Frequently Asked Question

In this article

• 1. General information
• 2. Upgrade notes
• 3. Solution
• 4. Create a customization
• 5. Configure default parameters for the screen
• 6. Configure a workflow
• 7. Publish customization

General information

A workflow is a process of changing the state of an entity as a result of a user performing an action. Starting from Acumatica ERP 2020 R1, a developer can customize a form by defining a workflow in the Customization Project Editor. For more info, refer to the Customization: Automation of Workflows in Customization Project Editor article of the Acumatica ERP 2020 R1 Initial Release Notes.

In Acumatica ERP 2020 R2, the processing of sales orders, shipments, and SO invoices have been redesigned to use the new workflow engine. For more information, refer to the Order Management: New Workflow in Order Management Documents section of the Acumatica ERP 2020 R2 Initial Release Notes.

Upgrade notes

During the upgrade, all automation steps related to sales orders, shipments, and SO invoices (documents) will be disabled and the system will be using the default workflows for them instead. Thus, all customizations of automation steps made in the previous versions will no longer have an effect. Due to these changes, the user may face various issues and unexpected behavior (comparing to the behavior which the records have had before the upgrade) on the following forms:

• Sales Orders (SO301000)
• Shipments (SO302000)
• SO Invoices (SO303000)
• Process Orders (SO501000)
• Process Shipments (SO503000)
• Print/Email Orders (SO502000)
• Process Invoices and Memos (SO505000)

Solution

Users may face the following issues after the upgrade:

1. Issues with the document workflow: unexpected behavior (comparing to the behavior which the records have had before an upgrade) of documents, such as transferring of documents to an unexpected status, unexpected statuses after processing on the mass-processing forms, etc.
2. Issues with the document actions: actions that have been added in automation steps disappear; actions that have been deleted or disabled become available or enabled again.
3. Issues with the document fields: fields that have been enabled or disabled, become disabled or enabled; required fields become optional, and optional fields become required.
4. Issues with the combo box values: values of combo box fields for existing documents become empty; values that have been deleted or disabled become available again.
5. Issues with the document statuses and combo-box values:
   1. Documents with empty status, which can be transferred to any status, if there were new statuses added in automation steps.
   2. Documents in the statuses which were not used before, if some statuses were deactivated in automation steps.

Follow the steps below to resolve this and other possible issues that can appear after the upgrade related to automation steps.

Create a customization

Customize an affected form by using the Workflow Editor as follows:

Step 1: On the Customization Projects (SM204505) form, create a customization project, and open it in the Customization Project Editor.

Step 2: Click Screens in the navigation pane to open the Customized Screens page. On the page toolbar, click Add Screen > Customize Existing Screen and select the affected screen. For more info, refer to the To Add a Page Item for an Existing Form help article.

Configure default parameters for the screen

Conditions and actions can be configured both for a screen as a whole. These conditions and actions can be customized for specific transitions and states for certain workflows. Similarly, field properties can be configured for a screen and for states in specific workflows. You can configure the parameters for both screens and workflows and combine them depending on what workflows you need.

Configure the screen parameters as follows:

Step 1: In the new workflow engine, conditions have different meaning and purpose as compared to the old automation steps. In the old automation engine, conditions defined the state of a document. In the new workflow engine, a state in the workflow is defined by the status of the document. Therefore, it is not necessary to configure in the new workflow engine all the conditions that you have configured in automation steps in most cases. Determine the conditions necessary for your workflow and configure them on the Conditions page of the customized screen. For details, see the To Add a Condition help article.

In the new workflow engine, you need to configure each unique condition only once, because the conditions can be reused in different transitions, actions, and field properties.

Step 2: Configure the actions you have specified on the Actions tab of your automation steps, on the Actions page of the customized screen (for details, see the To Configure Actions) as follows:.

1. Click Reorder Actions to configure the default order of each Toolbar Folder option in the Reorder Actions dialog box.
2. In the Action Properties dialog box:
   1. From the Disabled or Hidden drop-down list, select the conditions under which the actions should be disabled or hidden, respectively.
   2. For the actions with the Processing Screen value specified, select or clear the Batch Mode check box to ensure that each record is processed in a batch or separately, respectively.
   3. From the Toolbar Folder drop-down list, select a folder in which the actions should be shown by default.

This is one of the ways to resolve possible issues with the document actions that can appear after the upgrade

Step 3: On the Fields page of the customized screen, configure the fields you have specified on the Fields tab of the Automation Steps (SM205000) form (for details, see To Modify Field Properties) as follows:

1. From the Disabled, Enabled, and Required drop-down lists, select the conditions under which the actions should be disabled, hidden, or required, respectively.Step 3: On the Fields page of the customized screen, configure the fields you have specified on the Fields tab of the Automation Steps (SM205000) form (for details, see To Modify Field Properties) as follows: This is one of the ways to resolve possible issues with the document fields that can appear after the upgrade.
2. Click Combo Box Values to configure the default combo box values.

To restore combo box values you have defined before the upgrade, add new combo box values with exactly the same Value and Description as you had specified for the fields customized in the automation steps. This way, the values on document fields will reappear after you publish the customization.

Configure a workflow

Step 1: In the navigation pane of the Customization Project Editor, click Workflows under the screen node you want to customize. The Workflows page opens. To customize a predefined workflow with the changes you have made in the previous versions, refer to the To Customize a Predefined Workflow section of the To Add a Workflow help article.

Alternatively, you can copy the system workflow instead of extending it, or create a simple workflow.

Step 2: Customize states the same way you customized statuses in the automation steps.

To restore the statuses that were defined in the system before the upgrade, add a new state. In the Add State dialog box, specify the State Identifier and Description for the state. These values should be exactly the same as the Value and Description, respectively, that had been specified in the Status field of the Combo Box Values dialog box in the automation steps. Thus, the statuses of the documents will reappear after the customization is published.

The screen and workflow properties are used in the UI as follows:

• If a field is disabled, hidden, or required either at the workflow level or at the screen level, it becomes disabled, hidden, or required, respectively, for both levels.
• If an action is disabled or hidden at one of these levels, it becomes disabled or hidden, respectively, for both levels.

1. For details on the concept of state, refer to the To Add a Simple Workflow section of the To Add a Workflow help article.In the Fields table of the State Properties tab, configure the fields you have specified on the Fields tab of the Automation Steps form. Select a field, and select or clear the Disabled, Enabled, and Required check boxes to specify the field properties for this state.This is another way to resolve possible issues with the document fields that can appear after the upgrade.
2. Configure the actions you have specified on the Actions tab of the Automation Steps form as follows:
   1. Select the actions that should be enabled for the selected state, as described in Step 2 Configure default parameters for the screensection.
   2. Alternatively, you can create new actions on this tab by clicking Create Action. This is another way to resolve possible issues with the document actions that can appear after the upgrade.

Step 3: Customize each transition as follows:

1. Select Target State for the transition.
2. In the Fields to Update After Transition table, define the fields that should be updated after the transition.
3. Optional: From the Condition drop-down list on the Transitions Properties tab, select the condition created in Step 1 of the Configure default parameters for the screen section.

For details on the concept of the workflow transitions, refer to the Transition Steps section of the To Add a Workflow help article.

Step 4: Use arrows in the States and Transitions pane to arrange the states and transitions in the required order and save the changes. Alternatively, you can click Diagram View to switch to the diagram view of the workflow and then arrange states and transitions there.

Publish customization

Publish customization by clicking Publish > Publish Current Project in the Customization Project Editor or by clicking Publish on the Customization Projects (SM204505) form.

After the customization is published, the issues should be resolved. If users still experience issues, review the customization steps of the workflow.

We strongly recommend the following upgrade path:

1. Have a separate site with the Acumatica ERP version from which the upgrade is occurring, with a production site backup. Alternatively, you can import the automation steps to the site by copying the automation definition from the production site. For more information, refer to the Automation Maintenance help article.
2. Upgrade a sandbox.
3. Configure a workflow on a sandbox, and make sure the documents (such as sales orders, shipments, and invoices) have the same behavior as in the version from which the upgrade is occurring.
4. Export the resulting customization with the workflow.
5. Upgrade the production site.
6. Publish the customization with the workflow.