Maybe this is new in E10, or maybe I’ve just not seen in my 10 years of using V8 …
I went to make a new Part Master entry, and after entering the PartNum, the other fields auto-populated. Including the description.
I thought that the part must have already existed, so I closed Part Maint w/o saving, and did a search for the P/N. But found it was not in the system.
I launched Part Maintenance and entered the P/N again. Upon hitting Tab I was prompted to create a new part. After selecting yes, the part’s other fields populated again.
The values used to auto fill those fields appear to be straight up copies from an order that the P/N (as an On the Fly Part) was specified. This kind of makes sense. But my concern is what if that P/N was used as and OTF P/N on several orders, but with different field values. Which Order’s line’s PartDescription would be used when creating the new Part Entry?
I’m not sure which one it pulls, but we created a BPM that prevents users from creating a part number that was previously a part-on-the-fly on some sales order or purchase order. Besides pulling in odd defaults, apparently, it can cause issues with the existing orders or POs where that part number was used. All of the sudden you have very little indication that the pre-existing SO or PO was for a part-on-the-fly, and, as I recall, it can even make Epicor misbehave in certain instances (can’t think of an example off the top of my head, but things like changing warehouses or plant even on a sales order you touch where the order detail was originally a part on the fly, but is now part mastered part).
Especially since we were thinking about actually making POTF parts become a real part after it’s made.
The reason for this is that the part is made at Plant A, but need to be shipped to Plant B to be bundled with other line items, when it is shipped. The only way to do a transfer order between plants, is if the item is qty bearing.
I should clarify and say that as a rule of thumb we try not to do this, but we have. I don’t think there was any show-stopping corrupt everything issue with making a PotF into a real part. Especially if you are early on in the lifecycle of that part. I guess I mostly meant it as a warning against making it common practice, and thus you wouldn’t have to worry so much about your original question.