Product Updates

If you’ve been following along the last few weeks, you might remember that we recently refactored our work order page to improve performance and unlock additional functionality.  Well, here’s some new stuff!
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Work order creation rules allow for quick creation of work orders from the jobs grid or from sales order. Previously, the only way to build them was to indicate what rules you wanted included in the resulting work order. However, sometimes it’s easier to say the operations to skip than list all the operations you want.  The new rule type for “excluded operations” allows you to do just that.

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Previously, there was no way to enforce the order in which in process tracking fields appeared in the routing or job tracking.  Now, you can assign an order, and the IPT checks will respect that sequencing.

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Previously, Fulcrum required the quantity to be greater than zero for a newly added line item.  However, if the PO is still in draft you may want to add items and work out some details, such as quantity, later. Now you can!

Creating a Purchase Order from Purchase Planning will now look at the jobs requirements within your “Order By Date” filter and automatically add those jobs as associations on the line item on the PO.  For example, this item has demand from jobs 2444 and 2492. Creating a PO from Purchase Planning automatically adds those on the line item on the PO.

Usually, the person entering the sale is the sales rep.  Previously, the new sales order panel would default the sales rep to the sales rep on the customer record, or leave it blank.  Now, if there's no sales rep on the customer record then it will default to the current user.

This splits the ability to Delete a record out of the Edit permission and into a separate Delete permission.  This distinction is now available on Quotes, Sales Orders, Jobs, Purchase Orders, Invoices, NCRs, CAPAs, Customers, Vendors.  Note: Admins will always get these delete permissions.

This is an extension of the recently added setting for customer contacts and applies it to vendors.  It will include this contact on all PO emails from Fulcrum.

Previously, as soon as you picked any raw material in job tracking, we would display a checkmark to indicate the required material amount had been picked. This would cause confusion for operators since more often than not, we were prematurely indicating that enough items were picked.

Now we utilize the nesting estimate on the BOM (combined with the quantity to make) to calculate the area and more accurately display the required amount of raw material needed on that operation.

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Beta Release: Currently when you make a change to a completed item (like picking a forgotten material or adjusting a labor clock), that change does not retroactively update the inventory transaction associated with completing the item (since the job is already complete and items that are already in inventory or shipped). With this update we will update the value of the complete transaction on the job and roll those changes forward to any subsequent inventory transactions.  If you would like to be added to the beta, please reach out to support@fulcrumpro.com.

• Remove Item Description Requirement - Descriptions are no longer required through any item creation process, and materials no longer generate a description value by default. Existing items can now be saved without descriptions.
  
• Real Time Operations Searchable by User - The Live > Real Time Operations page can now be searched by user.
  
• Send Notifications to Google Chat - we’re expanding our notifications tool to send notifications to GChat.  This can be configured in your User settings under “Notification Setup”.
• Pack List Barcode Improvements - these will now use the Item Number (instead of number - revision), remove the PO/SO text, and add more space between the quantity and item number barcodes.
• Add Job Log Entry for “Collecting” Units during Continuous Flow
• Save Accounting Code to New Item from PO - when creating a new item on a PO, some details saved to the newly created item, but some stayed on the PO.  The accounting code will now also save back to the item so that it can be pulled into future PO’s automatically.‍
• Hyperlink Item from PO - you can now navigate directly to an item from the PO.

Although not mentioned in recent updates, performance remains a focus for the team.  Again, the ultimate impact here will be the collective efforts across the app.  Performance is in a much better place than a couple of months ago, but we want to take it to a whole new level and will continue to dedicate resources here.  Most recently, these improvements were made:

• Schedule Speed - the schedule was storing more info than needed about jobs and items, so we trimmed those out to focus on what the schedule needs.
• Caching Mechanisms - We don’t need to reload user permissions all the time, as they don’t often change.  We'll now save them in a way that can be used directly, without "loading" them all the time.  Since every page references permissions, this will give every page a little boost.
• Settings Refactor - similarly, almost every page checks your settings.  So handling this a little smarter will also provide a boost to every page.
• Adding Line Items to a Sales Order - this was noticeably slow, and adjustments here made this 30% faster (on average), with some customers seeing up to 90% improvement.
• Create Sales Order from Quote - in the same vein, we’ve made adjustments to speed this up.
• In Process Tracking (IPT) - from a saving perspective, pre, during, and post IPT were all saved separately.  By grouping them together and saving them, any page that has a routing will be a little snappier (jobs, items, job tracking, etc).

Beta Release: Over the past few years, Fulcrum has been doing under-the-hood upgrades to our pages to use some technology that better suits the needs of our customers.  Most recently, the work order page received that upgrade.  The page should mostly look and behave the same; however, behind the scenes the page was rewritten to use better tools.  This means fewer reload errors, faster actions, and the ability to add more features.  Stay tuned!

When working on multiple parts on a work order, you might want to print labels for all the associated jobs.  Previously, you needed to click into each individual job details in the job tracker, which was a repetitive and time-consuming process. This new button streamlines the workflow by allowing users to bulk print job labels for all jobs in a work order directly from the job tracker.

Previously, you could only create “regular” items from a Purchase Order. Which means that to purchase a material item with specific dimensions, you used to have to go to the items grid, then back to the PO. Now, if you’re on the materials feature, when creating a new item on a PO there will be three new fields (Material Shape, Width, Length). When a Material Shape is selected from the lookup, and the appropriate dimensions are filled out, a material item will be created.

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Fulcrum’s schedule typically runs in just-in-time or “greedy” (ASAP) mode. Now, you can guide scheduling even more with a new Scheduling Start Date field on the job page. When set, the job won’t be scheduled before that date — but all other priorities (like due date or priority level) still apply.

Operators can still start jobs early if needed, and the system will adjust accordingly. As always, it’s best to let the scheduling engine do the heavy lifting — just give it the best data to work with.