Hi Chris,

Are the mobile technicians that are in the other countries with the backlog of work mapped to a local warehouse or do they all have their own van stock warehouses defined?   Here is why I ask: We have a MOE -10107 which you can configure which will add a new field for the technician to select a new Van on the login screen.  Behind the scenes this sends up an API to the back-end application which actually changes the Default Warehouse for this technician to the value that was selected on the Van drop down, and then it also triggers an immediate refresh of the inventory from that warehouse down to the mobile device.  This is most commonly used by our customers that have service technicians that share vehicles throughout the week but you may be able to use this for when the technicians shift to a different country...have them switch their van which will change their default warehouse for the duration of their stay, then once they return home to their normal region they can switch it back to their own van warehouse at that time.

Here’s the blurb from the User Guide on this:

Select a Different Van/Truck at Login

This feature allows a technician to record which van or truck they are assigned to for that particular day’s shift (this will give the mobile technician full access to the vans current inventory).  The van selection option will only be enabled after the mobile user initializes the client (i.e. when the REINITIALIZE button is shown).

When the mobile user switches vans, the work order and inventory data will automatically be refreshed from the back-end Astea Alliance application to keep the two applications in sync.

Note:     This feature may be turned on or off from the back office settings by adjusting the value of MOE -10107.

The values that appear in the Van drop-down list on the login screen will be shown based on whether the mobile technician has Staff permissions to the warehouse (this is configured in the back-end application by the Staff checkbox setting in the Employees Security module on the Warehouses screen).  SYSTEM PEFORMANCE IMPACT WARNING: PLEASE CONSIDER THE AMOUNT OF DATA THAT WILL BE TRANSFERRED DOWN TO THE MOBILE DEVICE BEFORE giving Mobile Technicians Staff permissions to warehouses OTHER THAN their own Van warehouse!  Main or central distribution warehouses typically handle very large quantities of inventory data and that data is typically updated frequently throughout the course of the day.  All shipping, receiving and inventory updates are automatically dispatched out to each of the mobile technicians that are using this warehouse in real-time.

1.  To select a different Van, press on the white space next to the Van label.

2.  Use the pull down to select the correct Van.

3.  Enter in your Password and then press the Login button, you will be taken to the Work List screen (and you will see the updated data being automatically downloaded to the mobile device at that time).

4. To change Van again, Log out and repeat the steps above.

Thanks Reid, I’ll do some testing with that set on. The challenge I see will be trying to stop the system from moving the materials from the “correct” warehouse, to the SA current default warehouse as soon as their name is added to the order.

Chris

try also to look at the ‘Direct ship’ option on the material demand back end. 
 

I was able to use it directly from the Main n warehouse in back end but on mobile it showed as back ordered although there wasn’t any BO.
Perhaps Reid can look at this use case ( on back end set demand from main whs  and mark as ship direct, try to fulfill on mobile).

Hi Danny,

Thanks, this seems to be the extra piece I needed.  I tried setting all the materials to “Ship Direct” and it stopped the system from trying to move the stock to other warehouses, as I wanted. 

On mobile, I tried to transact the parts but it would not let me, until I switched the warehouse to the correct one (using the MOE that Reid suggested).

I set one material with a PR, delivery to warehouse.  I opened a new Receiving doc for it and the SA was able to receive it via mobile, even though it was not his usual default Warehouse.

I’ll test more but these two ideas combined seem to do exactly what I need, so far, thank you both.