Simplified Screens: Keeping People’s Noses in Their Own Business!

QAD is extremely flexible– it supports companies big and small in sectors with specialized needs like Automotive and Life Sciences.  The downside of this flexibility is that there is functionality that your company does not need and that could cause you problems.  It is easy for your users to lose focus on what is important to your business.

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QAD’s maintenance programs are designed to accommodate everyone and are probably not a perfect fit to your needs.  This often shows up as:

• Using tribal knowledge to tell your users which fields are important
• Training users on what fields to use and which ones to ignore
• Customizing maintenance programs

Customizing maintenance programs is the only fool-proof method listed above but it’s expensive and makes upgrades difficult (and even more expensive).

If you’re running QAD’s .NetUI you’re in luck!  There is free out-of-the-box functionality that lets you tailor maintenance screens to your business needs without the expense of customizing them– simplified screens!   Also known as configured screens, they allow you to customize QAD by:

• Creating and managing program profiles by security group
• Setting default values for fields
• Removing access to fields
• Adding validation to fields
• Changing the navigation order of fields in a frame
• Adding fields and frames
• Hiding fields and frames

You can help your users to follow your business processes, streamline the programs they work with, and reduce unnecessary keystrokes and chances for mistakes. Security profiles control these changes so you can have different access levels depending on who is running the program.  The AP manager sees more than the AP clerk if you want.

This only affects the surface, though.  All underlying functionality and business logic stay intact including modules that affect the user interface like EMT.