Exact Synergy Enterprise

Service management

Overview

Service management is part of Exact Synergy Enterprise and this is used to help service companies to regulate their service-related businesses. Service management is not only an effective way to register and maintain the potential serviced items (by creating this automatically out of the Exact Globe sales process), but also update the items when doing service activities on them.

Contracts containing agreements on one or more of the configuration items can be created, which can then be invoiced. These contracts can also influence the service activity process. Also, the total service activity process can be handled out of this solution, beginning with the call (or planned preventive maintenance) to planning of the service engineer and the stock needed, as well as to realizing the used hours and stock and creating and sending the invoice at the end of the process.

This will give the user a clear overview and all the information required, with the possibility to work efficiently and faster.

How does the module work?

This module includes Exact Synergy Enterprise and Exact Globe. Exact Globe is used to create the sales orders, which will be the base for the configurations. This will also contain the planned service material on which stock allocation can be done or purchase orders can be made, and the invoices are sent out of Exact Globe.

The rest of the process is in Exact Synergy Enterprise, where the configurations can be viewed and changed. Contracts with agreements can be registered and service activity created, planned, and realized.

How to use the Service management module?

This module can roughly be divided into three parts that work closely together. It starts with the configuration, followed by the option for a contract, both of which are required to use the service activity process, which is the core process of this module.  

Service configuration

The service configuration registers the items of a customer on which you could service. If the items are also sold through Exact Globe, the configuration will be made automatically. Otherwise, you could manually enter the configuration. Besides being the link between the customer and the item, you can register the physical location, extra detailed information, and build up a structure of the items with and without serial numbers to clearly specify and plan the service activities. The configuration can change over time when customers gain more items, or through service changes that are made. This can be registered, making historical overview possible.

Service contract

The service contract is optional but can be made to register agreements made with the customer. For an easy and uniform contract entry, it is possible to make agreement sets containing different agreements, which can be added to a contract as a set. Templates can be made with prefilled contract information, which means you only have to select the configuration and it is optional to select which agreement applies to which configuration item/part. To make sure the right prices are used when entering agreements for an item, you can define default contract rates. These can all be invoiced periodically or the agreements can influence the service activity process. You can also define if and how often preventive maintenance will be done, and which service activities can be created in a batch.

Service activity

The service activity is used to register the whole process from entering the request until the invoicing. The service activity is an Exact Synergy request with extra options. You can view the configurations of a customer and choose which service is needed. In addition, you can create one or multiple service activities.

In the service activity, you can register what needs to be done, including linking standard problems and standard solutions to help in the process. The service activity can be created automatically out of the Exact Globe sales order, or by the preventive maintenance generator. It can also be created manually.

You have the option to select one or more engineers who will do the job and when they will do it. However, it is more efficient to leave this blank and use the dispatch board for the planning. On the dispatch board, you will have a bucket with all the to-be-planned service activities, and you can use the drag-and-drop feature to plan the correct engineer(s) on the right date. You will be able to see relevant information, which you can customize, so planning the right engineer on the right time will be fast and easy.

You can also plan the items needed for this activity, which can be prefilled out of the contract. Discounts can also be used when a contract is applicable. When planning the needed items, stock information out of Exact Globe is visible and the stock is automatically planned in Exact Globe so the purchase orders can be generated or available stock can be allocated.

The engineer can realize his hours and used items based on the planned activities. After authorization, the invoice can be created. When sending the invoice out of Exact Globe, the detailed Exact Synergy documents will be automatically printed or mailed. This will all be in the Exact Synergy Enterprise software and integrated in all relevant masterdata and menu paths.

Roles and rights

To use the Service management solution in Exact Synergy Enterprise, you need the Service management license role, which is freely included in the Professional license role or paid for in a CRM license role. Additionally, you require a number of function rights for the different actions within the Service management solution. These are bundled in the Service management role.

Notes:

For more details on the service management function rights, go to Overview of the Service Management function rights.

1.      For more details on function rights, go to System à Setup à Security à Function rights.

2.      For more details on roles, go to System à Setup à Security à Roles.

Version control

Service management is included in Exact Synergy Enterprise product update 250 and Exact Globe product update 405. It will gain more and more features in the newer versions. Depending on the version you have, you may not be able to use certain features.

Pre-requisites

Using the Service management module

• Adding parts to service configuration items
• Authorizing service activities in bulk for Service management
• Creating and maintaining free fields for Service management
• Creating and maintaining problem codes for Service management
• Creating and maintaining service activity requests for Service management
• Creating and maintaining solution codes for Service management
• Creating and maintaining preventive maintenance types for Service management
• Creating and maintaining preventive maintenance schedules for Service management
• Creating and maintaining service configurations for Service management
• Creating and maintaining service contracts for Service management
• Creating and maintaining service contract templates for Service management
• Creating and maintaining agreement sets for Service management
• Creating and maintaining agreement set lines for Service management
• Creating and maintaining response time defaults
• Creating and editing Service management contract types
• Editing service configuration items
• Exact Synergy Enterprise User Guides Startpage (English)
• Exact video library 
• Generating invoice proposals for Service management
• Indexing and prolongating service contracts for Service management  
• Maintaining Service management settings
• Overview of the Service management function rights
• Overview of free fields for Service management
• Overview of preventive maintenance generator for Service management 
• Overview of service activity types
• Overview of service contract templates for Service management
• Realizing service activities in bulk for Service management
• Searching for service activities for Service management
• Searching for service contracts in Service management
• Searching for service configurations in Service management
• Viewing account cards
• Viewing dispatch board schedule view for Service management
• Viewing dispatch planboards for Service management 
• Viewing invoice details of invoice proposals
• Viewing invoice proposals for Service management
• Viewing status processing report for Service management