First MES Menu Customization for Organization

Epicor ERP 10
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It has been about 10 years since I have had to deploy a new MES Menu Customization in an environment where MES is still the stock/vanilla setup, meaning I can’t just tweak the existing customization with the requisite changes.

I know that the MESCustomMenuID field needs to be updated in the sysconfig file, but I am getting stuck trying to figure out how to update the sysconfig file on a few hundred machines without having to spend the better part of a week driving across the state to each of our facilities to manually update them. Ideally, I’d prefer not to have to RDP into each machine either.

This leaves me with the manual option of opening up the \Workstation\C$\Epicor.… share on each machine and dropping the updated sysconfig into the config directory. Or more realistically, scripting something in PowerShell to crawl my network looking for Epicor installations and editing the existing sysconfig to show the proper MESCustomMenuID.

But, that seems quite tedious. I would think (hope) that Epicor has a way to do this automagically. Looking at the existing sysconfig, there is the ‘customizations’ section at the bottom:

  <customizations>
    <customization name="ERP10.2.600.11" directoryName="Update" version="10.2.600.11" deploymentType="Zip" />
  </customizations>

Is that something that could be used to get a new sysconfig sent out to each client? Or am I making this a lot more complicated than it actually is?

EDIT: Okay - so I was reading the sysconfig incorrectly…MESCustomMenuID is NOT where the customization goes - it is where the new MESMenuID goes (the UDMES thing that is starting to come back to me from when I did this in the E9 days). I have created the UDMES1 Process in Menu Maintenance and added that to the .sysconfig on my workstation. The new customization loads successfully on my workstation. Now is where my initial question comes into play of: How do I get this on all workstations?

EDIT2: I edited the E10Test.sysconfig file on the server under ClientDepoyment and then manually ran AutoUpdate.exe on my workstation, and that did update the E10Test.sysconfig. Now I need to figure out if the AutoUpdate.exe can be ‘forced’ somehow.

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I’d love to know this as well. When I asked a similar question, I was pointed to a menu called Process Calling Maintenance. Supposedly you can specify the Erp.Menu.Mes.dll as a reference and specify the custom menu ID and it’s supposed to automagically work for all clients. Or at least that is how I thought I was told. But I never got mine to work like that and had to go touch all our workstations to update the sysconfig file.

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I came across that same set of instructions, and did what it asked…but just like you it was a ‘no go’.
image

I also tried changing the Called Process Reference from Epicor.Mfg.Menu.MES to Erp.Menu.MES, thinking that maybe the instructions were incorrect, but that was a no-go as well.
image

I did both of those options with a “Called From” set too:
image

Also a no-go.

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Something tells the client to update whenever the server receives an updated version. Whatever that is, maybe you can use that.

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I will go back into looking down that path once I finally decide to give up on the Process Calling Maintenance option…From what I can tell, this should work to do what we want, as it appears to be the recommended path to take. I have found this method described on EpicCare, EpiUsers, SpiceWorks, ChatGPT, etc., but those appear to be for E9 (Using the older Epicor.Mfg.* namespaces and not the newer Erp.* ones).

I would think that following the same instructions, but changing to the new E10 Namespace would still work, but maybe it just…doesn’t?

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Can we add a textbox to the customization for MES and then have it display the Calling From value? Or a MessageBox? I am not exactly sure where to get the value but I suspect it’s there. Then once you know what it is, you can put it in the Process Calling Maintenance screen.

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I turned on Dev mode for MES and clicked the System Monitor button which shows the Calling App as Erp.Menu.Mes:
image

This solidifies my thought that using Erp.Menu.Mes is the correct reference to use here:
image

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Welp, I have spent most of the day trying to figure out how to pull this off, and I am happy to say: “I give up.”

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If I get a minute I’ll test here, but I’m pretty sure that doesn’t work and never has in 10x+.

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I did test, no bueno.

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I am going to try to set it up on 2023.1 later on today if I have time, just to see if it works there.

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What version did you test it on?

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2024.1.15

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I tried it on my 2023.1 setup, and it was a no go. Which is kind of disappointing. I can see that being an extremely helpful feature to have functional.

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