After getting to know terms and acronyms in warehousing, it is equally relevant to learn more about some of the core constructs in supply chain management. Besides core constructs, I will also write about the mobile aspect of the warehouse - the mobile warehouse app. The warehouse management app from Microsoft is a neat little application that warehouse workers use to do their day-to-day tasks. I will explain some basic concepts and configurations for the warehouse mobile app in D365 SCM.

Core constructs

Understanding business processes in the warehouse needs to start with understanding some basic core concepts that we will cover here. It will also serve as a good foundation for future learning.

Release to warehouse/waves

We use this process to create work as an output from our order lines as input. It is also considering different configurations such as wave templates, work templates, and location directives.

Wave templates contain wave methods that perform actions like creating loads, allocating lines to waves, replenishment, and creating picking work for the wave.

Work templates are used to create and process warehouse work in the warehouse management process. Usually, templates should be specified in pairs of pick and put. We can create work templates for various types of warehouse activities such as inbound transactions, inventory transfers, picking of inventory items, and others.

As noted in Microsoft documentation: “Location directives are rules that help identify pick and put locations for inventory movement.” We can for example use location directives to determine where the items will be picked, and where the picked items will be put in a sales order transaction.

To sum up, Release to the warehouse makes our inventory ready for dispatching (or dispatch processing). The process involves creating other items such as load lines and shipments. Depending on the configuration, it could also create work and loads.

Work

Work or warehouse work are operations performed by a warehouse worker. These are transactions that are made up of at least one pick and put step in pairs. We define that structure using work templates which are explained in the previous section. Work must be created and completed to move the inventory in the warehouse.

In the screenshot below we can see what a work template looks like:

As we can see, the selected work templates have two pairs of pick and put, where put steps also have Directive codes which are associated with location directives.

Transit hierarchy

We can think of transit hierarchy as a relationship between Loads, Shipments, and Containers. Loads being actual physical shipping containers can have many shipments within themselves. These Shipments are individual deliveries to a specific customer or delivery address so they can have either Containers or just individual Order lines. Containers or individual Order lines contain actual items.

Mobile structure

We first want to set up the configuration of menus and menu items in D365 which represent actual items that users will interact with. When we login to the WMA we can go from the Main menu to either Receiving or Shipping menu. In Receiving menu we can see purchase or transfer menu items that enable us to execute the related processes. In the Shipping menu, we can for example see the Sales picking menu item that would allow us to pick sales orders.

Warehouse App Field Names

The first step is creating a default setup for Warehouse app field names. We can access it by navigating to Warehouse management > Setup > Mobile device > Warehouse app field names. On the first run, this form will be empty, so we can create a default setup by clicking “Create default setup” in the toolbar:

In the form, we can configure the Preferred input mode for each item:

• Manual
• Scanning

Manual means that, when prompted, the worker will need to manually enter a value of a let’s say Container type, while Scanning means that the worker can use the action of scanning a barcode instead of manually entering the value.

Input type (Selection, Alpha, Numeric, Date) can also be configured which will affect the keyboard that is shown in the app.

Warehouse App Field Priority

The next default setup we want to make is Warehouse app field priority. We can access it by navigating to Warehouse management > Setup > Mobile device > Warehouse app field priority.

Here we can control where the user will see fields in the WMA. The fields are assigned a priority where the lower number is more critical. Fields that have Priority 10 assigned are considered the most critical and will be shown on the main application tab. Fields that have lower priorities assigned such as 20, 30, 40, or other, will be shown in the details section. After we have assigned a field to a certain priority we can also move it to a different priority.

Warehouse Worker

We then want to set up our Workers who are actual users who will be using the WMA. We can access it by navigating to Warehouse management > Setup > Worker

These workers are actual users who will be using the WMA. They differ from system administration users and also HR module workers. First, we need to add a new Worker and assign a Worker from the Human Resources module. Then we can add Users in the Users fast tab where each one represents an actual user who will be using the WMA. We configure User ID, and Main Warehouse while we can also configure or reset password to enable that user to log in. Microsoft recommends, as a best practice, to create one User ID per worker to increase security and maintainability.

Warehouse Management Mobile App

WMA is available as an app on Windows, Android, and iOS operating systems. We can download it from the App stores for each OS. In mid-2023, Microsoft introduced device code flow authentication to connect to D365 SCM. This authentication simplifies the process because it doesn’t require users to manage certificates or client secrets. This device authentication flow doesn’t change the worker/user login flow but rather authenticates the device with a Microsoft business application.

Once authenticated and after user login, the warehouse worker can choose menu items and proceed to perform warehouse processes. You can see what the latest Warehouse Management Application from Microsoft on iOS mobile devices looks like:

WMA Emulator in D365FSCM

In case you don’t have access to the mobile device with the Warehouse Management Application installed or you need the WMA capabilities only for testing purposes, MS has provided an emulator that you can access by navigating to the specific menu item:

https://<your-environment-url>/?cmp=<your-legal-entity>&mi=action:WHSWorkExecute

A dialog will appear on the right side allowing you to log in with the User Id and password you configured earlier in Worker setup:

After logging in, you get access to menu items related to warehouse processes:

Scanning barcodes is not supported in the emulator so you need to enter all required data manually. All fields on forms are also immediately visible in the emulator while in the app that runs on mobile devices, the details section can be accessed separately while having main information on the main view.

Microsoft also warns us that this form is not supported in production environments and it is used for testing purposes only. It is quite handy when you need to complete some warehouse operations for example to create License plate labels.

We have covered some basic constructs and went through some basic setups needed for using WMA. While warehousing can be quite complex, we do need some basic knowledge and configurations to build upon. I am curious at what other basic configurations are needed in your opinion. Share your thoughts in the comments section below.