Product Updates

We’ve made two improvements to provide more flexibility when creating work orders.

For Fulcrum sites that are configured to allow for customizing work order names, you can now edit the name of a work order after it’s been created if it is in review status. This should make it easier to create work orders from the jobs grid.

You can also now create a work order directly from a sales order. For shops that group work at the sales order level, this will reduce the number of clicks you need to get your work set up. If there are jobs that you’ve already created from the Sales Order page, simply click “Create Work Order” to group them up. We’re beta testing this feature, so let us know if you’re interested in giving it a test drive.

Matching custom fields will also now flow from customers to quotes and sales orders, from vendors to purchase orders, and from items to part line items.

We’ve made several enhancements to custom fields to give you more options for customizing the flow of data through the system. Outside Processing line items now support custom fields and matching custom fields on the job will flow into matching fields on the line items.

You can now define labor rates for each operator on their user setup page. If set, user-level rates prevail and are used in actual job cost calculations. If an operator does not have a user-level rate defined, we use the existing workcenter rates (current behavior). If multiple operators work on a job and have different user-level rates, the rate displayed in the actual costs will reflect a blended (weighted average) rate. Estimates will still be based on work center rates.

The new shipping module now supports printing certifications. The certifications that can be included are those directly attached to the job, the associated sales order, or any certifications attached when receiving material or outside processing work that was used for the job.

This resolves one of the last significant functionality gaps between the old and new shipping modules and so we’ll be looking to migrate additional shops to the new version over the next few weeks.

We’ve made a few improvements to our in-app downloadable reports. The inventory transaction grid download will now include value breakdowns by type (material, labor, machine, or outside processing), accounting codes, and custom fields. The sales order detail download now includes estimated unit costs and estimated margin rates for open orders.

We're excited to introduce a new Report Builder! Once enabled, you will see a new menu icon on the navigation bar that will take you to the Report Builder page where you will be able to view and use the underlying data that powers Fulcrum to create visualizations and export the raw data to tinker with as you see fit.

When released, we will have curated datasets and sample reports ready for you to start working with, but you have access to change, pivot, aggregate, and segment the raw data in many different ways to build whatever view into your shop you want to look at.

We’ve made some enhancements to the new Shipping module.

Pick Required Items for Outside Processing Shipments

When the first operation of a job is to send out items for outside processing, you can now pick those items directly from the shipment page under the “Required Items” tab. When picking, those items will be instantly deducted from the inventory locations specified.

Attach Files to Individual Shipments

You can now attach files to individual shipments under the “Records” tab.

We’ve reduced the number of steps needed to send a Job to the floor. For shops that use the One-Step Approve and Schedule setting, the Approved step is no longer required when working with jobs from either the Jobs Grid or the Job Details page. If you have a job that’s under review, you can advance it directly to the Scheduled status.

There have been several recent enhancements to Fulcrum’s export and import tools within the Business Setup menu. Given these are bulk updates, and great power comes with great responsibility, the import / export page and functionality will be managed through a new “Run Imports” permission. If you previously had access then you will continue to have access. New users will need to be added to a role that includes this permission in order to access import / exports.

We’ve extended custom field functionality to NCRs and CAPAs to allow you additional flexibility in managing and reporting on quality issues. Like other custom fields, these are configured in System Data. At this time, the custom fields don’t appear on PDFs generated from these documents.

Sometimes, you might want to give large purchase orders additional eyes before they’re sent off. To accommodate this, we’ve added an optional Purchasing Limit to our user setup. When set, that user will not be able to approve purchase orders exceeding that limit.

As we previewed in an earlier post, we’re working on a new BOM & Routing editor that will be faster to use and give you more information up front. The new editor now supports In-Process Tracking. Like elsewhere in the BOM & Routing editor, the new In-Process Tracking interface is cleaner and will require fewer clicks.

The new BOM & Routing editor is in beta testing.

We’ve expanded the import and export functionality from the Data Imports page to include Users and In-Process Tracking. This will make it much easier for you to make bulk changes to these data sets.

We’ve updated the BOM & Routing editor to make it as quick and painless as possible so you can focus on more important things. With the new editor, we've optimized for maximum visibility while editing, incorporated more drag-and-drop features for easier re-ordering, and introduced right-click shortcuts to items and operations for access to more functionality at the top level view.

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Adding items and operations, importing from other items, vendor details, and details / settings for operation and full routings now exist in a panel alongside the main editor. We're working to eliminate any remaining pop-up windows and you only need the save button on the item page as all edits are live.

Every part of the UI is interactive:

• ‘Make’ Items: Add subcomponents or operations to routings.

• ‘Buy’ Items: Access vendor settings.

• Operations: Add notes, edit times/settings, and manage attachments.

• Routing Rows: Reorder operations and view total operation times.

• Right-Click Actions: Remove items or operations with ease.

The new BOM & Routing editor is in beta testing and will be released in phases to users in the coming weeks.