Before using the Warehouse management only mode, the new feature must be enabled and a few things must be set up, such as the new source system, number sequences, and a new product. Below are the details on how to set up the environment and the first things, which will be followed by some information on the general workflow.
Enable the Warehouse management only mode feature
First, we'll enable the Warehouse management only mode feature in the feature management workspace. Doing this will make this D365 environment use the Warehouse management only mode.
After you see the message confirming the enablement, refresh the webpage completely and the changes should now be visible across the environment.
NOTE: I am still able to use normal purchase orders and sales orders as source documents and process them just like before. I was expecting this to get blocked, but it is not. In practice, we would most probably have to limit the use of the system by the correct security roles. It is yet to be seen how the licensing will work for all of this. I will make sure to update this article as new information comes out.
Configure source systems
Source systems are a list of external systems (ERPs) that you want to integrate with your D365 Warehouse management only mode. Navigate to Warehouse management > Set up> Warehouse management integration > Source systems.
Once you have it opened, it will be empty. So go ahead and create a new record. Make sure to call it “ERP” (source system field). This naming is necessary for the later purpose of this demo. In practice, you would name this based on your needs and the systems you are integrating with.
As part of source system creation, the necessary automated background processes are automatically created:
- Post shipment packing slips, used to process the outbound shipment order finalization process.
- Post shipment receipts, used to process the inbound shipment order finalization process.
- Process shipment order message, used to process inbound and outbound shipment order messages.
Now let’s review the options that are available here. For more thorough information about each, hover over the fields in the form and you will see the help text provided. I’ll try to concise the important information here. As you can see, the outbound shipment order has quite a few more parameters to set up than the inbound side.
Outbound shipment orders
Outbound shipment order fulfillment policy – you will have to create one fulfillment policy. This is basically the rule defining the percentage of quantity or price the outbound shipment must reach in order for it to be released to warehouse.
I chose to create a 100% quantity fulfillment rate requirement for my testing. This means that my warehouse will have to have enough inventory to reserve the complete order.
Reservation policy at import – this defines whether the quantities from the outbound shipment order messages should be immediately reserved by the system or not. The options offered are:
- Delay reservation – nothing happens, i.e. manual reservation process is required.
- Allow partial reservation – same as standard behavior.
- Require full reservation – same as standard behavior.
Is reservation policy mandatory – define whether the specific value in the Reservation policy at import must be enforced or not.
Outbound shipment order consolidation policy – define whether the standard shipment consolidation policy should be used during release to warehouse or not. The options are therefore:
- Use shipment consolidation policies.
- Always release shipment orders separately.
Shipment packing slips posting delay – define the value to be used when calculating the journal creation date and time. I chose this to be 1 minute so that I don’t have to wait too long during testing.
Inbound shipment orders
For the purposes of this demo, I’ve chosen to leave the standard values here, but there is still some exploration that could be done.
Inbound shipment order policies
Inbound shipment order policies are where we can set up how the inbound loads are created. I left the order type and consigner’s account number blank which means that this policy will be used for all inbound shipment orders. The options offered here are:
- Manual or ASN – complete manual control where the user must manually create an inbound load and where any changes in the inbound shipment orders must be manually reflected in the created inbound load.
- Create automatically – where a load is created automatically when an inbound order is created, but any changes in the order lines are not automatically updating the created load.
- Full synchronization – where a load is created and updated whenever any inbound order is created or updated.
Configure the new number sequences
Now we must configure the new number sequences introduced with the WMS only mode by navigating to Warehouse management parameters > Number sequences:
- Outbound shipment order
- Inbound shipment order
- Shipment packing slip
- Shipment receipt
- Warehouse outbound notification ID
- Load line inventory pick
When you first open this form, these six new number sequences will not have any number sequence defined. We must create these separately.
The easiest way to do this is to go to the Organization administration > Number sequences and press the Generate button.
This will take a while to execute, but it will create the new number sequences automatically. Just follow the short wizard after the process is done and refresh the number sequences page under the WMS parameters. Now, these should be populated and we can continue.
Create new item model group and released product
A new item model group is required that will not trigger any financial updates of the ERP (this is handled by the external ERP in the WMS only mode).
- Item model group
- Inventory model – set to non-valuated.
- Post physical inventory – turn off this option.
- Post financial inventory – turn off this option.
Because all demo items in Contoso D365 environment have a legacy item model group assigned, we need to create a new released product and assign it to the new item model group. I created item W0001 called Radish Jam and will use it for further testing. The rest of the setup of the item is very much the same as with any other item.
With that we conclude the initial system setup needed. In the next post, we will see some of the new forms introduced to the system and continue with the demonstration of other setup requirements. Continue to the next post in the series here.
