Telesales Quoting to Order Management – Extension to Convert Attachments from Quote to Order

December 15th, 2006

While both applications have evolved to become very powerful tools, I’ve always been amazed about how drastically different the Telesales and Order Management applications have become.   You would think that the Telesales quotation screens and the OM order entry screens would have some similarities – maybe even the same application interfaces since the data is so similar.   But the reality is that like most Oracle modules, Telesales and Order Management were each independently developed by separate teams several years apart from each other.   This leads to the obvious inconsistencies in how each module behaves from a user prospective and discrepancies in how Telesales interfaces to OM in the quotation to order process.

To briefly review the quote to order process – a quote is entered in Telesales with the core information (customer, billing, line items, pricing, etc.) in addition to any descriptive flexfields that have may have been defined.   When this quote is approved and submitted to Order Management, most of this information comes over but with the exception of document attachments.   Document attachments,

whether they are files, short text, or long text, attached to the quotation header or lines do not carry over when the information is interfaced to Order Management.  

Clients absolutely hate this.   And why shouldn’t they?   If I were put in their shoes I’d also expect this same functionality.   It makes sense – information placed on a quote should also appear on the order.   This requirement becomes vital for organizations that have divisions which handle quotations and orders separately.   The hand-off of information is necessary so that the order entry clerk has complete visibility to the information captured by the quotation technician.   Additionally, it’s not an uncommon requirement to have information displayed on auto-generated documentation, such as the quote and order acknowledgement, to be consistent in the notes and attachments that are printed.

So in response to these requirements I’ve created an extension to the quote to order submission process so that it includes document attachments.   Through triggers that are placed on the order header and order lines tables, references are made back to the originating Telesales quotation where all document attachments are extracted and attached to the OM sales order.   It’s a small modification but it makes a huge difference in the quote to order handoff.  

If you’re interested in this extension feel free to contact me.

 

Entry Filed under: General, Order Management, Telesales