We have a multi site environment (2 sites). We can create BAQs, dashboards, schedules, reports all that can view both sites simultaneously but Entry Forms cannot. Why? Are we able to change a setting that will allow us to view jobs, quotes, orders from the other site without needing to switch sites? We are managing tasks from 1 site and our schedules show both sites but when we want to view an off site job, we have to close everything and switch sites which a right PITA…
Its not all entry forms, only particular ones. For example sales order entry you can already see all sales orders. But Shipment entry you can only see shipments for the current site. You can create your own dashboards to make it easier to look things up across multiple sites, or updateable dashboards to edit some of the fields, but to actually open record you have to switch the site context, there isn’t any way around it.
I would like to see Epicor tackle this issue because in my mind is it the single biggest shortcoming of the entire platform. I should not have to close the application I am working in to change company or site, I should be able to change my context WHILE I HAVE THE FORM OPEN. If I had a nickel for every time somebody opened a support case complaining that their packing slip got deleted . . . (and it was because they were in the wrong site context)
Here is Epicor’s official response on the request , which amounts to, its too hard so we won’t bother trying to address this massive pain point.
Is there an IDEAS we can vote for? Improving this would be a huge benefit to multi-company users who interact in multiple companies and sites.
In the meantime, we’ve created app shortcuts with specific companies (instead of current company). This way you just click once to open the form in the specific site, instead of having to minimize the windows, maximize the homepage, click on the user icon, click on the site/company dropdown, select it, wait, and then open the app in the right company. <----- Epicor - this is a lot of extra steps!
The idea I screenshotted is here:Log In - Epicor Identity
You can vote for it but its already marked not planning to implement so I doubt it will do any good.
Yes shortcuts can be a little bit helpful if you are switching between a couple of companies and sites. When you are switching between 12+companies and dozens of sites its useless, you will spend more time hunting for the shortcut. The other reason that shortcuts fall short (ha ha) is because if you use a shortcut to open in a different company or site than the current context, now your right-click open with doesn’t work. Because those records are not in the current context.
it seems a little strange that we have the ability to cross read data from all sites but not interactively access certain functions. Not all companies run a separate entities just because there are multiple locations.
Reading from a database where the only difference is the site (plant) or company is easy because these are just columns in the same table. Maintaining company and plant security when updating the database is truly an architectural challenge. The session determines which company and plant one has access to. When we switch plants or companies, Epicor literally spins up a new session for the new access and uses all of the security used since Vantage 8 or even earlier. You can see this if you look at the Session Management. The “extra” logins won’t have “Consuming a License” checked. In the data, these are called “Enterprise” sessions. To change that would require a rewrite of the entire security model. And while one might think that’s not a bad idea, it would take a very long time since it touches everything.
Yeah, I’ve been in Multi-Company and Multi-Site (never both at the same time) and it is a PITA. I know that @hkeric.wci did some trickery in a BPM where he would create a session transaction, change the site/company, do work, and dispose the session. The code is on here somewhere.
And there may be some hope in the Kinetic UI because I’m fairly sure one can change the company/site in the call context in REST. But I would never expect it to change in the classic client.
