rules are only running against user customized screens and the error that disallowes the line addition without data in item field is a validation rule that has been more recently added.  There is no way to verify this from our end and I had not tried this before the new rules were rolled out in February.  But, the new validation rules broke several other configurations that used to work and some of the things I had to fix were actually code that was inherited from the Method default screens.  I had always wondered how Method could break their own code without knowing it, but now I'm about 75% sure that the Method default screens do not need to pass all the validation rules that customized screens do.  So, even though their code was non compliant, it would still run and I was one of the few people affected.  In those cases the default code was using the End Loop Through Table action when it should have been the End Loop Through Grid action.  These bad statements still exist in the default SalesOrder_CreateInvoice screen (Full Blown Method April 13, 2011 verions).  If you look at the action sequence behind the Next button, you can see that the Loop Through Grid action is incorreclty terminated with a End Loop Through Table action, but this works when the screen is run as a default Method screen but breaks as soon as you try to use it as a custom screen.  I suspect there are few people customizing this screen so it has gone undected.  Simliar for your problem.  It would be interesting to get to the bottom of this since I would be very disappointed to learn that the internal developers at Method are not using the same platform we are when designing screens.  It was always reassuring to know that any of the Method default screens were using the same code as one's that third party or end user folks would be using and reverse engineering a default Method screen was a great way to learn how to make customizations.  If the same validation rules are not being used in both environments this breaks a very useful quality control paradigm.

'

@James - we get the same tools you get.  Otherwise, that would really go against our ambitions - and I promise that I would be more disappointed than you are!  All screens that can be copied are using the same platform tools you have.  

The exception are screens that cannot be copied, such as the login screen, designer screen, and the standard screens found under the QuickBooks and Customize tabs.  There ones are done with code. 

For what it's worth, a few of our older or more obscure screens *did* get hurt by our own validation rules.  It was quite a headache for us!  

I think Sam's issue is something else.

@Sam - can you let me know the name of the screen in your account that exhibits the problem?

Paul

Paul,

That's a relief to know the new validation rules run against all the screens.

I'll try to validate Sam's observation about the clean copy of the default screen not allowing the description only entry.  I haven't really characterized the problem, and I shouldn't speculate.  My own code requires the Item field, so description only wouldn't work for some other reasons.

Cheers,

James

Paul,

I don't see the fix to SalesOrder_CreateInvoice though?  My account shows the Full Blown Method version of this screen as April 13, 2011.  Maybe there's an update to this screen that I don't have?

This screen has the wrong Loop Through Table/Grid statement.  It terminates the loop with the Table statement, not the corresponding Grid statement.  It worked until the validation logic.  I'm sure the script interpreter doesn't care which loop is ended, but the validation does.

I know it sounds unlikely, but the validation logic in Jan/Feb broke my version of this screen, and I doubled checked the default screen at that time.  I just fixed the statement in my screen like the error message advised.  I don't understand why someone else wouldn't have had the same problem but as far as I an tell it's still part of the default screen logic.

I know this is off topic, but the only way I could understand how this could be was that the validation rules were letting the default screens take a pass against the rules.

I'll do some testing or open under another topic sometime if it's too off topic.

James

Paul:

Then I have a few copies of the original Quickbooks_SalesOrder screen that I've tried out, the latest one is titled CopyofOriginal_SalesOrder(2).

Here's how you can recreate the issue:

1. Copy the original Quickbooks_Sales Order screen (the name of the new screen doesn't appear to matter).

2. Fill out the Sales Order, add a standard line item, and save it. Everything is fine at this point.

3. Add more lines to the Sales Order, and for one of those new lines write something in the description field, but put nothing in the item field. 

4. Now, when you attempt to either "update" the line-item grid, or save the Sales Order, you should get an error.

I've experienced the issue on a few screens. My actual custom screen is titled CPLS_SalesOrder (CPLS being the abbreviation of our company name). I compared this last week action by action to the standard Quickbooks_Sales Order screen and couldn't figure out what the issue was. I've discovered today that any exact copy of the standard Quickbooks_Sales Order screen has the same issue, though if you use the Quickbooks screen itself, everything works fine.

@Sam - the plot thickens!!  I used MethodSupport to do this on CopyofOriginal_SalesOrder(2).  I was able to insert new lines without an item on sales order 100003.  There were a couple items there already, so I'm not sure if they came from you in Method or from QuickBooks. I left my test items in there so that you know I'm not crazy!

I also did a copy of QuickBooks_SalesOrder and called it QuickBooks_SalesOrder(2).  I successfully added another itemless line to 100003 here. Life was good.  I deleted QuickBooks_SalesOrder(2) to clean up after myself.

For CPLS_SalesOrder_CreatePO I got a validation message.  Not sure if you were half-finished customizing the screen and didn't publish it after your last edits?  So I just ran a server-side republish of the screen output (same thing as you actually clicking the Publish button in the designer).  After that, I was also able to add an itemless line to CPLS_SalesOrder_CreatePO. 

Note: it still needed a Rate value to be filled out, otherwise it got upset.  Was it maybe giving you attitude on the Rate rather than the Item?

Paul

Paul,

I just tried it too, and you are right, the item code is no longer an issue, but the rate still is. If I put a rate of 0 in along with the description I have no issue, including with my custom screens. It'll be easy enough to write an action set that enters a rate automatically for desc-only lines. I'm a happy Methodist again!

Speaking of a thickening plot, either you guys have made relevant changes within the past week, or I'm going crazy. I commented in an earlier post about how in the LineItem tables (SalesOrderLineItem, InvoiceLineItem, etc), both the "Item" field and "Rate" field were marked as required. Now only the "Rate field" is marked as required! (RecordID as well, but thats true for all tables, so I ignore it)

Since you guys seem to have the ability to 'un-require' fields that I can't (it's greyed out for me), how about un-requiring the "rate" field as well? It doesn't seem to be any more necessary than an item code in Quickbooks.