We are currently looking to implement ERPNext into our company as the go-to ERP solution. However our products are quite diverse and require a massive amount of custom fields in the item form. When creating the fields it will occur at random times that new fields are not added where you intended them to be and are instead added at the bottom of the list.
ERPNext prevents reordering of those fields so the only way to circumvent wrong placement is by downloading the current bugged fields as CSV via ERPNext’s built in functions, reordering the fields in Excel or OpenOffice and uploading the changed CSV to ERPNext again.
The fields will show up correctly after upload, but if you hit “save” everything will be reset to how it was before.
You can reproduce this behaviour by either starting a self-hosted new instance (VM is easiest) or by using a new free online demo account. Then follow these steps:
Use “Customize Form” tool to create a single or multiple custom fields
Update form
Use the download function to save a .csv file to your computer
Reset the form via the “Reset to defaults” button on top of page
Update form to confirm changes
Use the upload function to attach your downloaded .csv
Verify the custom fields being included in the table
Update form
This is nothing short of a completely broken module that can easily be fixed by letting users rearrange the custom fields in the editor like it was possible in the past. There’s no logical reason to not support this.
“This is nothing short of a completely broken module that can easily be fixed by letting users rearrange the custom fields in the editor like it was possible in the past. There’s no logical reason to not support this.”
Indeed this product evolves fast so what worked before sometimes breaks.
But look at the bright side: With open source fortunately options exist to do something about what especially irks us that we are passionate about.
The question is what prevents you from doing so or are you not aware?
First of all let me say that the feature to rearrange items was taken out by choice of ERPNext developers. It was a feature that existed before. See Users will not be able to re-arrange standard fields
The reasons check out and I agree to them, but since custom fields are not necessarily placed where you place them it creates an issue.
I am completely aware that I could potentially fix this myself. I have created modules for our CRM (Zurmo) as well so this shouldn’t be a problem. However, I know that future updates might break my fix or that it might take ages before my pull-request with the fix will be incorporated into the next stable release. Another thing is that my time is very limited so my patching will take a lot longer than that of official developers that sit on the code constantly. However seeing as this has dragged on for more than a month now I should’ve just patched it myself and not cared about creating accounts to notify anyone.
I find your answer “just do it yourself” a bit weird though. If that is the go-to solution for bugs or issues, I am confused why we have to report bugs here and in the github issue list if no one cares about them anyway? It doesn’t really shine a good light on your PR or issue management.
Yes you’ve surely nailed it - it is all about caring and contributing. That’s why you posted and what motivates this forum, exchanges about problem and solutions.
Sooner or later someone likely will heed your call to address what does sound like a shortcoming that you prefer not to fix yourself. In the meantime please be patient.
“It doesn’t really shine a good light on your PR or issue management.”
Yes of course always room for improvement - welcome to our community and thanks for joining in.