Monitoring the Trouble Queue

Use the Customer Calling Queue to improve your customer service by monitoring orders "in trouble." Orders in trouble are those whose available dates have slipped, perhaps because the vendors are now behind schedule filling purchase orders. Eclipse compares today's date with the earliest available date, regardless of the sales order ship date, to determine if an order needs addressing.

In its default view, the trouble queue has columns listing each order's ship-to customer, phone number, order number, branch, ship date, and earliest available date.

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 trouble 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, select TROUBLE as the order type to list.

With Trouble as the criteria, the system lists all orders (regardless of the status code). Eclipse compares today's date with the earliest available date, regardless of the sales order ship date, to determine if an order needs addressing.

Enter selection criteria in the optional fields, as needed:

Field	Restricts the queue to...
Writer	an order writer.
Via	the orders' ship via type.
Customer	a specific bill-to customer's orders.
End Date	the orders' ship date. We recommend using a future date, because orders that are in trouble as of today's date cannot be expedited.
In Salesperson	an inside salesperson.
Out Salesperson	an outside salesperson.
Direct Options	any direct orders. This field is only active when the queue is set to Trouble type.

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.
In the Credits area, specify whether to include, exclude, only credits (negative items, such as returns). Specify whether to Include, Exclude, or Only list credits.
Click the Update button to populate the queue with your selected orders.

The system displays the following columns for follow up:

Column	Description
Ship-To Customer	The customer to whom the order's items are being shipped.
Phone	The contact phone number for the ship-to customer.
Order #	The order ID.
Br	The shipping branch for the order.
PO #	The purchase order ID for purchase order associated with the order.
Ship Date	The original ship date scheduled for the order.
Earliest Date	The earliest date the material may ship.
Code	Indicates the following: V - And EDI Ship Vendor Notification has been sent. + - EDI 855 Acknowledgement has been sent. * - Date on the order has been updated from the P/O Expedite Queue.
Trouble Days	The number of days the order has been "in trouble" or past the original shipping date.

Note: For information on changing how the queue populates, see the More Options for the Customer Calling Queue section below.

At the prompt, enter the following:

Enter days in trouble field - Enter 1, or another number of days, if needed, and click OK. The number you enter specifies the minimum difference between an order's Ship Date and the Earliest Available Date.
Use original ship date to calculate trouble days field - Select if you want to use the original shipping date on the order to calculate the trouble days. If not selected, the system uses the available date regardless of the sales order ship date.

After the list displays, use the following options, as needed:

To...	Use this menu option...
open the selected order for viewing	Order > View Order
open the selected order for editing	Order > Edit Order
open the selected order's Header tab to modify the order information	Order > Header
open the Detail Scheduling tab for the selected order to modify order information at the generation level	Order > Detail Scheduling
enter notes about a customer phone call or send a postcard for the selected order	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.
view items on the selected order	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

Note: Let your purchasing department know which orders need special procurements to meet deadlines. Or, you can make adjustments to less critical orders, so you can supply the more important ones. Call your customers. Let them know when orders are running late, or when you are taking extra steps to serve them.

More Options for the Customer Calling Queue

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

To...

Use 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.