Service Products Tracking.

We run a workshop repair service, what is the best way to track customers
products, as it seems unfeasible to add products when booking an over the
counter repair order in CRM.

I would like to track repairs against machine manufacturer to do simple
reporting like reliability against brand etc.

Patrick
Tue Dec 25 08:14:00 CST 2007

I would recommend the following as the product you sell is a service I would
create the service as the product i.e. create product Start-up costs, hourly
rate, etc.

To track brand reliability I would create one or more custom entities which
contain the brand and maybe even their products. Then add relations from the
sales order entity to the brand entity.
This way you can when creating a sales order (a repair in your case) add the
appropriate brand and later build reports on this.
To avoid having to create all the customer products in advance you could
allow the user creating the sales order to create the product if it is
missing (this does require discipline).

This may sound like quite some and it is. But it will give you a good
sollution. You do need to customize CRM and write a custom report but it does
not require any sdk customization.

--
Patrick Verbeeten (MCPD)
Lead Developer
Aviva IT
Extended Entity Meta data browser:
http://www.patrickverbeeten.com/maps/CrmTool.aspx



"Paul" wrote:

> We run a workshop repair service, what is the best way to track customers
> products, as it seems unfeasible to add products when booking an over the
> counter repair order in CRM.
>
> I would like to track repairs against machine manufacturer to do simple
> reporting like reliability against brand etc.
>
>

Scott
Thu Dec 27 08:21:40 CST 2007

On Dec 24, 6:13=A0am, Paul <P...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
> We run a workshop repair service, what is the best way to track customers
> products, as it seems unfeasible to add products when booking an over the
> counter repair order in CRM.
>
> I would like to track repairs against machine manufacturer to do simple
> reporting like reliability against brand etc. =A0

Paul,

You can setup your brands as Subjects in CRM. Create a new case when
a customer brings in a watch for repair and select the Subject (Brand)
on the case that you created. This will allow you to track your cases
by brand. There is also a product lookup on the CASE form from which
you could select the exact product being serviced; if you want to
setup your product catalog in CRM.

You can then utilize the Case Summary Table report, which if you use
Subject as the first horizontal group and Status Reason as the first
vertical group, will give you a count of Cases by Subject and their
Resolution Status.

Scott
www.easiintl.com

Paul
Fri Dec 28 05:16:01 CST 2007

Thanks Patrick and Scott.

Patrick - I think setting a seperate entity up for tracking the products
will be the only way, as I'm aware that products cannot be setup on the fly
from the case window.

Scott, Thank you for the suggestion of subjects as I had not thought of
that, however I have the same issue as above (not being able to create a new
subject).

I think I have not explained to you that not only the manufacturer but also
the model of machine. I run a computer repair business and our current
system uses this work flow :-

Open new case - select customer - select product and model (create new it if
not on the list) - fill out work to be completed.

All the above I can do except create new manufacturer and models for
linking. I think I can prefill the manufacturer's in but the models would be
inpractical as for ever changing.

Can you give me some pointers about creating a new entity and linking it ??
not sure if I need to link it at all ?.

Thank you !

"Scott Moore: JourneyTEAM - EASI" wrote:

> On Dec 24, 6:13 am, Paul <P...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
> > We run a workshop repair service, what is the best way to track customers
> > products, as it seems unfeasible to add products when booking an over the
> > counter repair order in CRM.
> >
> > I would like to track repairs against machine manufacturer to do simple
> > reporting like reliability against brand etc.
>
> Paul,
>
> You can setup your brands as Subjects in CRM. Create a new case when
> a customer brings in a watch for repair and select the Subject (Brand)
> on the case that you created. This will allow you to track your cases
> by brand. There is also a product lookup on the CASE form from which
> you could select the exact product being serviced; if you want to
> setup your product catalog in CRM.
>
> You can then utilize the Case Summary Table report, which if you use
> Subject as the first horizontal group and Status Reason as the first
> vertical group, will give you a count of Cases by Subject and their
> Resolution Status.
>
> Scott
> www.easiintl.com
>

Scott
Sat Dec 29 12:31:07 CST 2007

On Dec 28, 5:16=A0am, Paul <P...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
> Thanks Patrick and Scott. =A0
>
> Patrick - I think setting a seperate entity up for tracking the products
> will be the only way, as I'm aware that products cannot be setup on the fl=
y
> from the case window.
>
> Scott, Thank you for the suggestion of subjects as I had not thought of
> that, however I have the same issue as above (not being able to create a n=
ew
> subject). =A0
>
> I think I have not explained to you that not only the manufacturer but als=
o
> the model of machine. =A0I run a computer repair business and our current
> system uses this work flow :-
>
> Open new case - select customer - select product and model (create new it =
if
> not on the list) - fill out work to be completed.
>
> All the above I can do except create new manufacturer and models for
> linking. =A0I think I can prefill the manufacturer's in but the models wou=
ld be
> inpractical as for ever changing. =A0
>
> Can you give me some pointers about creating a new entity and linking it ?=
?
> not sure if I need to link it at all ?.
>
> Thank you !
>
> "Scott Moore: JourneyTEAM - EASI" wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Dec 24, 6:13 am, Paul <P...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
> > > We run a workshop repair service, what is the best way to track custom=
ers
> > > products, as it seems unfeasible to add products when booking an over =
the
> > > counter repair order in CRM.
>
> > > I would like to track repairs against machine manufacturer to do simpl=
e
> > > reporting like reliability against brand etc. =A0
>
> > Paul,
>
> > You can setup your brands as Subjects in CRM. =A0Create a new case when
> > a customer brings in a watch for repair and select the Subject (Brand)
> > on the case that you created. =A0This will allow you to track your cases=

> > by brand. =A0There is also a product lookup on the CASE form from which
> > you could select the exact product being serviced; if you want to
> > setup your product catalog in CRM.
>
> > You can then utilize the Case Summary Table report, which if you use
> > Subject as the first horizontal group and Status Reason as the first
> > vertical group, will give you a count of Cases by Subject and their
> > Resolution Status.
>
> > Scott
> >www.easiintl.com- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

You will not be able to setup a custom entity on the fly from the Case
window either. You will still have to navigate to that entity's main
list view and click the new button, which is about the same as adding
the product to the regular product list. The difference being that
you still get to take advantage of the Case Summary Table report. I
would build your subject tree with Manufacturer at Level 1 and Model
at Level 2, that way you can make both selections using the subject
lookup on the CASE form. If that is too much for your subject tree,
then just use the Manufacturer in the Subject Manager and the Product
lookup on the CASE form.

I would suggest having your partner add a "Add New Subject" button on
your CASE form so that you can easily add new subjects while working
in a CASE, or have them add a "Add New Product" button on the CASE
form, or both. Neither of those tasks is too difficult and that will
allow you to utilize the functionality that CRM ships with standard in
a way that fits with your workflow.

Scott
www.easiintl.com