Monitoring the Customer Calling Queue

Monitor the Customer Calling Queue to proactively track the sales orders that require calls to customers. The queue reminds you at the appropriate time about orders with a status of:

Call When Available
Call When Complete
Call When Specified

Orders with a call status still commit the inventory, but do not print shipping tickets. Instead, these orders send reminders to the queue that action is needed.

In its default view, this queue has columns listing each order's ship-to customer, phone number, order number, branch, purchase order number, ship via, and order amount.

Use the Customer Calling Queue Brch Input "ALL" Ignores User Authcontrol maintenance record to indicate if you want the system to search all branches and not just those that the user is authorized to view, when populating the Customer Calling Queue.

To display summary information for this queue at all times, add a Customer Calling Queue widget to your Solar Eclipse main window. For more information about widgets, see Widgets and Menu Shortcuts Overview.

To monitor the calling queue:

From the Orders > Queues menu, select Customer Calling Queue.
In the Branch field, specify a branch, territory, or enter ALL.
In the Type field, specify the category of orders to list.

Note: The columns views change based on the selection in this field.

Type	Restricts listings to...
New Items	orders with no entry (or with a suitable Next Call date entered), using the Log Call feature.
Trouble	orders in trouble, where available dates have slipped. You are prompted for more information including the number of days in trouble for which to display and whether to use the original ship date for calculating the trouble days. For more information about handling trouble calls, see Monitoring the Trouble Queue.
Cancel	review open orders before returning them to bids, or cancelling. Use with the Order Return to Bid Parametercontrol maintenance record to catch dead orders that are committing inventory. First, run Check Availability for All Orders from the Orders menu.
Directs	orders shipped direct from vendors to customers.
Lot Items	orders with one or more lot item order generations.
Credit	open sales orders that are on credit hold.

Specify selection criteria in these optional fields, as needed:

Field	Restricts listings to...
Writer	an order writer.
Via	the orders' ship via type.
Customer	the calls for a specific customer's orders.
End Date	the orders' ship date. If blank, the system lists all orders that match the type specified in the Type field. Note: Orders for which a different next-call date has been entered, as described in step 6, will not display.
In Salesperson	an inside salesperson.
Out Salesperson	an outside salesperson.
Direct Options	Only activated when Trouble is selected in the Type field. Includes any direct orders in the queue display.

Use the Include All Ship-tos for Selected Bill-Tos check box to display the associated ship-to customers' orders for the selected bill-to customer.
Use the Credits area to indicate whether to include credits (negative items, such as returns).
Click the Update button to populate the queue with your selected orders.

Note: For information about column data on the queue, see Reviewing Column Information on Customer Calling Queue . For information about changing how the queue populates, see the More Options for the Customer Calling Queue section below.

After the list displays, use the following options, as needed. Note that different options may be available, depending on your selection in the Type field.

To...	Use this menu option...
open the selected order for viewing	Order > View Order
open the selected order for editing	Order > Edit Order
combine open sales orders for a customer	File > Consolidate
open the selected order's Header tab	Order > Header
open the Detail Scheduling tab for the selected order	Order > Detail Scheduling
enter notes about a customer phone call, specify a next-call date, or set up a postcard reminder	File > Log Call In the Log Call window, do the following, as needed: In the Next Call field, enter the date on which the next call should be made. In the Mail Card field, specify if you want to mail a reminder postcard. In the Comments box, enter any needed comments.
change the selected trouble order's Ship Date to the Earliest date	Edit > Adjust Ship Date
toggle the queue listing from ship date to required date	Edit > Change View Select Ship Date or Required Date from the two choices that display.
display items from the selected orders that are scheduled to ship	Edit > View Items
toggle the view from bill-to customer to ship-to customer and from Ship Date to Required Date	View > Change View Select one of the following: Ship Date / Ship-to Required Date / Ship-to Ship Date / Bill-to Required Date / Bill-to

To remove an order from the queue, change its status. For instance, open and edit the order so that its status is Ship When Specified or Pick Up Now.

More Options for the Customer Calling Queue

The following are some common options you might use when working with the Customer Calling Queue.

To...

Select this menu option...

set the Customer Calling Queue to update each time a change is made (for example, when a "next call" is logged for an order)

Options > Auto Update

If this option is not selected, the queue list will only update each time you open a new session of it.

make the queue populate faster by specifying how many items the system can process before beginning to populate the queue

Options > Set Preferred Search Length

Enter a number and then click OK.

Note: Setting a lower number will cause the queue to populate more slowly, because the system must process only that many items and display them before processing more items. Setting a higher number will cause the queue to load more quickly, because the system can process more items at a time and wait to display them.