Order management is the process of efficiently tracking and fulfilling sales orders. Order management includes the cycle of people, processes, and suppliers to create a positive customer experience. Let us start by going into the basics of Order Management. The very first question that arises is What is an order?
Basically, an order is a contract between 2 entities – a company & a customer for delivering products and/or providing services with a known quantity, date, and price. Orders can be used to automate an organization’s post-deal process. Also, Orders can be used to customize the order management process in Salesforce.
Life Cycle of an Order
- Customer decision of purchasing services or products
It could be identified through a closed opportunity.
- Order Creation
An order can be created from the Orders tab or through the Order’s related list on a contract or an account.
- Order Reviewing / Order Addition
All the products added in Order Products can be reviewed correctly now.
- Order Activation
Order can be activated, once an order is either ready to be shipped or provisioned.
- Order Provisioning or Shipping
When an order is activated, users can respond to the order by getting the services provisioned or getting purchased products shipped.
- Order Reduction
This is an optional step. If the organization supports reducing orders, and an order is being returned by a customer or is being requested for a reduction of services, an activated order can be reduced.
Availability of Orders feature:
- Developer edition
- Performance edition
- Enterprise edition
- Professional edition
- Unlimited edition
Availability of Reduction in Orders feature:
- Developer edition
- Performance edition
- Enterprise edition
- Unlimited edition
Let us learn in brief about various aspects like How to enable Orders, create, activate, deactivate, review, delete and Reduction Order at create Enable Orders
For organizations after Spring ’14, Orders are automatically enabled in contrast to the need to manually enable orders in the past. Once enabled, Orders and Order products come in the frame. Order products represent products or services.
How to enable Orders?
- Click Name | Setup | App Setup | Customize | Orders | Settings
- Select Enable Orders check-box
- Once enabled, “Enable Reduction Orders” and “Enable Navigate Quantity“ can be done, provided if this feature is supported.
- Click Save
Note: – Following the parent account’s sharing model, any user with reading access to an account also has read access to all of the account’s orders.
- Create orders
An order can be created from the Orders tab or a contract or through the Orders related list on an account. Draft is the default status of any new order. At least one active contract on the account is required to create an Order.
How to create Orders?
- Create and Activate a contract for an account.
- Add the Order related list to account, contract page layout. Then, Order can be created directly from an account or contract
- Navigate to account for which contract is created
- Navigate to Orders related list. Click on the “New Order” button
- Fill the required fields, status by default will be Draft. Fields customization, creating multiple page layout and record types can be done as per the business requirements.
Note:- The account or contract fields on an order can’t be edited. Contract start date can’t be prior to the Order Start Date.
- Review/Add Orders
The upcoming step is adding Order Product into the created order. that you in the last step.
How to add product into Order?
- Navigate to the desired Order for which product is to be added
- Navigate to Order Products related list. Click “Add Product” button
- Further Select Price Book, if there exist multiple Price Books for the organization and click Save
- Now Select products that are to be added. Click Select button
- Now, add quantity and line description
- Click Save
Note:-
- Only one price book must be associated with each order. If an order is the child of a contract, then the contract’s price book is inherited by order. Once an order has been assigned to a price book, the price book cannot be switched or removed by the users.
- For allowing users to assign price books at the contract level, using a custom lookup relationship field, add the Price Book field to the contract page layouts.
Activate Orders
How to activate Orders?
- Navigate to Order that is to be activated
- If unavailable, Add Activate button on page layout
- To activate the Order, Click Activate button
Note:-
- For activation or deactivation of orders, users should have the “Activate Orders” user permission.
- Before getting activated, an order must have order products.
- Users can’t delete or add order products, in case an order has been activated.
- An order can’t be deactivated, in case it has been reduced, regardless of the reduction order status.
- For an order deactivation, it becomes mandatory to first deactivate and delete any reduction orders associated with it.
- For editing an activated order, users should have the “Edit Activated Orders” user permission.
To add permission, it is best creating a new Permission set with all permissions, required for activating, deleting or deactivating orders and assigning it to users
Deactivate Orders
How to deactivate Orders?
For activating or deactivating orders, checking on the “Activate Orders” user permission in the assigned profile is required. Creating separate Permission Sets and granting this permission is best practice. Create a Permission Sets & assigned “Activate Orders ” App permission.
Now this Permission Sets are to be assigned to the user.
Go to the Order detail page to deactivate an order. Click Deactivate button for deactivating the order.
Delete Orders
How to delete Orders?
For deleting an order, navigate to the Order detail page. Click Delete Button
- For deleting an activated order, it must first be deactivated.
- A reduced ordered product can’t be edited or deleted for associated order product in that order.
Edit Orders
How to edit Orders?
Order can be edited at any time and can be changed as per the requirement of the business. For editing an Order on the order detail page click Edit button.
Note:-
- For editing an activated order, “Edit Activated Orders” user permission is required.
- If a reduction order is associated with an order, order’s end date can’t be edited.
- For a reduced order product, the ordered product in that order can no longer be edited or deleted.
Reduction Orders
Reduction in orders is enabled for letting users process returns or reductions on activated orders.
How to reduce Orders?
- For an activated Order, Reduce Order button can be seen on the Order detail page
- It redirects to the New Reduction Order page. Fill the required details and Click Save
- Products can be removed by navigating Order products related list and clicking Select product to reduce
Note:-
- For reducing an order, “Create Reduction Orders” user permission is required.
- Only an activated order can be reduced.
- Multiple orders can’t be reduced with a single reduction order.
- In each reduction order, Up to 200 order products can be reduced.
- A reduction order can be activated, once Order products have been reduced.
- For an activated reduction order, order products can’t be deleted or added.
Reports related to Orders
Reporting is the best way of monitoring the orders as per the required criteria. For e.g, tracking orders by account, orders requiring activation, or orders expiring current quarter, etc.
Custom report types can also be created, in case there is a business requirement.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, an order is an agreement between a company and a customer for provisioning services or delivering products with known price, quantity, and date. Problems or changes with an order, manual data entry and disparate record keeping can easily complicate Order management.,
A sophisticated order management software should be capable of handling processing complexity, higher order volumes and pricing structures to save on time factor, simultaneously ensuring accuracy and improving profitability.
Ajay Dubedi
CEO | Founder
Ajay Dubedi, the founder and CEO of Cloud Analogy, is a prominent Salesforce Sales, Service, and Marketing cloud Consultant with a rich expertise in handling challenging business models. Ajay has assisted and implemented solutions in industries comprising Banking, Health Care, Networking, Education, Telecommunication and Manufacturing. Ajay is globally acclaimed for his extensive experience in APEX Programming, VisualForce pages, Triggers, Workflows, Page Layouts, Roles, Profiles, Reports & Dashboards.Hire the best Salesforce Implementation Partner. Choose Cloud Analogy, the world's most preferred Salesforce Implementation Company that provides custom CRM Implementation services.
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