Introduction
One of the goals of ERPAG is efficiency, especially in the exchange of information. The mobile device paired with cloud base application allows instant data access.
The first concept is “paperless“.
All software manufacturers are forcing a “paperless” concept while working with documents, each application has some way of searching for a document. A problem emerges relating “physical” object with “logical” document.
For example “Wood plank” is a physical object which is used in the manufacturing process. “Work order” is a logical document that is in digital form and contains information on which work operations should be performed on “wood plank”. If you have one “wood plank” and one open Work order, that is not a problem. But if you have dozens of “wood plank” and more stages in production, relating materials with work orders might cause a lot of issues and waste valuable time.
The most practical solution is to label physical documents, that way the simple scan will show the corresponding document on the mobile device. QR codes are very practical for scanning via mobile device camera.
In ERPAG, labels are designed in Label Designer. More information can be found on our blog:
Another concept is “classic” where printed document follows items in the manufacturing process.
Problem with printed document is when the amount of information is large and it has to be printed on multiple sheets. An even bigger problem can be when printed information is not up to date. It is not practical to print a new document if some changes occurred (eg a stage has been completed).
The Solution for this concept is to have only basic information on a printed document. While scanning QR code we can always see the document which is up to date.
For creating documents we use Report Designer. More information can be found on this blog:
Mobile App
Document Lookup option can be found in the Inventory section on Mobile App.
In the search box, we enter the document number, or simply scan it via device camera. If it’s found, it will automatically open that document.
The search is by part of the name, so if there are multiple documents, you can select the desired one.
Note: In order to search and display a document, you must have an appropriate template defined in Report Designer. If you have multiple templates for one type of document, you can choose(marked with red color on the picture above). The order is by the Key of the template, and the first template will be shown by default.
Apart from the document number, a search can be also done via customer name, supplier, or description.
Note: The selection list shows only 100 results, sorted from recent dates towards oldest.
A displayed document can be scrolled, emailed, or printed.
Note: More information about printing setup via Mobile App can be found on this blog:
Creating report specifically for Mobile App review
A preview of a document intended for printing on a desktop printer(A4, letter format) if used on a smartphone device will always require scrolling or zooming out. Vertical scroll (Y-axis) is normal, while horizontal (X-axis) is something that should be avoided. In that case, a user would have to use a two-way scroll to see the desired data. There is also a problem if you want to have something always in the user sight field, with smaller devices, the right side of the “paper” will not always be visible.
To solve that issue, the Report designer has the option to generate a report adjusted to screen size.
Instead of setting size paper in cm or inches, we can select a size in pixels. This way you can fully adjust the document view to the device you are using.
For example, Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max has a width of 428px, so a template prepared in this way won’t require horizontal scrolling.
Note: The physical resolution of the device differs (always higher to make the display better) from the display resolution. The “Viewport” (or “CSS”) width of the device is entered in Report Designer. Information about device resolution can be found on this page: https://www.mydevice.io/
In practice, it happens that different operators use different devices or they simply change devices after a while. One of the solutions is to use “Search scope – Users” – to determine which templates will be enabled for which user.
Setting Privileges
For each operator in ERPAG, you can set up a level of access.
Whether the option can be activated on the mobile application is determined by the “Document Look-up” (marked with red on the picture above).
“Search Scope” is determined by the document type access itself (Options for general documents access are highlighted green). For example, if a user doesn’t have access to “Purchase orders”, the search will not be performed for “Purchase Orders” and “Goods Receive Note”.
“Search scope” will be displayed on Document Lookup, listing out documents that can be searched. If you want to exclude a specific document (eg “Invoice”), simply disable access to that user on a template in Report Designer.
Note: We should take care of displaying “sensitive” data to users. The displayed template on a mobile device is not correlating with other restrictions on the user itself. For example, if a user does not have access to “Purchase price” (“show: Purchase price” is switched off) displayed “Purchase order” might contain information about the purchase price. In that case, you need to create additional templates that won’t have that information. Access to other templates must be restricted.
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