Estimates, Tickets, and Parts Orders do not work well together
The workflow for making an estimate, getting approval, making a ticket, and then ordering parts is cumbersome. Right now,if we get a request from a client for something, we make an estimate with all of the line items on it. There is no-where to put any notes about the URLs that the parts are coming from. For that we need to make a ticket but the charges can't be on the ticket yet. Once the estimate is approved, we have to go back to the ticket and manually add all of the items on to it using the parts order function to trigger the owner to order the parts. It seems that there should be a way to better move items from estimates to tickets to parts orders.
How about this:
We open a new ticket for a new estimate request. We put all of the items needed for the estimate on to the ticket using the "parts order" feature. BUT, there is a little checkbox labeled "hold this part order until estimate is approved". If we click that checkbox, then the part order will not trigger until an estimate has been created for that ticket and it has been approved. Then and only then does the order request trigger and I get an e-mail to order the part.
This workflow solves a number of issues. Firstly, my techs only need to enter in all of the information for each part once. Secondly, the URL, cost, retail price all get captured when the parts are first being researched, not having to be reproduced later.
Paul Schwegler
shared this idea
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Shawn Skonberg
commented
YES please, it seems like that would not have too much dev time.
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Tim
commented
I too would like to see something a bit easier to work with when doing estimates. I agree totally with has Paul said.
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Vanessa Hess
commented
We are having trouble with this as well. Really need to unify these two sections. It would be great to just give estimates an option to attach a non inventory part. Once approved is would hit the order parts system and follow through on to the ticket.