In this chapter, you will learn how to do the following:
You may find the information in this chapter useful when you are responsible for the customization of Acumatica ERP in your company, including developing and modifying generic inquiries to give users information they need to do their jobs. You need to deliver different inquiry forms that your colleagues may need for getting their jobs done.
To design a generic inquiry in Acumatica ERP, you need to have general knowledge of data access classes (DACs). In Acumatica ERP, the data is stored in a database, but users do not access the database directly; instead, they access it through data access classes. When building inquiries, you retrieve data from the data access classes rather than working with the database tables directly.
Before you begin creating the generic inquiry, you gather the needed information by doing the following:
For more information, see DAC Discovery: General Information.
Alternatively, you can look for the inquiries that already have some needed data and use it as a data source for your inquiry alone or combined with additional inquires or tables.
To create a generic inquiry, you perform the following general steps:
After you have completed the basic steps of creating the generic inquiry on the Generic Inquiry (SM208000) form and saved the settings that you have specified on the form, you can preview the generic inquiry form to make sure it meets your expectations. You can preview an inquiry directly from this form by clicking the eye icon on the side panel of the Generic Inquiry form; the system displays the resulting generic inquiry form on the panel of the form in the same browser tab. You can also preview an inquiry by clicking the View Inquiry button on the form toolbar, which causes the system to display the resulting generic inquiry form in a new browser tab.
You cannot preview the following functionality on the inquiry form by clicking the eye icon:
The creation of a generic inquiry can involve additional specifications, based on the business needs of the users. In this case, you can use other tabs of the Generic Inquiry (SM208000) form to achieve the needed results, previewing the refined inquiry form as you make changes.
To further refine the generic inquiry you are designing, you can use the following functionality:
When an inquiry has been created and all the necessary settings have been specified, you can preview and then publish it, so that it can be used by other users. To publish the generic inquiry form, you click the Publish to the UI button on the form toolbar. The system opens the Publish to the UI dialog box.
In this dialog box, you specify the following information:
Also, in the Access Rights section of the dialog box, you select one of the following option buttons to indicate which access rights should be specified for the newly added form:
After you specify the needed settings and click Publish in the dialog box, the inquiry is published. That is, it is assigned a screen identifier and becomes available in the specified workspace. Also, the system adds the new site map node for this form to the site map and applies the appropriate access rights to this site map node.
If the you publish a generic inquiry that is used as a substitute form for some data entry form, the system applies the access rights specified for the generic inquiry to the data entry form as well. For details on the publication of a generic inquiry that is configured as a substitute form, see Generic Inquiry as a Substitute Form: General Information.
You can change the automatically assigned screen identifier of a generic inquiry while publishing it. In the Publish to the UI dialog box, you enter the new screen ID for the generic inquiry, and click Publish to close the dialog box. The system begins the processing of the screen ID change. If this screen ID is not unique, the system displays an error on the form toolbar indicating that you need to enter another screen ID. If the processing of the change is successful, the system saves the generic inquiry with the new screen ID and changes this screen ID in all the system objects that are related to this generic inquiry.
To change the inquiry title (specified in the Inquiry Title box), you can click Change Inquiry Title on the More menu (under Actions) or on the form toolbar of the Generic Inquiry form. In the dialog box, which opens, you enter the new title and click OK. The system begins the processing of the title change. If this title is not unique, the system displays an error indicating that you need to enter another title. If the processing of the change is successful, the system closes the dialog box and inserts the title in the Inquiry Title box. To save the changes, you need to click Save on the form toolbar.
After you have published the generic inquiry, you can adjust access rights to generic inquiries. On the Access Rights by Screen (SM201020) form, you select a role and one of the predefined levels of access rights. For more information, see Access Rights to Generic Inquiries: General Information.
Alternatively, you can use the Publish to the UI button on the toolbar of the Generic Inquiry (SM208000) form.
Users of a published generic inquiry form or their supervisors may request changes to the form.
In some cases, you will modify the generic inquiry directly. In other situations, you will leave the original inquiry intact, copy it, and make changes to a copy of it.
If you want to modify a generic inquiry form, you can temporarily hide it (that is, make it not visible to other users). To temporarily hide the inquiry, you clear the values of the Workspace and Category boxes on the Site Map (SM200520) form or on the Generic Inquiry (SM208000) form.
Alternatively, you can remove a published generic inquiry from UI, by clicking the Unpublish button on the form toolbar of the Generic Inquiry form. The system removes the respective node from the site map, clears the assignment of screen identifier and deletes all configured access rights from the database.
We strongly recommend that you do not withdraw from publication an inquiry that has been published already. If you withdraw it, the system clears the assignment of screen identifier (value of the Screen ID box), which may cause issues with the widgets or pivot tables based on the published inquiry.