Enterprise Portal Details Form User Experience Guidelines

Applies To: Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Feature Pack, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012

An Enterprise Portal details form is the primary method for entering information into Microsoft Dynamics AX. The details form allows the user to view, edit, and act upon data.

Example of an Enterprise Portal details form

Example of an Enterprise Portal details form

Guidelines

This section includes both general and specific guidelines for an Enterprise Portal details form.

General guidelines

• A details form should close and display a message when there is an error on save.

• Labels should be in sentence case.

• All labels should be spelled correctly.

• Fonts, colors, and margins should follow the visual specifications.

• When security is applied, no user experience (UX) guidelines should be violated.

Specific guidelines

• The details form should open in a modal pop-up window.

• The form should be read-only by default when opened from the record link in the list page or from the View action on the list page action pane.

  • The form should open in edit mode when the Edit action is clicked on its corresponding list page.

  • The form should open in new mode when the New action is clicked on its corresponding list page or anywhere else that the New action is initiated.

• The first FastTab should be open by default.

• The Line Items FastTab should display five to eight rows.

• The view and edit forms for the same entity should have the same FastTabs and field groupings.

• The fields on the FastTabs should be in a two-column format.

• Window title:

  • When opened in view mode, the form title should be “View <entity type> - <entity type>: <record name or ID>”.

  • When opened in edit mode, the form title should be “Edit <entity type> - <entity type>: <record name or ID>”.

  • When opened in new mode, the form title should be “New <entity type>”.

• In a view form, the first action pane tab should be named “View”.

• In new or edit forms, the first action pane tab should be named “Edit”.

• An action pane should be at the top of the form.

  • All labels should be used consistently across all action panes for similar tabs, groups, and actions.

  • An icon for an action should be unique, and should be used consistently across all action panes for this action.

  • No action pane tab should contain all small or all big buttons across all groups.

  • There should be one to eight actions per group.

  • Action pane groups should lay out the actions using the valid configurations displayed below.

    

  • The leftmost group should have a large button as the first item in the group.

View form specifics

• On the view form action pane, the Maintain group should contain the Edit and Close actions.

• On the view form action pane, the Close action should be the last action in the Maintain group.

• In view mode, the line items toolbar should not have an action that adds a new line to the line items list.

• In view mode, clicking Edit should open the form in edit mode.

  

Edit form specifics

• In the edit form, the first tab of the action pane should be named “Edit”.

• In the edit form, the first action pane group should be named “Commit”.

• On the edit form action pane, the Commit group should contain the Save and close action and the Close action.

• The line items detail form action pane should contain a Save and close action.

• The line items detail form should be closed when the Save and close action is clicked.

• After clicking Save and close in the edit form, focus should be given back to the list page from which the entity was opened.

  

First tab

The first tab is the home tab, which should be selected by default. The label of the first tab should be the same as the entity name. If the entity name is a verb, the label should be in imperative mood. (For example, as shown in the image above, you would use “Create” instead of “Creating.”) If the entity name is a noun, it should be singular.

• There should not be any New groups or actions on the details action pane of the first tab.

• There should be an Attachments group at the far right of the action pane.

  • The Attachments group should be named “Attachments”.

  • The Attachments action should be named “Attachments”.

  • The Attachments action should have a large button.

  • The icon should be 10442 .

• There should not be a Modify group on any action pane.

• There should not be a Delete action on the action pane for any details form.

Activity tabs

• All actions that relate to a specific activity should be grouped by that activity.

• Activity tabs should be given names of activities that are used and understood by the user of the details form. These names should be verbs, and they should be in the imperative mood.

  Examples:

  Vendors—Purchase, Invoice

  Customers—Sell, Invoice, Collect, Manage Projects, Market

  Sales Orders—Sell, Pick and Pack, Invoice

General tab

• If there are common infrequent actions that do not relate to a specific activity, these actions should be grouped on the last tab, named “General”.

• Commands displayed on the General tab should not be repeated on other tabs.

Line items toolbar

If the entity contains line items, a toolbar should be placed above the list, and the toolbar should contain Add, Remove, Details, and Actions commands, as shown in the following graphic.

• The Add line action adds a new line into the list.

  • The icon should be AXID 10009 .

  • The label should be “Add line”.

  • The button should be set as a primary action.

  • The button should be the first action on the toolbar.

• The Remove action deletes the selected record.

  • The icon should be AXID 11400 .

  • The label should be “Remove”.

  • The button should be set as a primary action.

• The Details action opens the details of the line item in a modal pop-up window on top of the details form. The pop-up window should be smaller than the details form, if possible.

  • The icon should be AXID 10010 .

  • The label should be “Details”.

  • The button should be set as a primary action.

  • The Details button should be placed after the Remove button.

  • The tooltip for the button should be “Open details for <new of entity>”.

    • There should be no other mechanisms—such as hyperlinks or icons in a list column—for viewing details in the lines list.

  • Other than Add, Remove, and Details, actions in the line items toolbar are not required to have icons.

  • The details form should close when the Close action is clicked.

Line items action pane

The line items detail mode should have an action pane at the top of the form.

• The Attachments action opens the Attachments form that displays the documents attached to this entity.

  • The icon should be AXID 10442 .

  • The label should be “Attachments”.

  • The button should be large.

  • The button should not be set as a primary action.

• The Attachments group should always be the rightmost group on the home tab.

• The label for this group should be “Attachments”.

• The tooltip for the Attachment action on the line item action pane should be “Open/view the documents attached to this <name of entity>”.

Details forms in single record mode should use FastTabs to group the fields instead of using traditional tabs.

• All FastTabs should display summary information when collapsed.

  Exceptions:

  • Lines FastTabs—or any other FastTab that contains only a list—cannot display summary fields.

  • A Dimensions FastTab cannot display summary fields because that functionality is currently not supported.

• FastTabs should display only two columns of fields.

General FastTab

• The first FastTab should be named “General”.

• The General FastTab should be expanded by default.

• The General FastTab should contain the entity’s most important fields that will be edited most frequently.

Lines FastTab

• If the details form contains line items, the second FastTab should be named “Lines” if the entity has line items.

• In a transaction form, the Lines FastTab should be expanded by default.

• The Lines list should display six to eight line items.

• The filter pane should not be visible in the Lines FastTab; instead, it should be turned off.

Commit buttons

• The view detail form should have a Close button on the lower-right side of the form.

• The edit detail form should have a Save and close button and a Close button on the lower-right side of the form.

Workflow message bar

• The details form should not have a workflow message bar in the scrollable content area. It should be fixed on the page and be visible at all times.