Before Dynamics AX 2012 R3, enabling the Serial number dimension meant enabling it for all inventory transactions. Consider the scenario that you want to record which customer gets which serial number of an item. It could be that you need this information for warranty purposes; it could be that you want to verify that the customer is calling about an item they actually bought. In these cases, there is no benefit from seeing the serial numbers that are on-hand, particularly when you consider the overhead of managing this.
With Dynamics AX 2012 R3, it is now possible to enable Serial numbers for Sales order delivery note (packing slip) and invoicing only.
To enable this functionality, head to the ‘Tracking dimension groups’ form at Product information management -> Setup -> Dimension groups:
The Tracking dimension groups form in the R3 demo VM
If you’re using the Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 Solution Demo Package V1.0, the first thing you might see and think are new are the Tracking dimensions ‘Owner’, ‘Stock profile’ and ‘GTD number’. These are not new (they were available in R2) and are used only by regional functionality for Russia.
What is new is the ‘Capture serial’ drop-down in the header area, and the ‘Active in sales process’ column in the grid. ‘Capture serial’ is specifically for the new Warehouse Management module, and allows similar functionality to that which we are looking at now. We are interested in the ‘Active in sales process’ column.
The column has some interesting properties:
- It can only be ticked on the ‘Serial number’ line. Understandably, this means the functionality we are investigating is not available for Batch numbers.
- When you tick it, ‘Serial number control’ becomes ticked and non-editable. This means the functionality requires that a different serial number be assigned for each quantity of the item being sold.
- When you tick it, ‘Capture serial’ is set to ‘None’ and becomes non-editable. This means Items cannot use similar functionality in the Warehouse Management module when this functionality is active.
- When you tick it, the only other field that can be ticked on the ‘Serial number’ line is ‘Blank issue allowed’. All other fields are unticked and most become non-editable. You can choose to tick ‘Blank issue allowed’ or not. This means that you can define if you require the Serial number to be recorded or if it will be optional.
For the demonstration of this functionality, I will create a Tracking dimension group called ‘SellSale’. Serial number is ‘Active in sales process’ and ‘Blank issue allowed’ is unticked:
Serial number is ‘Active in sales process’
In part 2, we will see the new functionality in action.
