A Few Tips for Styling Responsive Forms with Aras Innovator
In previous posts, we’ve covered the basics of responsive forms. In this blog, we will dive even deeper and share some tips and tricks for making responsive forms more visually appealing to your end users. Here are a few tips on how to make your responsive forms convey more information in the same space. Nested columns In our first introductory blog on responsive forms, we outlined how your form can be broken down into columns to better organize your properties. A cool thing that you might not know is that you can actually break your columns into additional columns. While that might sound complicated, our UI makes it very simple to configure. Here’s a quick look at what this looks like in action: To configure this, you need to open your responsive form editor and just drag a box from the Structure tab into one of your columns: From here, you can select any of your unused properties and drop them directly into the new columns you’ve created. It’s important to keep in mind the length of your property when doing this and reserve this practice for shorter properties. Good examples are things like Revision, State, Generation, Part Number, and things like Booleans or Cost. Color coding important properties In another of my previous blogs, I showed how you can set rules to customize your forms. These can be based on things like who is viewing the form or what the actual value of the property is. This can be used in multiple different ways, but one that I’ve found useful is to check the current variable of your item and style the Revision property a different color if you’re not looking at the most current version of the Item. This gives your user a very quick visual indication that they might be looking at an older version of an Item. Here’s a quick look at what that rule would look like: Another great place to use this is on lifecycle/workflow states. Using a simple color code allows users to quickly understand what is happening with their Items once they open a form. I recommend playing around with these to see what is possible. In the same vein, utilizing rules to hide specific properties from identities is much easier than it was in the old form system. This allows you to have fewer specialized views, which require less maintenance. Concluding thoughts Responsive forms continue to receive enhancements with each release. There has never been a better time to give them a try, and trying is as simple as pressing this button on your Item’s form: Keep in mind that this button just changes your view and doesn’t overwrite any of your existing forms. You can freely switch back and forth between your classic and responsive forms. Give them a try, and let us know what you’re able to build! Consider sharing with colleagues via comments. We want to hear from you.Streamline Collaboration with Aras Supplier Management Solutions
Supplier Management Solutions is new to Aras Innovator and supports Releases 22+. This new application allows you to collaborate seamlessly with your suppliers. Your suppliers can see relevant data approved by your organization through an external portal. The SMS application includes additions to our data model and the Aras Portal, and we’ll go over both below. The Aras view This application adds multiple new ItemTypes, which, in typical Aras fashion, are completely customizable to fit your needs. The package includes a hub for suppliers and additional Item Types linked via properties and relationships. These include all the Items you’ll need for assessment, procurement, and risk management. These items can also be augmented to link directly to other standard or custom Item Types. The Aras portal view The Aras Portal is a separate web service that runs alongside your Aras Innovator server. It connects directly and securely with your server while respecting our complicated permission model. It’s a great way to ensure that suppliers have whatever access they need, without exposing critical business information. The Aras Portal can be accessed either via desktop or mobile, with both views being shown in the screenshots below. It’s important to note that things like our viewers (CAD, PDF) and SSVC are all available in the Aras Portal. This allows for direct, in-context communication between suppliers and manufacturers, whether logged into Aras Innovator or your portal. After showing this application off at ACE 2024, customers expressed great interest. This connectivity between manufacturers and suppliers opens the door for collaboration and efficiency. If this seems like something you could use, let us know in the comments or reach out to our presales team directly for a demonstration and consultation on how to get started using Supplier Management Solutions. For a closer look at this exciting new application, register now for our upcoming webinar, Optimizing PLM Supplier Management Solutions, on November 5. It’s not too soon to start thinking about ACE 2025. Hope to see you there!
Tech Tip: Sync a Poly ItemType's Properties with its Poly Sources
PolyItems are great mainly when you want to build a relationship as a single ItemType/RelationshipType but connecting one source to multiple targets. This is the setup for the Deliverable ItemType in Aras Innovator which is configured as a PolyItem. ...
