After a repair or a service mission, it is mostly necessary to update the customer installation in the system because, e.g., parts were exchanged, an assembly was expanded, or components were closed down. You then update the installation at the customer's by replacing spare parts, or by adding or deleting items.
Updating a customer installation
Replacing products
If you repair or maintain products as part of a service, components or parts in the customer installation need to be replaced. In this process, a new product is added to the structure, replacing the previous one. The status of the latter is set to inactive. Additionally, the previous product references the new one to be able to maintain a product history.
Note: If neutral articles are used also as spare parts, they must be also have been created as different categories (if necessary twice). Spare parts are exchanged after a completed service mission, i.e., replaced in the customer installation. If the position comes from a service order, it is used project-specifically and must be replaced project-specifically. In the corresponding selection dialog in the customer installation, the position is preset with the positions that are in an unfinished service order. If no service order (project) exists, the part is an additional (auxiliary) part and needs to be replaced "neutrally".
Adding products
If you extend or modernize products as part of a service, components or parts need to be added to the customer installation. Note that delivery items of a new concluded sales order of the customer automatically appear in the customer installation. You do not need to add such items explicitly.
Deleting products
If you shut down or dismantle products (service objects) as part of service activities, these products need to be deleted from the customer installation. The Remove and Delete select functions are implemented in a way that makes it clear: “Remove” sets the status of the service object to inactive. The delete function presents a query in which you can decide whether the service objects in the structure should be deleted as well. Existing relations of the service object to operations does not prevent it from being deleted.
Replacing or adding products case-specifically or neutrally
When you replace or add products, you can select products from the neutral or project-specific product catalog. These automatically become service objects.
Project-specifically from a sales or service case
Case-specific product selection is automatically restricted to the components or parts from the product lists (Service order subform Processing/Products/Services) of all unfinished service orders of the customer. For this reason, you need to select only the (substitute) parts allocated in the service order when updating the customer installation (which is part of the technical accounting).
The system automatically registers when you utilize a designated part in the customer installation. This part cannot be selected again case-specifically.
Neutral
You can always add products from the neutral article catalog to the customer installation if no service order exists or the required parts haven’t been reserved in the service order. This may be the case if other assemblies or parts than planned were used during the on-site service work, or if your customer has extended their installation independently - possibly using third-party products. To keep the record of the customer installation up to date, you can add third-party products to your neutral article master, and use them in the customer installation. The neutral product selection always offers all products in the catalog for selection. The project attribute at the top right remains empty for neutrally replaced or added parts.