4 Easy Steps to Integrate Production Planning with MS projects in F&O
Purpose: The Gantt chart of production planning which Microsoft provides is not user-friendly. Also, Microsoft does not offer any direct integration between production planning and MS projects like the Integration of a Project’s WBS with an MS Project. So, here is an easy way to integrate production planning with MS projects.
Process: Follow the below steps to integrate production planning with the MS project:
Step 1: Export the required production planning data like Operation ID, From Date and From Time, Resource ID, Production Order No, and Job ID into the Excel file.
Create a field “Predecessor” to link the operations of the production order. This “Predecessor” field is required to auto-change the scheduling of production order processes and the interlinked production orders in MS Project.
Below is the screen of production orders in D365 F&O, which are used for integration.
Below is the screen of data that is exported from D 365 F&O to the Excel file.
Step 2: Import this Excel file into the MS project and make the required changes in planning, like changing the date/time of production order jobs, changing the resource, etc.
Below is the screen of the MS project file containing imported data from the above Excel file.
Now change the scheduling of production orders as per your requirement, as shown in the below screen.
Step 3: Export these changes into the Excel file.
After the changes have been finished, export these data into an Excel file so that these updated data can be read from the Excel file into a batch of D365 F&O to update the production planning.
Note: After exporting data into an Excel file, it is required to verify the date formats shown in the below screen; otherwise D365 batch will not consider the dates.
Step 4: Create a batch job in D 365 which will read this Excel file and then update the production planning in D365 F&O.
While updating production planning through coding, it is required to update data in ProdTable, ProdRoute, and ProdRouteJob tables. Along with these tables, we also need to update Resource capacity reservations.
This integration has limitations for the “Constraint type“field in the MS project. Users cannot import the Constraint type from D365 F&O to the MS project. MS project assigns constraint type on its own as per the data.
Notes: It is essential to take care of date formats while importing/exporting data in MS project; otherwise, the date fields will not be updated in the correct format.
By following this approach of integrating the production planning with the MS project, users can change the scheduling of multiple production orders and their inter-connected operations.