Since I don’t work on (interesting) large projects anymore, maybe I could write about the (small) places where (small) work = a (relative) win for somebody.
Returns (the department) is switching to the newer version of our ERP system. Its web based, and its a bit slow. For a customer, given a product, they have to either a) start from customer and what they bought, filter down to item, or b) start from item and go the other way. Either way its a few seconds to bring up stuff, another few seconds to apply a filter.
Solution: WPF app, doing a SQL query and using Telerik WPF RadGridView:
customerId <tab> item shortcode (Excluding size and color) <enter> (wait 1 second) – this brings up a filterable, sortable grid of when that customer bought that item (and the order numbers).
The code leaves the focus on the item short code highlighted so the next short code can be typed in. (Any customer will usually return several items – customers in these cases are businesses returning inventory for some reason – its a 20%+ return-rate industry, related to fashion.)
With this information, Returns can quickly know what prices to assign the return (the price they paid for it) and what order number to RMA against.
Returns came back with minor feedback: Colorize the rows for purchases vs returns in the grid that comes up. Done.
I’m on my home laptop, so no screenshot at this time.
Overall the screen for returns took maybe 6-8 hours spread over 2-3 working days over a span of 1 week, with 2 rounds of feedback. (These “fun” projects, i don’t start work on them till after 2pm, after I’ve worked on the less-fun more-demanding work in the morning and other misc stuff in the afternoon).
