WMS: Missions and Tasks

The Missions and Tasks feature lets you create a work-to-list for queuing and moving inventory within a warehouse. This gives warehouse managers greater work allocation control and visibility.

A mission can be created for inventory putaway, sales order pick or cycle count transactions. Once missions and tasks are assigned to the employee or team they can be serviced using the Missions & Tasks application in SYSPRO Espresso (where operators can then view their tasks from a mobile device) or the WHM Review Mission Tasks program.

The system is updated in real time as the stock is allocated, physically moved and the task completed. Once all tasks are done, the mission can be completed.

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Exploring

The programs related to this feature are accessed from the Program List of the SYSPRO menu:

  • Program List > Inventory

This is typically a container or shelf in a warehouse that lets you keep track of stored inventory items.

Each bin is assigned a type to indicate its basic flow of activities. This helps define the way in which it is used and to prevent incorrect use (e.g. dispatching inventory from a WIP bin, or consuming products that have not yet been receipted).

This refers to an inventory auditing procedure whereby a small subset of inventory items (or specific locations) are designated to be counted on a specified cycle.

The information derived from the cycle count can be used to determine the accuracy of stock levels within the entire warehouse (e.g. if discrepancies are found between actual and system stock levels, similar variances may be expected in other areas of the warehouse).

A putaway refers to the process of moving inventory between bins and warehouses. The initial putaway would be from the receiving zone to the storage location in a warehouse. Subsequent Putaway transactions include bin and goods in transit warehouse transfers.

This is the warehouse optionally configured to store variances arising during picking or cycle counting.

The quantity that is short is moved to the lost and found warehouse at the time the pick line or entire pick is completed and set to C - Picked.

Items can be retrieved from the L&F warehouse during cycle counting using the Lost and Found Warehouse Review program.

The lost and found warehouse is only enabled if a warehouse is defined at the Lost and found warehouse setup option and Process to lost and found warehouse is selected at the Accounting for shortages option (Warehouse Maintenance) .

This is the process of finding and extracting products from a warehouse bin to fulfill customer sales orders.

Within SYSPRO, a warehouse represents an actual warehouse containing your inventory items (i.e. a physical warehouse) or a grouping of your inventory according to specific characteristics of the item (i.e. a logical warehouse).

For example:

You may want to split your inventory raw materials and finished goods into different logical warehouses even though they are located in the same physical warehouse.

You maintain warehouses using the Warehouse Maintenance program.

A mission can be created for inventory putaway, sales order pick or cycle count transactions. Once missions and tasks are assigned to the employee or team they can be serviced using the Missions & Tasks application in SYSPRO Espresso (where operators can then view their tasks from a mobile device) or the WHM Review Mission Tasks program.

The system is updated in real time as the stock is allocated, physically moved and the task completed. Once all tasks are done, the mission can be completed.

Setup programs

WHM Mission Teams Maintenance

WHM Teams Maintenance

WHM Team Employee Maintenance

Report programs

Mission Tasks

Browse programs

WHM Mission Browse

WHM Team Browse

WHM Teams Employee Browse

Query programs

WHM Mission Query

WHM Review Mission Tasks

Period end programs

WHM Mission Purge

Starting

To use this feature, the following setup option(s) must be enabled:

Setup Options > Configuration > Distribution > Inventory

  • Multiple bins
  • Fixed bins
  • Associate serials by bin
  • WMS missions options
    • Enable for cycle counting
    • Enable for sales order picking

    • Enable for put-aways

      The WMS missions options can be enabled separately, i.e. they work independently.

    • Show Warehouses (hyperlink)
      • Accounting for shortages
        • Process as stock adjustments
        • Process to lost and found warehouse
      • Lost and found warehouse

Program List > Inventory > Setup

  • WMS control
    • Accounting for shortages
    • Lost and found warehouse

You can secure this feature by implementing a range of controls against the affected programs. Although not all these controls are applicable to each feature, they include the following:

  • You restrict operator access to activities within a program using the Operator Maintenance program.
  • You can restrict operator access to the fields within a program (configured using the Operator Maintenance program).
  • You can restrict operator access to functions within a program using passwords (configured using the Password Definition program). When defined, the password must be entered before you can access the function.
  • You can restrict access to the eSignature transactions within a program at operator, group, role or company level (configured using the eSignature Setup program). You can restrict access to the eSignature transactions within a program at operator, group, role or company level (configured using the Electronic Signature Configuration Setup program). Electronic Signatures provide security access, transaction logging and event triggering that gives you greater control over your system changes.
  • You can restrict operator access to programs by assigning them to groups and applying access control against the group (configured using the Operator Groups program).
  • You can restrict operator access to programs by assigning them to roles and applying access control against the role (configured using the Role Management program).

Solving

This message is displayed when you attempt to access a program that forms part of the Missions and Tasks feature without first enabling the relevant setup option(s).

Enable one or more of the following setup options to use the Missions and Tasks feature as per your requirements, and then restart SYSPRO for your changes to take effect:

Setup Options > Configuration > Distribution > Inventory

  • WMS missions options

    • Enable for cycle counting
    • Enable for sales order picking

    • Enable for put-aways

You can enable these WMS missions options separately if required, as they function independently.

Using

The following indicates areas in the product that may be affected by implementing this feature:

Program List > Inventory > Warehouse Management > Missions and Tasks > Setup

This program lets you allocate and maintain teams for a mission.

Program List > Inventory > Warehouse Management > Missions and Tasks > Setup

This program lets you add and maintain the employees that form part of the teams to which missions can be allocated.

Program List > Inventory > Warehouse Management > Missions and Tasks > Setup

This program lets you add and maintain the teams that can be allocated to missions.

SYSPRO Ribbon bar > Setup > Operators

The Employee field lets you link the SYSPRO operator to an employee who can be part of a team that can be allocated to a mission.

This link is required to filter the list of tasks according to the SYSPRO operator, which in turn limits the tasks the logged on Espresso operator can perform.

Program List > Inventory > Transaction Processing

Two new fields Put-Away - Bin Transfer and Put-Away – Warehouse Transfer let you classify the inventory movement transaction as a putaway that can be assigned to a shop floor operator using the WHM Review Mission Tasks program.

Accessible from various functions within the Sales Order Entry, Sales Order Entry Express, Back Order Release and Release Reserved Stock programs.

The Create Mission and tasks option lets you create a mission from the sales order pick.

Program List > Inventory > Warehouse Management > Missions and Tasks

This program lets you delete completed and canceled missions, i.e. remove the mission data from the WhmMission and WhmMissionTasks database tables.

Program List > Inventory > Cycle Counting System > Transaction Processing

The Create Mission and tasks option lets you create a mission from the cycle count.

Program List > Inventory > Warehouse Management > Missions and Tasks > Reports

This report displays the information for missions as well as the tasks allocated to these.

The Employee field was added to the following reports:

  • Detailed List of Operators

  • Simplified List of Operators

Program List > Inventory > Warehouse Management > Missions and Tasks

This program lets you query mission and task information. The tasks associated with the mission are displayed in the list view.

Program List > Inventory > Warehouse Management > Missions and Tasks

This program lets you allocate a mission to an employee as well as review missions and tasks.

Program List > Inventory > Warehouse Management

You can create a putaway transaction for a stock item by selecting the Add Putaway hyperlink in the list view.

Program List > Inventory > Warehouse Management > Missions and Tasks > Browses

This program lets you browse the teams that can be allocated to missions.

Program List > Inventory > Warehouse Management > Missions and Tasks > Browses

This program lets you browse all missions and displays their statuses and sources (picking, cycle-counting or inventory putaway).

Program List > Inventory > Warehouse Management > Missions and Tasks > Browses

This program lets you view the employees that belong to a team.

The WHM Mission Team Maintenance business object lets you allocate a mission to a team.

The Teams Maintenance business object lets you add, change and delete teams that can be allocated to missions.

The WHM Mission Team Employee Maintenance business object lets you add, change or delete employees that form part of the teams to which missions can be allocated.

The WHM Mission Query business object lets you query a mission, and the tasks associated with that mission, from the WhmMission table.

The WHM Completed Missions Query business object lets you query all completed missions and tasks.

The WHM In Progress Missions Query business object lets you query all missions from the WhmMission table that are still in progress (i.e. missions that are not canceled or completed).

The WHM Missions Query business object lets you query missions in the WhmMissionTasks and WhmMission tables and displays their status and source (i.e. picking, cycle counting or inventory putaway). It is called from the WHM Review Mission Tasks program and loads the results in the list view.

The WHM Mission Team Employees Query business object lets you query any single input team operator from the WhmTeamEmployees table.

The WMS Putaway Entry business object lets you add putaways to the WhmMissionTasks and WhmMission tables.

The WHM Allocate Employee/Team business object lets you allocate employees and teams to a task or a mission.

The WHM Mission Complete/Cancel business object lets you complete or cancel a putaway (e.g. a warehouse or bin transfer) and is called from the WHM Review Mission Tasks program.

The WHM Mission Purge business object lets you selectively purge complete or canceled missions and tasks from the WhmMission and WhmMissionTasks tables. It is run from the WHM Mission Purge program.

The WHM Mission and Tasks Entry Utility business object lets you add and change the status of missions and tasks created.