Stone Edge Order Manager (SEOM) is a powerful and adaptable order management system that offers a wide range of features to streamline your business operations. While SEOM’s out-of-the-box functionality meets the needs of many businesses, there are times when additional customizations are necessary to better align with your unique processes. Although SEOM allows customization, it’s essential to understand that customizing the software is not always advisable, and specific guidelines must be followed to ensure that your customizations remain effective and sustainable.
The Flexibility of SEOM Customizations
SEOM is designed to support customizations that enhance its functionality without compromising the core software. Customizations can help tailor SEOM to meet specific business requirements, automate workflows, or integrate with other systems. However, these modifications should be approached carefully to maintain the software’s integrity and ensure seamless future updates and support.
Why You Should Avoid Modifying SEOM’s Core Code
Modifying SEOM’s core code might seem like a quick solution for implementing changes, but it often leads to significant long-term issues. Core code modifications can:
- Complicate Upgrades: Updates and patches from SEOM can conflict with core code modifications, making it difficult to apply upgrades without breaking customizations.
- Impact Software Stability: Changes to the core code can introduce errors, bugs, or performance issues that undermine the reliability of SEOM.
- Limit Support Options: SEOM’s support team may not be able to assist with problems resulting from modified core code, leaving you without official help when issues arise.
Instead of altering the core code, SEOM offers safer and more sustainable customization methods, such as the Custom Report Maintenance feature to preserve your customizations during updates, and Custom Hooks to implement custom code within the software.
Using Custom Report Maintenance
The Custom Report Maintenance feature allows you to create, modify, and manage Microsoft Access objects, such as reports, forms, queries, tables, and modules, without altering SEOM’s core software. This feature is particularly useful when creating new reports that SEOM does not offer by default or when adjusting existing reports to better suit your needs. Despite its name, its capabilities extend beyond reports, enabling you to store and preserve any custom Microsoft Access objects.
The Custom Report Maintenance feature allows you to store Microsoft Access objects in an external database, known as the Custom Reports database. This database is automatically reimported after SEOM updates or reinstalls, preserving your customizations.
Leveraging Custom Hooks for Extended Functionality
Custom Hooks provide another powerful customization tool within SEOM. Hooks are predefined points within the software where you can insert your own code to modify or extend its functionality. Using hooks ensures that your customizations remain separate from the core code, protecting the integrity of SEOM.
- Implement Business Logic: Use hooks to add custom business rules, automate tasks, or modify how SEOM handles certain functions.
- Integrate with Third-Party Systems: Hooks enable seamless integration with other applications without altering the core software, preserving stability.
- Maintain Easy Upgradability: Custom hooks ensure that your modifications are kept separate, making future SEOM updates easier to apply without requiring rework of your customizations.
Best Practices for Customizing SEOM
- Plan Your Customizations Carefully: Clearly define your business needs and determine whether they can be achieved using Custom Report Maintenance, Custom Hooks, or both before implementing any customization. Understand how these work could change how you approach the project.
- Avoid Direct Core Code Modifications: Always look for alternatives to modifying the core code. If customization needs cannot be met through existing features, consult SEOM support for guidance.
- Document Your Customizations: Keep detailed records of your customizations, including the purpose, implementation methods, and any changes made. This will be invaluable during troubleshooting or when applying updates.
- Test Thoroughly: Always test customizations in a staging environment before deploying them in your live system to ensure they work as expected without disrupting operations.
- Stay Updated: Regularly review SEOM’s customization capabilities for new features and enhancements that may offer more efficient ways to achieve your goals.
- Ask Before You Build: Often times you may not realize that SEOM already does something you need it to do. Your first reaction might be to build a customization. A converstation with the Stone Edge support team could help avoid an unnessary customization by showing you how to accomplish your task with existing capabilities.
Conclusion
Customizing Stone Edge Order Manager allows you to tailor the software to meet your specific business needs. However, it’s essential to use best practices by utilizing Custom Report Maintenance and Custom Hooks rather than modifying the core code. By doing so, you ensure that your customizations are sustainable, maintainable, and compatible with future updates, maximizing the benefits of SEOM without compromising its stability or supportability.