We are an electronics company and some components need to be tested by United Laboratories(UL). Is there a field that can be checked so reports and audits can be generated?
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I don’t think there is one out of the box, but you can add a field in UD Column Maintenance, and regenerate the Data Model.
Then you can add it to your form.
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I could’ve sworn someone asked this a short while ago… and it was you…
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Day drinking has it’s downsides.
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But if you drink enough, you won’t care.
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We have part features we wanted to use for grouping, sorting or searching. Instead of adding a UD field, we used the Attributes section in Part Maintenance. Some fields available would never be used in our business so I changed the field’s label and we enter the information in those fields. Maybe not the best way but it was an easy fix that worked.
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Easy yes… but hijacking fields isn’t recommended.
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I’ll admit I have done that in the past, but later it had teeth.
I just add the column now.
I have UL and a few others that are on a part that I copy to the order. In addition to the requirement I also have a checkbox for completed. In shipment entry if required is check and completed it not check they get a message on opening the pack telling them that the order will not ship without the paperwork completed checkbox set and tells them who the responsible party is. I then do not allow the pack to be closed which prevents freighting and shipping.
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Wow… thorough implementation!
When I was trying to solve a similar problem ? years ago Dynamic Attributes seemed like an elegant solution, but at the time you could not DMT that data so I took a different direction. I believe they have since remedied that so you may want to consider it.
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Took a couple of customer corrective actions to get it started, but now when a new one comes up quality just asks for me to clone the process.
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yeah, I was wondering if this thorough build was audit driven, haha.
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I agree that is not a good practice but sometimes I am required to go outside of the normal process to satisfy the immediate need as stated by management. It can be very frustrating. I didn’t change anything about the field other than the label. We use the ThicknessMax field to represent our products working pressure. If there is an inherent issue I should consider I would appreciate any feedback.
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If you’re never gonna use it, and it’s not used in any calculations or validations that are built in to Epicor, the risk is minimal.
And I say again, we have done it. (You are not alone.)
But… It is only marginally more work to do it the right way, and add a field. 
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I think instances like that are probably safe… there are old fields on some tables that even Epicor has stopped using. In those cases I get real nervous because you never know when THEY might decide to trash them and/or repurpose them and then your work may be compromised.
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Exactly the ones I was thinking of… very recent example.
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If you are going to hijack something, maybe reference category? A category of “UL Inspected Parts” ?
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It’s actually Underwriters Laboratories… my dad worked there for 40 years or so. I’ve added UD fields and/or Supplier Attributes for years.
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