Tip of the Month for: July 2016
Notifications for Ordering and Receiving Backordered Items
In today's competitive marketplace, quickly filling customer orders is a priority. Good internal communication is a key ingredient that allows for quick fulfillment and shipment of items your customers are waiting on.
Answers allows the salesperson and/or the operator to be notified via text or email (or both) when backordered items are placed on a purchase order and the purchase order is submitted to the vendor. Additionally, when the backordered items are received in, the salesperson and/or operator will be notified that the items have been received in and the backorder filled. These notifications allow the salesman and/or operator to stay up-to-date with what is happening as critical backorder items are processed.
The notification when backordered items are placed on a P/O and the purchase order is submitted to the vendor will be similar to:
Backordered items from Sales Order # [WH/xxxxxx] for [Customer Name] have been ordered on P/O # [xxxxxxxxxx] on [01/01/01] from [Vendor Name].
Not only will your salesperson and/or operator know that the items have been ordered, but their inbox message, or their text message, will provide all the details they need to follow-up on that purchase order. They can easily check Vendor Inquiry and/or Customer Inquiry for expected shipping dates, or even send a Ship Date Acknowledgement Request from the Backorder Review in Customer Inquiry.
Once the items are received in, they will receive a message:
Backordered items from Sales Order # [WH/xxxxxx] for [Customer Name] Ordered on P/O # [xxxxxxxxxx] from [Vendor Name] have been received in on [01/01/01].
This message lets them know the items have now been received and either filled on the original order (for Pick and Hold and Ship Complete orders), or a backorder release ticket has been generated.
These internal notifications allow the salesperson and operators to better communicate with each other and with the customers and keep everyone notified quickly as these items are ordered and received in.
To use these options, any and all users that do Stock Receipts must have email setup and configured to work with Answers. Then they must be enabled in the Answers Configuration:
Order Processing > Advanced > #121 Notify Operator or Salesman when B/O Items are Ordered and Received. This option can be set to Neither (no notifications), Salesman, Operator, or both depending on who would best benefit from the notifications.
Order Processing > Advanced > #122 Notify B/O Items Ordered and Received via Text or Email? The selected recipient can receive an email, a text message, or both.
Once the options are enabled, the recipients must be configured correctly. Each recipient must be configured in the Answers User Profiles Maintenance, and may already be set correctly due to other features being enabled. In the User Profiles Maintenance, on the User Information tab, refer to the following options:
#5 If you wish to send email messages, the user's email address must be entered.
#18 If you plan to use text messaging, you must enter the cell phone number (with area code).
#19 Select the cell phone carrier for text messaging. If the carrier you need is not listed, refer to the instructions in the Codes File Maintenance for adding new carrier codes to Answers.
#20 Salesperson number. You must configure the salesman number so Answer can link the salesman to a user account. Answers will check the salesman number on the order and cross-reference the user file to determine which user ID to look and get the proper email address and cell phone number.
#23 Operator initials or code. Answers will check the operator code and cross-reference the user file to determine which user account to use to get the email address and the cell phone number.