Containers

Hi everyone, We are using Navision 2.60f with SQL. We are doing a lot of the development internally with our NSC. One of the boggies we drew the short straw on was the creation of Bills of Lading. We’d like to use Containers to implement Bills of Lading, but ran into some issues–mainly, that Containers can only hold one order. So, I have a couple observations/questions concerning Containers for you Navision gurus out there… Observation: With Navision Containers, the concept is that you use one container for one order. The system gives you the flexibility to place selected order lines within the container in prep for shipment. We’d like to use the Containers to rollup more than a single order. Question: What approach would you use to accomplish this? Observation: I’ve reviewed some of the major code unit players (Sales-Post, Logistics Integration, Container forms, etc.) and observed many places were table scoping was based on the rule that one container holds one order. Question: Any recommendations on altering the way this is handled? Any ideas/suggestions/insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Bill

A posted container is actually related to a Shipment Document, the original Sales Order No. is referenced. I would suggest that you take the approach of having the user Create a Bill of Lading document header/lines. The Bill of Lading lines would either reference Shipment documents, or posted Containers. An alternative, is to modify the Sales Header to add a Bill of Lading No. which is posted through to the Shipment document. A routine could then generate the Bill of Lading Document. I would modify the Sales Post routine to check for the presence of the Bill of Lading No. to prevent Sales Order from being posted without a Bill of Lading (ship = yes). A third alternative is create a dataport to upload Bill of Lading No. and/or shipping information to update the posted Shipment document. Handy if shipping interface is required. The method will depend upon the customer’s process, and when information is available in the cycle. The initial approach is very flexible while the second requires the Bill of Lading No. to be identified before shipping. The third allows for rate shopping to be included in the potential design. The remaining consideration is to what degree does the customer require the ability to view online the contents of the Bill of Lading. The initial approach supports this requirement the best.

Thanks, Allan. My initial inclination was to create the Bill of Lading table too, but our folks want to be able to get everything ready to load a truck and have the capability to bump items at will for whatever reason. Using the posted container entries wouldn’t give us the flexibility. On the other hand, we may need to reengineer some of their processes… Bill

You can still proceed with the Bill of Lading document (header/lines) but add a subtable to track the components (items) associated with the containers. Then provide an edit function for the components.