Open positions

Open positions is where the work sits. Every item from a confirmed customer order lands here and stays until it has been delivered, completed or cancelled.

The page heading reads "Open order items". Both names mean the same thing.

If you have not read How fulfillment works yet, start there. It explains why an order becomes positions and what the statuses refer to.

Reading the list

The status column is the one that matters. It tells you not just where a position stands but who has to act next, and filtering by it turns a list of everything into a list of your work. Filtering by Awaiting purchase gives you what needs buying; filtering by Ready for production gives the workshop its queue.

The filter lists only the statuses currently in use, so the options change as work moves through. A value that is not offered today may appear tomorrow.

If you own a particular stage or a particular customer, save the filter as your own view rather than setting it again each morning.

Opening a position

No two positions look alike, and that is useful. The blocks on the screen are the ones this position actually needs, so a glance tells you what kind of work is involved: procurement, a trip to the warehouse, something to build, something to send, or a device the customer already has.

Two things are always there and worth knowing about.

The Order block carries the process status and the two dates you can influence. Planned provisioning is your own scheduling. The activation date decides when the contract starts, which is a different question entirely.

The internal comment on the right is for your colleagues. Nothing written there reaches the customer portal, so it is the right place for a note about a device that arrived scratched.

Working a position through

The route depends on what the mapping defines, but the question at each point is the same: what is this position waiting for?

Waiting for mapping approval means the service has no released mapping. Nothing can happen until it does, and releasing it clears every position waiting on it at once.

Awaiting purchase means the articles are not in stock. You place the order from Order proposals, and from that moment the position follows the purchase order rather than your input here.

Ready for picking means the goods are in the warehouse. Record the serial number and confirm the withdrawal in Picking.

Ready for production means somebody has to do something by hand. Steps are claimed and closed one at a time in Production.

Ready to send means Shipping. Submitting the shipment closes the position.

A position with nothing physical, a licence for example, skips all of it. You record what you did and complete it.

Why the status field is sometimes greyed out

Almost always because something else is now driving the position.

Purchasing has taken over. Once a purchase order exists, the position follows it. Record the distributor's feedback on the order and the position moves with it. The Purchase demand block tells you which order to open.

Production steps are driving it. Then there is no status field at all, by design. Progress comes from completing steps, not from setting a value.

Setting a status by hand has a cost

Two notes turn up on positions: one says the order should be handled through the purchasing module, the other says no bill of materials was created because the service has no mapping.

Both let you set the status anyway. Doing so permanently disconnects the position from the automated material handling. The bill of materials requirement is discarded, the mapping is never applied, and everything from there is manual.

That is the right choice for a one-off handled outside the system. It is worth being deliberate about, because there is no way back.

Doing several at once

Selecting rows enables the toolbar. Set status and Cancel do what they say across the selection.

Plan provisioning is the one worth remembering. It sets the planned provisioning date on everything you selected, which is what you want when a delivery date shifts and twenty positions have to move with it.