Epicor is moving away from the Windows client.

But it’s still core to most installations at this point, and may remain so for a while. Not only because there is so much familiarity with it, but because it’s extremely customisable, and the newer systems have a long way to go to catch up.

For me, there have been two keys to moving beyond simple customisations in the Epicor client. Between them they allow bespoke screens that can do practically anything.

1. Epicor’s “Dynamic Query” business object.
2. Using classes within the customisation code.

Dynamic Query is the way to call on Epicor’s BAQs (Business Activity Queries, or user-created ways of pulling together Epicor data). That means one object gives you access to exactly the data you choose, and you can create parameters to make it completely dynamic.

The benefit of adding classes to a customisation is more subtle. They allow what you create to be more modular. Declare a class, create an object of that class, and all the functionality you need is repeatable without cluttering the core code Script.

Combining the two means you can bring in what data you like and make it work together without getting tangled up.

This works so well that we’ve created two standard class families that we re-use all the time, and for the first time we’re sharing them publicly.

They’ll be appearing on GitHub - the first elements are there already as M8DynQuery, and more detail will be joining them.

Look out for more posts around how M8DynQuery works and what you can do with it.