Tip of the Month for March 2011

Salesman (and Operator) Work Center

The Salesman Workcenter can be used for salesman and for operators and is a one-stop work area for all the sales orders, quotes, and invoice history for that person.  The Workcenter pulls together all of the quotes and orders entered for that person so they can be viewed together (not by customer as in Customer Inquiry).  The salesman or operator can also see all the invoices credited to their salesman number or operator code.  From within this one work screen, the user can create new sales orders, new quotes, and keep track of notes and task reminders.  They can also email Sales Brochures and keep up with open orders not yet invoiced, and items that are on back order.  It is designed so that if this were the only program a salesman or operator had access to, they could complete their daily work.

The tabs displayed are configurable on a system-wide and a user basis.  You can use the Sales Analysis tab of the Answers Configuration program to control what tabs are displayed for all users by default.  You can further control the tabs individual users can see by turning those tabs off and on in their User Profile.  Available tabs consist of:

Contact Management (Task Reminders)
Quote Analysis
Quotes
Customer Ranking (Salesman Mode Only)
Sales Analysis (Salesman Mode)
Pending Commissions (Salesman Mode)
Open Orders
BackOrders Review
Invoice History

You can also control whether the users can enter new quotes and new sales order in the User Profiles.  Access can also be restricted to customers, so that a salesman can only view the customers who are set up with their salesman number on them.

It is not necessary to define the operator codes.  If desired, operator codes can be defined in the Codes File Maintenance and Order Entry configured, in Software Configuration, to require the user to enter their operator code.  If Answers is configured this way, then users can search for an operator code and/or enter the desired code to see the operator information.  If Answers is not configured this way and operator codes are not defined in the Codes File Maintenance, then the operator code in Order Entry defaults to the first three letters of the user name.  Enter that code to see the operator information.

User Profiles options can be used to restrict users to their own salesman number and/or operator code, or to require a password when viewing other salesman and operators.

Answers also has a feature that allows operator codes to be defined in Codes File Maintenance and given a salesman number.  This option is used when you desire Sales Analysis to track the operator "sales" for commission purposes.  If this feature is enabled, the operator will also see the Sales Analysis tab and the Pending Commissions tab.

If you are not yet using the Salesman (and Operator) Workcenter, here are some steps to get started:

1.  Under System Management > Answers Software Maintenance > User Settings > User Profiles Maintenance, for each user, go to the User Information tab and enter their salesman number in #7 and their operator code in #10.  If this user should only be allowed to see their information, set #8 and #11 to "No".  If you want to allow them to see other salesman/operators, but with a password, set #8 and #11 to "Yes" and then enter the appropriate password in #9 and #12.

2. If you want to restrict the tabs the user can see in the WorkCenter, on the Standard Options tab, #13-#21 control the viewing of each tab for each user.  If you want the settings to be the same for all users, set the tab viewing in the standard Sales Analysis configuration options in the Software Configuration program instead.

3. If you want to keep the user from entering new quotes or new sales orders, those options are on the Standard Options in the User Profiles, #22 and #23. 

4. For salesman, you can restrict the salesman to their own customers using # 11 on the Standard Options tab.

This will set up the WorkCenter for use.  The default is Salesman's Workcenter.  The and change between the Salesman mode and the Operator mode.