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How to create a Form-Specific Help menu in Modern UI?

One of the standing out features of Acumatica's Modern UI is the Form-Specific Help menu, which is opened when you click the Help button while viewing the majority of forms: enter image description here

I wonder how big is the effort to create Form-Specific Help menu for a custom screen?

Solution

  • As described in the Acumatica ERP documentation, to link a reference article with a particular screen, you should specify the Article ID based on the Screen ID of the form, replacing periods with underscores. For example, if the Screen ID is AP.10.10.00, the ID of its reference form must be specified as AP_10_10_00.

    A very similar concept is used to link form-specific help with a particular screen. If you take a quick look at the Wiki Site Map (SM.20.20.10), you should notice the Form Quick Reference node under User Guide: enter image description here

    The Form Quick Reference node in its order contains a number of sub-nodes representing different modules of Acumatica ERP. And by checking the list of Wiki articles included into the Sales Orders (User Guide -> Form Quick Reference -> Sales Orders), you can easily tell, that form-specific help menu is nothing more than a Wiki article linked to a particular screen. To link form-specific help with a particular screen, you should specify the Article ID based on the Screen ID of the form, replacing periods with underscores and adding _NAV in the end of the Article ID.

    enter image description here

    The content of a Wiki article representing form-specific help is usually quite simple:

    ==Procedures==
[HelpRoot_User\SO__How_Create_Sale_Order|To Create a Sales Order (SO)]{br}

...

[HelpRoot_User\SO__How_Process_RM_Order|To Process Authorized Returns (RM)]
==Concepts==
[HelpRoot_User\SO__con_Order_Processing|Sales Order Processing Options]{br}

...

[HelpRoot_User\SO__con_Order_Types_for_Returns|Predefined Order Types for Customer Returns]
==Form Reference==
[HelpRoot_User\SO_30_10_00|Sales Orders] ([~/?ScreenId=SO301000|SO.30.10.00])
==Help Dashboard==

    For the majority of standard Acumatica ERP screens, form-specific help consists of up to 4 sections:

    • Procedures
    • Concepts
    • Form Reference
    • Help Dashboard

    Also keep in mind, the Procedures section is considered optional and can be easily excluded from some of form-specific help menus.