Streamline Your Business Processes with SAP B1 Usability Package Kanban Boards
Are you looking for an easy way to manage and organize your data in SAP Business One? Look no further—the B1 Usability Package Kanban Boards ‘’B1UP“ from Boyum® offer a powerful solution for streamlining your business processes.
With advanced reporting capabilities, the Kanban Boards help you visualize and track your tasks to improve efficiency and productivity. In this blog post, we’ll explain why you need the B1UP Kanban Boards and how to set them up—including configuration options and more!
What is a Kanban board?
A Kanban board is an interactive visualization tool that helps teams keep track of their work. Toyota initially developed it to improve the manufacturing process but has since been adapted for many industries. With a Kanban board, teams can easily visualize their workflow and prioritize tasks accordingly.
The way it works is simple: each task is represented by a card, and the board is divided into columns according to its current stage in the workflow. Cards can then be dragged from one column to another as tasks progress throughout their lifecycle.
From the SAP Business One perspective, the B1UP Kanban board provides a powerful and intuitive way to quickly monitor the status of sales opportunities, production orders, activities, projects, and much more. You can easily track workflow progress by moving cards between different columns, setting due dates for tasks, and assigning them to different users. Whenever a card is moved in the Kanban board, the corresponding record in the SAP Business One system is automatically updated.
It is important to note that the Kanban board is only available in the B1 Usability Package and not in the basic SAP Business One. If you already have the B1 Usability Package, setting up and configuring the Kanban board is straightforward. We’ll show you how in just a few steps. If not, it is worth looking at this powerful add-on’s features and benefits.
Let's explore how to set up and configure Kanban boards, the different configuration options you can use, and some use cases to get the most out of them in your business.
How to enable the Kanban boards?
Two prerequisites must be met to activate your Kanban board in SAP Business One:
- Enable B1 Usability Package
- Activate the Dashboard functionality for a user
Enable B1 Usability Package
If you already have the B1 Usability Package installed and enabled, you can skip to the next step. Otherwise, follow the steps below to enable it in your system.
- Open Modules > Administration > Add-ons > B1 Usability Package > License Administration
- Once the license screen opens, check if the user has B1UP enabled. If not, you can enable it by clicking on the checkbox next to the user’s name and clicking update.
Generally, if you are running B1UP, all users on your system should be running it.
Activate dashboard functionality for a user
Once you’ve enabled B1UP, you can go ahead and activate the dashboard functionality for a user
- To do so, open Modules > Administration > Add-Ons > B1 Usability Package > B1 Usability Config
- Check the “Use B1 Dashboard” box.
IMPORTANT! When the box is unchecked, it is essential not to check it during business hours since this will force all users out while additional tables and fields are added. For safety’s sake, back up your database after hours when there are no active users—only then should you select the box for optimization.
- After you enable the feature in your organization and generate tables and fields, you can select the ellipsis button.
- As soon as the “Select Users” window opens, make sure you switch to “Include” instead of “Exclude.” Tick all the users for whom you want dashboards enabled, then click OK.
Can you activate ONLY the Kanban board for particular users ?
When it comes to configuring the SAP Business One B1UP Kanban Boards for particular users, you can rest assured knowing that you have complete control over which dashboards they can view. You can do this by logging into the dashboard screen and selecting the “impersonate user” option from the Gear menu.
This will allow you to edit their dashboard views to configure what they can or cannot see. It is important to note that these changes will only be saved if the user is logged out of SAP Business One while impersonating them.
Furthermore, it’s worth noting that every user can have their own set of dashboard views. You also can restrict users from viewing specific dashboards, as well as transferring views between users. This is extremely useful for teams as it allows you to quickly copy and paste views from one user to another, saving a lot of time in the process.
To gain further insight into the topic, we recommend you examine our past B1UP sessions on YouTube:
You can also launch the Kanban board as a universal function, outside of just its dashboard area as explained in this video:
How to add a Kanban board to B1UP dashboards?
Everything’s done from this gear. As long as you’re a super user, you can have access to the ability to add and edit view settings. You can create different tabs on your dashboard that combine various widgets, such as sales process maps, open items lists, and Kanban boards.
To do so, open the Gear menu and click “Add/Edit view settings.” You can give your new tab a name—for example, “Kanban”—before clicking “Update.” From there, you can add new widgets by clicking on Gear > Add new widgets.
Various custom, standard, functional, and data-style widgets are available for selection. In particular, the Kanban board widget can be used for comprehensive filtering. Once selected, you can drag this to a full-size view of your screen and have it display a sales opportunity Kanban board with different columns that illustrate a straightforward sales process.
You have plenty of options to customize your dashboard based on your needs.
How to customize the Kanban boards?
The B1UP Kanban board allows users to customize the board according to their own reporting needs. On the edit screen, there are a variety of options that can be used to create a one-of-a-kind experience.
For example:
- A percentage bar can be added, which shows the completion status of sales opportunities and updates it without having to access SAP Business One.
- Additionally, coding can add visual highlighting, such as color backgrounds, caption highlighting, and more.
- Furthermore, an SOP summary widget can be added below the Kanban with KPIs such as the weighted average potential amount and the amount in each stage of their sales process. This way, users have an overview of where they are at any given time.
By customizing the Kanban boards, users receive greater visibility into their data and better understand their business performance. Users can gain valuable insight into their business operations and improve efficiency in their daily processes by taking advantage of the features and options available with Kanban boards.
The Kanban widget provides handy functionality for each card in the Kanban board. By hovering over a card on the board, you can access options such as adjusting the predicted close date and potential amount of a sales opportunity without needing to drill down into it. Additionally, you can filter and search through data available from this view. This is extremely helpful when trying to efficiently manage your data within SAP Business One.
How to actually do all that?
Please note that it requires some knowledge of SQL.
- Click the ellipses button at the top and click “Edit this Kanban board” to see the configuration of this Kanban board.
- B1UP uses an HTLM-inspired language. On this webpage, you can find an HTML-inspired text formatting guide. If you watch the Kanban introduction video, this is the Boyum IT solutions Kanban introduction.
- Once the Edit screen opens, you have the following customization options:
- Data SQL - To make changes, users may use HTML-initiated code to customize the board’s layout, color, and other design elements which includes: dynamic bold formatting; different font colors (a comprehensive list can be found on the BoyumIT Help Documentation for the Kanban board); the ability to add background colors.
- Column SQL - The SQL query is the design for what columns will appear on your board. For example, our sales opportunity stages were set as the Kanban columns. If you prefer more control over how your board shows information, it is possible to filter and construct custom columns with a manual SQL query.
- Visuals and Actions - On the bottom of the Kanban edit screen, you have a variety of additional options available.
- Custom navigation universal functions - Design your navigation with total ease by creating a universal function that will take you directly to the desired spot! For instance, if every sales opportunity card should go straight away to the stages tab once opened—it’s easy-peasy. Establish this setting as part of a custom navigation universal function for ultimate simplicity and quick access.
- Column move action - Column move action provides you with various options for transferring a card from one column to another. Depending on the type of object, different hover actions are possible—such as updating an opportunity stage in sales or changing the header UDF so that it reflects your own internal status. Additionally, documents can be set to approved/not approved status easily and quickly.
- Keywords - On the right side of your screen, you can incorporate data keywords that are supported in your query, thus allowing the system to access and draw from various sources.
There are all sorts of unique elements here. You can deploy anything from dynamics syntax to universal functions and have them work perfectly! In addition, by relocating between specific columns, things in the background will change automatically. If you ever develop an idea for altering between these columns, as long as it meets your data shape requirements-you’ll be able to achieve whatever result desired with this solution!
In summary
The B1 Usability Package Kanban boards are an incredibly powerful way to manage data quickly and efficiently within SAP Business One. From customizing the board design with HTML-inspired code to adding keywords and actions, users have complete control over configuring their boards as needed. With this feature, users can maximize their efficiency in daily processes by taking advantage of all the features and options available on the Kanban board.
Experts to guide you
Ready to start? Contact us and see how Kanban boards can help you improve your workflow..