Mastering Generic Inquiries in Acumatica: A Step-by-Step Guide

As an Acumatica MVP who frequently engages with the community, I wanted to share some insights from a webinar I did for the Acumatica Community on “Tips & Tricks to Get Started with Generic Inquiries”. Whether you’re new at this or looking to enhance your existing knowledge, this guide (and video) will walk you through creating powerful, interactive data views in Acumatica. 

Getting Started with Generic Inquiries 

If you’re new to Generic Inquiries, I recommend starting with the S130 Open University Acumatica course on data retrieval. This course provides an excellent foundation. Additionally, examining existing Generic Inquiries within your Acumatica instance can offer valuable insights into structure and capabilities. 

Creating a Practical Generic Inquiry: Open Sales Orders 

Let’s walk you through creating a useful Generic Inquiry that displays open sales orders, showing both unshipped and shipped quantities with an interactive sales side panel. 

Step 1: Setting Up Your Generic Inquiry 

Begin by providing a name for your new Generic Inquiry. Next, select the appropriate data access class or table—in our example, we’re using the SO Order table. 

Pro Tip: Use the “Inspect Element” feature on any Acumatica form to quickly identify the data access class name and field names you’ll need later when configuring your results. 

Step 2: Building Your Results Grid 

The Results Grid is where you define the columns that will appear in your Generic Inquiry. You can: 

• Select fields directly from the dropdown menu 
• Create calculated fields using the formula editor 

When creating calculated fields, you have access to: 

• Standard mathematical functions 
• Date-based calculations (finding differences between dates, extracting month names, etc.) 
• All fields within your Generic Inquiry 
• Any parameters you’ve defined 

For our example, I created a “Shipped Quantity” calculated field by subtracting the open order quantity from the total order quantity: TotalOrderQty – OpenOrderQty 

Step 3: Formatting Your Results 

After creating a formula, always: 

1. Validate it to catch any errors 
2. Define a schema field to ensure proper formatting 
3. Provide a descriptive caption 

If you skip defining a schema field, your column headers may appear unclear, and numerical values might display with incorrect decimal precision. 

Step 4: Adding Parameters for User Flexibility 

Parameters allow users to filter results according to their needs. In our example, we added date parameters: 

1. Navigate to the Parameters tab 
2. Create parameters (in our case, FromDate and ToDate) 
3. Use the Display Name field to make parameters user-friendly (since the Name field can’t contain spaces) 
4. Select an appropriate schema field to generate the right control type (like a calendar picker) 
5. Set defaults using special date values or calculations 

Step 5: Applying Conditions 

The Conditions tab is where you define which records to display based on your parameters: 

1. Set basic conditions (e.g., OpenOrderQty > 0 to show only orders that need shipping) 
2. Combine conditions using operations and brackets to control order of operations 
3. Handle empty parameters (e.g., if FromDate is empty, include all records regardless of date) 

Our condition logic looked like this: 

(OpenOrderQty > 0) AND  

((FromDate IS EMPTY) OR (OrderDate >= FromDate)) AND 

((ToDate IS EMPTY) OR (OrderDate <= ToDate)) 

Step 6: Enabling Notes and Attachments 

If you want users to view, add, or modify notes and attachments: 

1. Specify which table should have notes attached (important when multiple tables are involved) 
2. The system will then display Note and Attachment columns in your results 

Step 7: Creating Interactive Side Panels 

Side panels make your Generic Inquiry truly interactive by allowing users to view and edit related records without leaving the inquiry: 

1. Go to the Navigation tab 
2. Click the plus icon to add a side panel 
3. Select the appropriate form (in our case, the Sales Order form) 
4. Choose “Side Panel” as the display option 
5. Configure navigation parameters to link your inquiry results with the side panel (we used OrderNbr and OrderType) 
6. Name your side panel 

The Final Result 

Our completed Generic Inquiry now: 

• Shows open sales orders with shipped quantities 
• Allows filtering by date range with intuitive defaults 
• Includes an interactive side panel for viewing and editing orders 
• Enables note and attachment functionality 

This makes it easy for users to identify which orders need attention and take immediate action without navigating between multiple screens. 

Get Involved in the Acumatica Community 

I love answering questions and discussing Generic Inquiries in the Acumatica Community. Whether you’re building your first Generic Inquiry or optimizing complex ones, I’d love to hear from you and help you succeed with this powerful feature! Contact me.