Activant Prophet 21 DynaChange Designer

Activant Prophet 21 DynaChange Designer
Welcome to the Activant Prophet 21 ‘DynaChange Designer’ Web-Based Training class! Before we get started I’m going to send you a Sound Check question just to make sure that you can hear me..

This class is designed for…
System Administrators familiar with Prophet 21 modules and screens This class is for System administrators, or those who will teach others to use DynaChange Designer OR for the person in the company who can make decisions regarding Changing Screens, Assigning rights, setting system security, etc.

Objectives Create and assign user roles Assign rights to users
Set security through user roles Use DynaChange Screen Designer Menu Designer Tab Designer View/Edit visual customizations through Designer Version Manager Assign shortcuts to MyMenu By the end of today’s class, you should be able to: Create and assign user roles, which is a way in which you can group your employees for making changes. You’ll also be able to assign rights to users so that you can determine which users will have the ability to make changes to their screens. You will also be able to set security and make changes to screens, menus and tabs with Dynachange. You’ll also know how to view or edit your customizations through Dynachange Designer Version Manager. Finally, by the end of this class, you should be able to assign shortcuts to MyMenu, which is a quick way for you to get to the windows you use most often.

This course will NOT cover…
Adding Custom Columns Adding custom columns is not a Dynachange Designer feature. Adding custom columns is a 11.0 release feature. This feature is covered in the WBT Customer Relationship Management

Screen Adjustments Customize the appearance of Prophet 21
Color of screens and fields Wording and titles on menu items and field options Modifications can be assigned to groups of users Here are some of the changes you can make by using Dynachange Screen Designer. By using different colors or fonts, you can draw their attention to fields that you might require they populate for procedure purposes. For example, you might tell them that they can start out the Order Entry process by choosing to either put in the Customer ID or the Ship To ID in a blue font – to highlight those labels. If you are trying to encourage order takers to build your contacts for customers, using red lettering for the contact field could help to remind them to fill in this field. Finally, if you have changed your procedures recently and now want to remind order takers to put some vital information in the PO field, you could make the background of the field Yellow to grab their attention.

DynaChange Setting Security
Use DynaChange to Set Security Block access to fields, tabs and menu options When it comes to setting security, all three DynaChange options can help you. Menu Designer, Tab Designer and Screen Designer can be used in different ways for the purposes of setting security. You can limit access to menu options, such as the accounting modules for non-accounting personnel, as shown in this screen capture. You can limit access to tabs, such as the cost tab in Order Entry, if you don’t want employees to see that information. Finally, you can limit access to specific fields by using Screen Designer to make a field protected or invisible.

Getting Started Devise Roles Create Roles in Role Maintenance
Assign Roles in User Maintenance Determine Designer Rights Track your decisions But, before you can do any of this, you need to do some preliminary work. Users must be put into roles and then given rights to access DynaChange Designer. The next few slides will go over the following steps you must do when getting started with DynaChange. First of all, you need to devise what roles should be created for your employees. Then you need to create those roles in Role Maintenance. The roles must then be assigned to users in User Maintenance. And, while you’re still in User Maintenance, you need to assign the designer rights that you want to give your employees. It’s a good idea to write down your grouping decisions for roles, this will provide you a checklist in role creation and allow you to prepare for your DynaChange creation. You might want to create an Excel document – the role assignments would be your first entry in this doc. You can also plan screen changes, tab changes, and menu changes on this document before beginning your DynaChange creation.

Determine Roles DynaChange modifications can be assigned to groups of users by using roles Function or Department Payables, Receivables, Shipping, Order Desk, Purchasing, Sales, etc. Security Level System Administration, President, Director, Manager, etc. The reason why we must determine roles is because you will assign roles to your employees as a way to give modifications to groups of users. So, you should do some planning and thinking about the structure of your company. Would it be best to determine roles according to Function or Department? You might create roles for Warehouse, AR, AP, etc. so that all of the employees given that role have the same access and see the same modifications to the Prophet 21 system. You may also decide to group employees by security level. Someone in management needs different access to the system than would an order taker or warehouse person. So, you should sit down and think about your company structure and then map out your employees. Once you have mapped out your employees and determined what roles would be appropriate, then you need to set up those roles in the system. [next slide]

DynaChange Role Maintenance
Roles are created in System Administration\Maintenance\Role Maintenance Roles are available for assignment in User Maintenance Only one role can be assigned to a user Go to the System Administration module and under the Maintenance drop down menu, you’ll find Role Maintenance. To create a role, just enter the role name in the ROLE field and hit save. The Role Id will populate once it is saved. After the roles are created in Role Maintenance, they will be available on a drop down when assigning roles to users in User Maintenance. Only one role can be assigned to a user. NOTE! Role setup also works with our Portal functionality available in V11.5 – so keep in mind when you are creating roles, these same roles can be used to customize views for your users in the application. Portal View details are defined on the Portal View tab.

DynaChange User Maintenance
Assign a ROLE to each user After the roles have been created, go to User Maintenance in the System Set-up Module and assign a role to each user. You may see a role called ALL in the system. The “All” role is automatically assigned to every person when they create a User ID. Just because it is called ALL, does not mean that you belong to all roles if you are assigned to the roll ALL. Assign the role you created in Role Maintenance.

DynaChange User Maintenance
Designer Editing Rights NONE - has no DynaChange editing rights BOTH - can edit either ROLE or USER screens ROLE - can edit screens assigned to current role USER - can edit only their own screens After you have assigned the role, then you must decide whether the user will be allowed to edit screens using DynaChange designer. There are 4 Designer Editing Rights available to you. If you choose NONE, then the user will not have the ability to make any changes of any kind. This is the most limiting of the options. You should choose NONE for all of your users if you are using DynaChange Designer to assign security in the system. If you assign USER as the designer rights, then they will have the ability to edit their own screens, tabs and menus, but that’s all. If they are given the designer rights for ROLE, then they can modify the screens, tabs and menus for their role, which would affect everyone else assigned to that same role. Finally, if you assign the Designer Rights of BOTH, then the user has the ability to edit not only his own screens, tabs and menus, but he can also edit those belonging to his role as well. Now, if this has you thinking about the fact that you could have changes assigned by the role to which you belong as well as changes assigned to your user id, you might be wondering what the hierarchy the system uses when it finds modifications for both. The system first goes to the modifications made to the user and then uses modifications assigned to the role. The most important thing to remember about this screen is that IF YOU ARE USING DYNACHANGE FOR SECURITY, ASSIGN NONE FOR DESIGNER RIGHTS.

AppShare Create a new role in the system
Assign role to a user in User Maintenance Assign Designer Rights of NONE Now, let’s open the --- application and [do the things that you list in the bullets above]. Remember, you can click the Enlarge button at the top of your screen to see everything that I’m doing during this AppShare. You can toggle between Enlarge and Reduce at any time.

In which module are Roles created?
System Setup Company Maintenance System Administration General Ledger The correct answer is: 3 [explain why]

Which Designer Rights should be assigned if you want the user to be able to edit his or her screens only? BOTH USER NONE ROLE The correct answer is: 2 [explain why]

Which Designer Rights should be assigned if you want the user to be able to edit his or her screens assigned to his or her current role? BOTH USER NONE ROLE The correct answer is: 4 [explain why]

Which Designer Rights should be assigned if you want the user to be able to edit either the ROLE or USER screens? BOTH USER NONE ROLE The correct answer is: 1 [explain why]

Which Designer Rights should be assigned if you want the user to have NO DynaChange Designer editing rights? BOTH USER NONE ROLE The correct answer is: 3 [explain why]

DynaChange Screen Designer
Use the right mouse button to access DynaChange Designer Now that our set up is done, let’s talk about making modifications to the screens with DynaChange Screen Designer. Go to the window where you want to make changes and use the RMB to choose DynaChange Designer and then Screen Designer.

Move, hide or protect fields Change the color of fields Change field titles New fields cannot be added In this case, we chose DynaChange Screen Designer in the top of the Order Entry window. You can use DynaChange Screen Designer to... [USE the pointer to show how the PO field is a different color]

Change the text of a field Let’s take a moment to review the toolbar. You will see this toolbar in the Screen designer and Tab designer windows. Some of the functions are self-explanatory, so let’s review some of the less-common options. If you want to change the text that appears for a field, you can click in the text field and key in your changes. If you wish to keep a field visible but keep users from modifying it, select the Protected option. Or, if you do not want a field to appear on the screen, uncheck the Visible checkbox. Protect a field Make a field invisible

Reset to default As you are modifying windows, you may want to reset your modifications to the default settings. To do this, you can click on the eraser icon – this will erase all of your selections and erase a version if it was saved previously. Use this only if you want to erase ALL work you have completed. Lastly, the Show Invisibles button – looks like a graph icon – will display any fields you flag as invisible on the screen. Show Invisibles

Prompted for Version and Roles/Users when changes are saved After making modifications, you must save your work. You will then be prompted to fill in the Save As screen. The version is user defined, so you may want to make it an abbreviation of who the changes are for. The comments section allows you to describe what the changes were done in this version and it is mandatory that you fill in something in this field. In the bottom section, you’ll want to select who the modifications pertain to. If you are logged in as ADMIN, the screen will default to just showing the available roles in the available users/roles area. By using the Add Users checkbox, you can have the Available Users/Roles area also display all of the users as well as roles. Select the users or roles by choosing either Select All, Select, Deselect or Deselect All. You can also just double click on the role or user and it will move to the selected area. You will only get the option for Add Users if you are logged in as ADMIN. If you are logged in just as a user who has Designer Editing Rights of BOTH, then you would see that user’s id as well as the role to which the user belongs in the Available Users/Roles area. If logged in as a user with Designer Editing Rights of USER, you’d only see that user’s ID to choose from the Available Users/Role area. Both of these options would not show you the Add Users checkbox so that you wouldn’t be able to apply these changes to other users.

AppShare Edit Order Entry window Change labels Change Fonts
Move fields Change colors Disable/protect fields [Change labels – make Customer ID into Customer Acct, Change Fonts – use Bold or Italics, Move fields – move Quote checkbox, Change colors – show how to change the color of the font that fills into a field as well as the background color in the field by RMB on color, Disable/protect fields – protect Approved checkbox and make JOB field invisible. Explain the VISIBLE, RESIZABLE and MOVABLE boxes.]

Which of the following changes cannot be made with DynaChange Screen Designer?
Change the colors of fields Add fields to the window Move fields within the window Change field labels Disable / Protect fields The correct answer is: 2 [explain why]

DynaChange Tab Designer
Use the right mouse button to access DynaChange Designer Ok, now let’s talk about DynaChange Tab Designer. In order to make changes to tabs in a window, have the window open and use the RMB to access DynaChange Designer and then choose Tab Designer.

DynaChange Tab Designer
Names of tabs can be: Renamed Disabled Edited In this screen capture we accessed Tab Designer while in the top part of the Order Entry window. The Front Counter tab was renamed to “Printing”, since it contains several printing options. If you wanted to rename a tab, type the new name in the Text field. Also notice the Enabled and Visible fields. You can disable some tabs as well as make them invisible. You can hide any tab in the system EXCEPT the first tab in a window. Because this tab displays when the window opens, it must remain available. To hide the first tab from someone, you must hide the entire window using the menu designer. IMPORTANT NOTE! DynaChange does not check to see if making a tab with a required field invisible might obstruct normal business processes. So, make sure you always test your changes!

AppShare Disable access to Salesrep and Cost tabs in Order Entry
[Although this AppShare has you disabling access to the Salesrep and Costs tabs, you should actually make them invisible instead. The enable checkbox when unchecked does not always disable tabs. Please read the following explanation from development and make sure to let the students know that this issue exists.] Prophet 21 has a great deal of dynamic logic that enables tabs dynamically. Any tab that is gray, and then after adding data becomes black, is enabled using the enable property. This is the same enable property that DynaChange uses. What's happening when you are trying to disable it with DynaChange is that Prophet 21 is overriding it dynamically once data is entered. We have 100's of examples of this and it happens with fields too, but much more infrequently. We are hoping to have a solution for this with some technical changes we are discussing for one of the upcoming releases of our software. To overcome this issue, you simply need to select visible as well. Even though the tab will be enabled, if it is invisible, it won't matter. Visible is much more powerful than enabled.

DynaChange Menu Designer
Rename or disable menu options Apply changes to all modules Now, let’s take a look at DynaChange Menu Designer. You can use DynaChange Menu Designer to rename or disable menu options. In addition, changes made with menu designer can also be applied to all modules. To access Menu Designer, just click your RMB any where in the system. Let’s take a look at the next screen to see what we would find [next slide]

This is how the DynaChange Menu Designer might look. The screen capture shows us having gone into the Module menu option and clicked on Contact Management. The grayed out area at the bottom is the DynaChange Menu Designer Preview sheet that allows you to look at the changes you’ve made. We’ll talk more about this later.

Click Menu Name to edit Disable menu option by un-checking Enabled Rename by typing in Text field In order to edit a menu name, click on the menu option and either rename it, as shown here. They changed Contact Mgmt to Contact Rolodex. Or, if you do not want anyone to access this menu option, you can un-check the Enabled checkbox. This will allow you to disable the menu option, which is very helpful when setting up security. If you don’t want any of the Order Processing people to have access to any of the Accounting modules, then you would want to disable those options for the role assigned to the Order Processing people.

Preview changes/adjustments to menu design. In order to preview the changes you’ve made, you can use the DynaChnage Menu Designer Preview sheet located at the bottom of your window. Take your mouse and click on the menu options for which you made modifications. In our case, we made changes to the name Contact Mgmt, which you can see here as showing Contact Rolodex.

This preview pane can be especially helpful if you have disabled access to several modules and you want to see what exactly you have disabled thus far. If you were disabling access to the accounting modules, you’d see them grayed out, as shown in this screen capture. [If anyone asks why there is a checkmark next to Order Processing, that is the module I was in when I accessed DynaChange Menu Designer]

Choose Save As from Designer Drop Down menu Once finished making menu changes, choose Save As from the Designer drop down menu to save your changes.

Save As displays Apply to All checkbox If you are logged in as Admin you will see the option for Apply to All. The Apply to All option allows the changes you’ve made while in this module to be applied to the other modules. For example, if you disabled access to the accounting modules while in the Order Entry module, it will also disable access to the accounting modules for all of the other modules where access is allowed, such as Inventory, Purchasing, etc. You should also know that if multiple users need admin rights to establish DynaChange modifications, you can create usernames such as DCAdmin, DCAdmin1. These names would need to be established in SQL and in User Maintenance.

Apply to All – Tips for Creation
Make module changes in: System Setup System Administration Menu modification (not module related) NEVER are flagged as Apply to All = Y You must save non-module related changes as Apply to All = N When considering the Apply to All option and module access changes, you will want to make the module adjustments in a module users are not commonly accessing. The reason we make this recommendation is because you can only make one menu change per module for the associated roles/users. So it is easier to break apart your module restrictions from your other menu restrictions. When you make module restrictions, do so in the System Setup or System Administration modules, in there only change access to the modules and save as Apply to All. If you need to make changes for accessing different options from Maintenance, System, or Transaction drop down menus, access the related module and make your adjustments. Remember, never save these changes as apply to all!

Cannot disable “File”, “Save”, “Print”, or “Exit” menu options Assign users or roles when saving changes Now, a few things to note about Menu Designer – you can’t disable the File menu options. They have to be available to everyone. Also, remember that when you save, just like with Screen and Tab Designer, you will assign users or roles at that time. You also cannot disable the Save, Print, Close, or Exit menu options.

AppShare Disable access to the Ship To Maintenance window

DynaChange Designer Version Manager
View/Edit all visual customizations made through DynaChange Once you have made DynaChange modifications to various users or roles, you may want to review what you’ve done. You can access DynaChange Designer Version Manager from the System Administration module/ Maintenance menu. This window provides the ability to view and edit all visual customizations made in Dynachange that are in effect throughout Prophet 21.

Expand Users or Roles to look at existing changes After choosing Dynachange Designer Version Mgr, you’ll see a window like this. The window will be divided into 2 panes. The left side is set up in a tree structure. You can expand the Users or Roles folder to view any DynaChange customizations assigned to the roles and users you’ve created in the system.

Here we have expanded both folders for Users and Roles. Then went further and expanded the customizations for the User Admin. Any customizations listed here will have a prefix showing what kind of change it makes: S = Screen change M = Menu change T = Tab change S = Screen change M = Menu change T = Tab change

Once you select one of the customizations, the right portion of the screen will provide and show you details about the customization. Let’s talk about those details [go to next slide]

Here is the top portion of that right portion of the screen. [Explain the fields] Version ID - name of the customization, combined with the name of the user or role it is assigned to. The underscores are added by the system. Description - A text description of the customization, created at the same time as the customization. Object Name - A system-generated identifier for the object modified in DynaChange. User ID - The user ID the change is assigned to. Role - The role the change is assigned to. Type - Denotes if the change is assigned to a user or a role. Object Type - Denotes if the changes object is a screen, menu, or tab.

Next, let’s talk about the bottom portion of the right side of the screen. Here is where you see the details of the customizations that were performed. In this case, it is the changes to the order screen. The Order Number and Ship-To ID text is blue. You can see that the JOB NUMBER fields is made red. The CONTACT ID is RED and the PO FIELD is highlighted in yellow. If you can’t see the entire window on your screen, you can move the border between the left side of your screen where the tree structure is and the right side so that you can see more of the screen customizations. Just place your curser on the border until your curser turns into an arrow pointing both ways and you can move the border over the the left so you can see more of the right side. Next, let’s talk about how you can easily edit, copy, or delete this customization [next slide]

RMB Functionality Use RMB to edit, copy or delete the customization OR view Role Members Edit Version – opens DynaChange and and provides ability to edit the customization being viewed. Copy Version – opens the DynaChange “Save As” window and allows provides ability to save the customization as a different user or role. Delete Version – Purges the customization from the system. View Role Members – only available if viewing a Role Type customization. Lists all users assigned to the customization.

AppShare View DynaChange Designer Version Manager
Demonstrate RMB functionality [If you can log in as Admin, you’ll have the ability to show more, especially with the Copy feature.]

You can view and or edit all visual customizations made through DynaChange by going to the System Administration Module, Maintenance Menu, and then DynaChange Designer Version Manager. The correct answer is: 1 True True False

DynaChange MyMenu Provides shortcuts to windows commonly accessed by user Windows do not have to be in the same modules Each user has the ability to mark those windows they want to add to the MyMenu bar. MyMenu provides a quick way to get to the screens that each user visits most often. The best part is that they don’t have to be in the same module, so you no longer have to go to the module drop down menu, pick a new module and then go to the next drop down menu to find the screen you want to access next. Just put it on your MyMenu list and you can get to the screen with limited key stokes.

DynaChange MyMenu To add a window to MyMenu, RMB on the desired window

DynaChange MyMenu To delete a window from MyMenu, RMB in the desired window again The windows you add to MyMenu will stay there until you remove them. So, even if you log out and log back in again, your MyMenu windows will remain. To remove a window from MyMenu, just go to the desired window and RMB click, choose MyMenu, which you will notice that it has a check next to it. When you choose it again, it will remove this window from the MyMenu.

Additional Notes About MyMenu
When access is denied to a menu option, that menu is: Removed from the user’s MyMenu automatically Deleted from the “Most Recently Used” list in the File menu When access is denied to a menu option, that option is automatically removed from their MyMenu and from the Most Recently Used list on the File drop down menu. As an added security measure, when editing users/roles, have all users in that role log out before performing your edits. You’ll ensure that the new edits will apply to everyone in that role once they log back into the system.

Summary Create and assign user roles Assign rights to users
Set security through user roles Use DynaChange Screen Designer Menu Designer Tab Designer View/Edit visual customizations through Designer Version Manager Assign shortcuts to MyMenu Today, we covered:

Published Solutions Solution 3921: Why can’t you see all roles in Dynachange Designer Solution 4114: Set security prevent access to modules, Steps for DynaChange menu designer Solution 4367: How to delete a DynaChange entry Solution 7638: Protecting unit/extended price on sales orders using DynaChange We have the following published solutions out on the customer web site.

Published Solutions Solution 7819: How to Edit the field/background color vs the text file font color – DynaChange Solution 24416: How to DynaChange extended cost in order entry grid window Solution 24839: Protecting the unit price field in order entry via DynaChange Solution 25353: Can DynaChange be used for parameters of reports We also have the following published solutions out on the customer web site.

For More Information… Prophet 21 Help Files
Visit Activant on the web: View Educational Services course offerings Browse Documentation Search the Solutions database Submit a Support case Professional Services Sales For more information, you can refer to these resources [discuss the bullets on the slide]

Activant Prophet 21 DynaChange Designer

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