Descartes® is pleased to announce the latest Peoplevox release. In this release, we are resolving a number of mobile synchronisation issues ahead of the Black Friday / Cyber Monday peak period, and closing feature-parity gaps in the new action creation screens. Below, you will find a summary of everything included, grouped by category so you can easily focus on what is most relevant to you. For any questions about specific items, please reference the associated number (if provided) when contacting Descartes Customer Support.
Tip: Use our Ideas Portal to submit your enhancement ideas for Descartes Peoplevox. Click here for additional information and instructions on how to request access.
Auto-Updating Print Client
🟨 The new Print Client is now generally available, and we encourage you to upgrade to the latest version. This release introduces automatic updates, which will allow us to push fixes and improvements without disrupting your operation. The initial upgrade must be completed manually, but after installation, the client will update automatically. You can find the installation guide and download link for the new print client here.
You can also download the new print client directly from the web application, by navigating to the Print Client page, and clicking the download link.
Note: We are asking all users to upgrade to the new print client as soon as possible, ahead of the Black Friday/Cyber Monday peak period. This will ensure that everyone is on the new version before this busy time, and will allow us to deploy critical patches and fixes quickly, if needed. To help ensure uninterrupted printing, we encourage you to upgrade as soon as you can.
Action Creation Improvements
🟪 The sales order grid on the new Create actions screen now shows the Customer Name and Customer Reference columns, immediately to the right of the sales order number, in the same manner as the legacy screen. The same columns are also available on the Action creation activity, the View actions page and the User filters preview grid, and are included when downloading the grid to CSV. (1600112)
🟪 The View action popup on the legacy View actions screen now shows the new UI action page in place of the legacy popup. All of the previous popup's functions, including editing the customer name, comments and completion deadline, are available in the new view, and because it uses the new, lighter queries, it helps keep the application responsive during busy periods. (1403389)
Return without Reason or Condition
🟪 A new setting allows mobile operators using the PVX+ Return activity to book returned items into stock without choosing a return reason or condition. This is designed for operations that need to receive returned goods quickly, before they have been inspected. When the setting is enabled, the Reason and Condition fields are hidden for both normal and quick returns, each returned line is recorded with a reason and condition of Not inspected, and only quarantine locations are accepted as the destination, so uninspected stock cannot become available to pick. Any reason or condition predefined on an RMA is also ignored while the setting is enabled. The setting is off by default; if you would like it enabled for your account, please contact Descartes Customer Support. Once enabled, it takes effect the next time the Return activity is opened, with no app update or re-login required. (1580569)
Other Improvements
🟪 We have improved the performance of the Returns Summary report, as part of our preparations for the Black Friday / Cyber Monday peak period. The report returns the same results as before, but runs considerably faster for sites with a high volume of returns. (1400039)
🟪 We have improved the stability of the Integration API when importing sales orders, as part of our preparations for the Black Friday / Cyber Monday peak period. Repeated high-volume imports are now handled more efficiently, so API performance stays consistent during busy periods. (1619601)
Resolved Issues
🟩 We resolved an issue with the new Create actions screen where the Requested delivery date column showed the date only. It now shows both the date and the time, in the same manner as the legacy screen. (1585952)
🟩 We resolved an issue with Quick despatch that, in rare cases during periods of high activity, could record an incorrect despatched quantity for an order. Picking and despatch now stay in step even when several operators are working on the same orders at once. (1416076)
🟩 We resolved an issue with mobile synchronisation that could cause the quantities shown on a mobile device when receiving a purchase order to differ from those shown in the web application, with the device holding on to some received quantities until the app was reinstalled. This could occur on devices that had been working with an intermittent connection. Received quantities now synchronise reliably without any need to reinstall the app. (1392994, 1526872)
🟩 We resolved an issue with the mobile Move containers activity where a device could continue to show a container's previous location after it had been moved, and could reject a valid move with the message "Locations cannot be the same" or "Cannot move container to this location". Container locations now stay up to date on all devices as containers are moved. (1601094, 1608254)
Preview of Changes Coming Soon
Retiring Legacy Screens
Over the past year we have rebuilt a number of screens in the new web UI and in PVX+, and in most cases the legacy versions are now only kept for compatibility. We have already retired some legacy screens, such as Locations and web Returns, and in the new year we plan to continue with the next group of screens that have a full replacement:
Legacy Put away on mobile
Legacy Returns on mobile
Legacy Register on mobile
Legacy Stock take and Variance approval on the web application
🟦 We will not retire any screen before the Black Friday / Cyber Monday peak period, and nothing will be switched off until we have confirmed that the replacement covers everything the legacy screen did and have addressed the feedback already raised. We will confirm the exact screens and dates in the release notes ahead of each change, so you have time to move any remaining processes across.
Tip: If your operation still relies on one of these legacy screens, or there is something the new version does not yet do for you, please tell us now through the Ideas Portal so we can take it into account before anything changes.
Action Creation Improvements
Action creation continues to evolve as we drive toward more configurable and more flexible options for batching orders and automating manual processes.
🟦 We plan to extend the new action creation (including the scheduling component) to other warehouse activities, including put away, replenishment and more.
Batch and Expiry Tracking
🟦 Batch and expiry tracking has been on our roadmap for a long time, and we're excited to be in a position to kick off this project soon. The recent work on PVX+ has given us a lot of the foundation that we will need for the mobile changes, and the work that we have been doing on action creation will give us the tools to support things like first-expiry-first-out (FEFO) picking. Keep an eye on release notes for updates and timelines as soon as we have them.