How to Create, Refresh or Replan Orders in the hierarchy

When you build production order hierarchies in Business Central, you can work with the whole structure or just parts of it. You can create, refresh, or delete subordinate orders from a single point in the hierarchy. The system updates the connected production orders but leaves purchase orders untouched, on the assumption that you may already have ordered those items from the vendor.

You can change the quantity on a production order in the middle of the hierarchy, refresh it, and then push the change down to the subordinate orders. The refresh stops where it makes no sense to continue, for example on purchase orders or on orders that have already been posted or finished.

You can also choose to refresh without creating new orders. This lets you change something like a date on the top level item and apply it down through the entire hierarchy without generating new orders.

Working with parts of a production order hierarchy

In a production order hierarchy, you can work with the full structure or with selected parts of it. You can create and refresh, or delete parts of the hierarchy as needed.

Take an example. Order number 236 is part of a hierarchy on a city bike, with order 33 as the top level. The order being worked on here is a back wheel. You can see the quantity of four, with dependent quantities of four and eight on the lower level production order and the purchased items.

Changing quantities and refreshing subordinate orders

Say you have one back wheel in stock that you want to use, and you want to make it part of this production order. You can simply change the quantity on the order in the middle of the hierarchy and refresh the production order.

Then, from the actions, you call the order in hierarchy functionality and create and refresh the subordinate orders. In this example, three orders changed and three orders stayed the same across the complete hierarchy.

Why purchase orders are not changed automatically

When you view the hierarchy from the top after the refresh, you can see that the two production orders changed, but the quantities on the purchase order did not. This is intentional. The assumption is that you might already have ordered the item from the vendor, so it would not make sense to start changing purchase orders from inside the hierarchy.

The system assumes it is fine to change production orders. If you have posted anything on the lowest production order, or if it was already finished, the refresh returns an error, because changing it is not possible at that point.

Refresh with or without creating new orders

With this functionality, you change your production order and then create and refresh down through the hierarchy below it. You can also refresh without creating, which lets you delete subordinate orders and refresh down through the complete hierarchy.

Here is how that plays out. Suppose you delete the back wheel because you actually had all four in stock. You still want to change the date on the top level item and apply it down through the hierarchy. In that case, you refresh without create on the top level. The system refreshes all the production orders in the hierarchy but does not create new orders.

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