Skip to main content

Notifications

Announcements

No record found.

News and Announcements icon
Community site session details

Community site session details

Session Id :
Dynamics 365 Community / Forums / Supply chain | Supply Chain Management, Commerce / Activate warehouse man...
Supply chain | Supply Chain Management, Commerce
Answered

Activate warehouse management without using functionality

(0) ShareShare
ReportReport
Posted on by Joelliechti 35

Hi community!

We are currently in the phase implementing D365 F&O and our go-live is coming closer very soon. Our system so far has been set up without considering any warehouse management functionality and that is actually still the plan. However recently the question was brought up, whether we should prepare some settings in the systems that would allow us to retroactively implement the warehouse module functionalities at a later stage, without having to setup new items (storage dimension groups) and warehouses etc.. The recommendation given by Microsoft was to simply setup up storage dimension groups as per below from the very beginning, with the explanation as follows:

We recommend the process of start using a Storage dimension group with the "Use warehouse management processes" enabled and then later use the warehouse migration process to enable the warehouses. 

It is more difficult to convert items at a later date .

Solution :

Warehouse management should be switched on at the Storage Dimension Group at least, even if the customer is not yet working with the WMS.

WMS.PNG

Our current settings (as well what we have been testing thoroughly) are as per below:

current_5F00_SDG.PNG

We have now done some additional testing as per recommended settings provided by Microsoft, however what we realized quickly is that it is not that simple by just adding some checkboxes and enable warehouse management process on the storage dimension groups. There were a lot more settings required such as reservation hierarchies, Unit sequence group ID, Item Model Groups (FIFO reservation doesnt work anymore), etc..During the testing quite a few errors appeared for example, BOMs were not consumed correctly (journals were created, but the components were still available in stock). 

Does anyone else has experience with this kind of approach? And does it really cause that much of issues when converting items/warehouses at a later stage to have the warehouse enabled? What I want to avoid at this stage of the implementation, to change a lot of settings without actually knowing what the implications are going to be. Then the conversion of items/warehouses at a later stage might be the better approach.

Thanks for your inputs on recommendations!

Best Regards

Joel

  • Joelliechti Profile Picture
    Joelliechti 35 on at
    RE: Activate warehouse management without using functionality

    Hi Jason

    thanks a lot for your very valuable and detailed inputs and recommendations! I really appreciate it!

    As for our manufacturing needs, maybe this is the area where the difficulties are coming from: our manufacturing setup is very much based on outside operations. Approx. 90 % of our production orders use service items, where we as a company provide the raw material and specs to our suppliers (along with a PO) and mostly machining/coating operations are carried out. We were instructed that the service items must not be assigned to a storage dimension group with warehouse processes enabled.

    Additionally the FIFO reservation is currently a given requirement, which is not available anymore with WMS activated.

    Maybe some other community members, might have some other inputs on the points regarding manufacturing.

    Thanks again!

    Best Regards

    Joel

  • Verified answer
    Jason1 Profile Picture
    Jason1 75 on at
    RE: Activate warehouse management without using functionality

    HI Joelliechti,

    I am not sure this will answer every detail specific to your manufacturing needs as we are strictly using it for distribution, but we did exactly what you described. I am not entirely certain there wasn’t an easier method, but we took this approach and are now (10 months later) in the process of going live with the warehouse functionality. Our initial plan was to go live with D365 using warehouse management from the start but as our go live time got closer we knew we weren’t going to be fully ready for the warehouse piece so we went ahead with our live cutover to D365 using a warehouse management enabled warehouse but have not begun using any of the functionality. At the time, my motivation was to avoid switching to a “warehouse enabled” warehouse after we were integrated with a live online store. I assumed that would be a nightmare, so we did like what you described.

    As far as our day to day use is concerned, the biggest difference is that we need to also specify a location on inventory transactions (e.g. sales orders and purchase orders, count journals, etc.). I created one temporary location called “000” where everything is “stored”. In addition to specifying a site and warehouse on a sales/purchase line (which can be defaulted based on the customer/vendor), we also need to specify the warehouse location for the product (e.g. 000). It is just one extra step on the entries of each line. Other than that, it is like using D365 as usual without WMS - and exactly how you would handle a transaction even if you were using WMS already and needed to by-pass the warehouse functionality for a quick PO/SO for some reason.

    pastedimage1603724416936v1.png

    To be honest it was still a commitment to learn enough about the warehouse configurations to do this for our needs even though we weren’t using it right away. Since we were initially planning on going live with it, we had already setup most of the basics anyway. That said, now that we are testing it for live use, I haven’t found anything that I wasn’t able to change as needed for using the full functionality so no major Uh-Oh’s so far. The settings you referenced (Reservation hierarchies, Unit sequence group ID's, Item Model Groups, etc.) are going to be needed at some point for WMS anyway so there’s no getting out of learning the impact of these configurations and planning for your specific needs. You'll just need to do some of it now rather than later.

    Last, it is possible you may now be able to avoid all of this (or rather just delay the inevitable). It was my understanding that some tools and/or functionality was in development by Microsoft that would enable you to convert an existing warehouse in D365 to a “warehouse management enabled” warehouse but I am not sure if that is a reality yet. There were some unofficial/tricky workarounds to do this but not a viable option (IMHO) at the time we did it. I would recommend looking into newer options if any from Microsoft first. If that’s not an option yet I would still do it over again if I had to. The basic setup for what we did was not that difficult (just a little time consuming) and still needed to be done at some point anyway. Worst case, you can still change most setups if needed when you are ready to fully test and go live with WMS. However, I will say that when the time comes for using it and going live, be ready - WMS is a beast.

    Best of Luck,

    Jason

Under review

Thank you for your reply! To ensure a great experience for everyone, your content is awaiting approval by our Community Managers. Please check back later.

Helpful resources

Quick Links

Daivat Vartak – Community Spotlight

We are honored to recognize Daivat Vartak as our March 2025 Community…

Announcing Our 2025 Season 1 Super Users!

A new season of Super Users has arrived, and we are so grateful for the daily…

Kudos to the February Top 10 Community Stars!

Thanks for all your good work in the Community!

Leaderboard

#1
André Arnaud de Calavon Profile Picture

André Arnaud de Cal... 292,516 Super User 2025 Season 1

#2
Martin Dráb Profile Picture

Martin Dráb 231,409 Most Valuable Professional

#3
nmaenpaa Profile Picture

nmaenpaa 101,156

Leaderboard

Featured topics

Product updates

Dynamics 365 release plans