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Best Practice General Overview

Refer to the Best Practice Guides Category page for more information on ABIS Best Practices.

This guide covers the Adjutant best practices for integrating Metal Building Software (MBS) with Adjutant. The best practice considerations provided in this wiki cover the settings and procedures that will work for most metal building customers using MBS to integrate with the Adjutant ERP. The information presented here is intended as a guideline for all customers, but may not apply to every customer's procedures, setup, or practices. This guide assumes best practice setups are in place for each example scenario described.

Best Practice Setup Considerations

Setup Options

The following Setup Options are recommended to support best practices, and are defaulted as enabled for all new implementations:

MBSAUTOSAVE – This option auto saves the MBS BOM Import/Matchup screen every thirty (30) seconds. This option prevents losing MBS to Adjutant item code matchups from being lost if the user forgets to save the screen, accidentally closes the screen without saving, or some other event prevents saving the record manually. This options helps make sure that any item matchups are saved and will automatically match up on the next import.

MBSWT – This option imports the items weight calculated from the MBS file to the matched item's unit weight value. In most cases, the configured weight from the MBS software will account for design details and factors that allow for a more precise weight value than the configured material weight calculated from Adjutant. This option assumes that the weight value coming from the MBS file is a weight per unit value, and will be stored in the matched Adjutant line item as an individual unit weight which will be used to calculate an overall total weight based on the quantity or configuration. A corresponding MBSTOTWT option can be enabled if the MBS software is set to provide total line weight. With both MBSWT and MBSTOTWT enabled, the MBS weight is imported as a total line weight and then divided by the line quantity to calculate the unit weight.

MBSADJDESC – This option defaults the MBS BOM Import/Matchup screen's option to 'Save Adjutant Descriptions'. This creates the BOM order with Adjutant descriptions, which should be more recognizable and generally more detailed than the MBS software descriptions. Since the descriptions used are after the item matchup process, it also overrides any 'generic' MBS item descriptions that have been matched to an exact Adjutant item.

• For built-up items, columns, rafters, etc. where the MBS description provide valuable information about the item, an override feature exists that will allow the configured MBS description to carry through to the BOM order. This override feature is enabled at the Adjutant item level using the KEEPMBSDESC Item Attribute. Items codes such as 'BUILTUP', 'COLUMN', etc. where the Adjutant description is more generic should have the KEEPMBSDESC attribute assigned to save the MBS description instead.

MBSDESCBYLOCTID - This option is not enabled by default for every customer, but should be enabled for any customer that operates multiple warehouses in a single CID environment AND wishes to maintain unique cross reference information per warehouse.

Rule Maintenance Setup

MBS SO Type (MBSSOTYPE) - This rule can be used to default the correct Sales Order type for the imported BOM order. Proper setup of this rule can help with establishing a consistent BOM Order number format that includes an automatically generated prefix or suffix for each imported order.

Best Practice Procedures/Guidelines

MBS Job vs. Project

• The MBS BOM-SHP.INI fiel is produced from the MBS software on an individual job level, rather than an overal MBS project level.
  • This does not necessarily relate to the Adjutant Project record. An MBS Project may encompass several different jobs.
  • Each MBS job would need to be separately output and imported to create a separate BOM order in Adjutant.
• MBS is capable of producing output files that contain an entire MBS project, but Adjutant is designed to integrate with the job-specific file.

MBS BOM-SHP.INI is Standard

• Adjutant's core MBS integration is designed for the SHP.INI file
• Adjutant has created custom solutions for other MBS files, such as the SHP.OUT file, but these are non-standard and have been designed to work with specific customer requirements
  • These other file solutions MAY work for multiple customers, but they are not guaranteed and may require further custom development to work

Best Practice References/Additional Resources

Fabricated Items Based on a Buyout Item

For customers that buy items such as I-Beams and C-Chanel and then weld clips, plates, etc. from inventory, create an item with a name like BUYOUTBEAM. The item should have the following characteristics and attributes:

• Stock and Lot-Controlled
• PWO2PO Attribute
• BUYOUT Attribute
• SONOISLOTNO Attribute

The BUYOUTBEAM item is an input item on a PRODBEAM item that gets matched on the MBS Import so all MBS configurations are passed. The BUYOUTBEAM is ordered and tracked using the special attributes, then used in the production process.

Fabricated Items Based on Stock Materials

Use a generic BUILTUP type production item with BOM details of the required raw materials. Custom BOMs can easily be defined. Fab items will nearly ALWAYS need to go through Production process for punches, end plates, clips, etc. MBS Description information generally holds the needed info for production.

Purlin Considerations With Machine Integrations

• As of 12/28/2020, this guide is in progress, and is not considered a complete resource