Acumatica 2018 R1 was recently released and the team continues to focus on user experience just like from their last release when they improved the global search function. This new version has a nice change to the generic inquiries that people may not notice at first, but I feel will make Acumatica even more user-friendly.
Looking at the Old
In older versions of Acumatica, for any generic inquiry that a user would like to do additional filtering to, they would need to select the column then put in the value to filter on, as seen below. While this was good functionality, it took a few clicks to get the desired results and missed an opportunity to allow users to make changes on the fly.
One issue that users found cumbersome around this functionality is forgetting that they applied a filter to the list. Having spent time on support calls with users, one of the big weaknesses is seeing that a filter has been applied. When a user has a lot of column headers to scroll across, they may not realize that the data is being filtered. This option is still available, but Acumatica has improved how users identify how their data is being filtered.
Comparing to the New
Instead of drilling down to the column and applying a filter, with the new release, the user can drag and drop whichever column they want to filter by into the header of the query. They can also use the filter by this cell option.
Once the user applies the filter, it will display in the header of the query.
Next time you open the query, it will remember that you wanted to filter on that field and will keep it in the header for easier filtering. Also, having the field clearly displayed in the header gives the user a very quick visual to see how the results of the query are limited. Although it is a small change to how generic inquiries work, it will save users time and energy when working with their day-to-day data in Acumatica.
