Notes And Printing

Application Overview

Printing notes in selected documents is controlled by two related setup procedures. 

1. Global Setup/System/Note Function

This setup flag determines which of the following notes can be copied (Y), not copied (N) or printed without copying (P). 

Notes From Customer To Order Header                     Y  N  P

Notes From Item To Order Line Item                          Y  N  P

Notes From Ship-To To Order Header                                    Y  N  P

Notes From Vendor To PO Order Header                   Y  N  P

Notes From Item To PO Order Line Item                    Y  N  P

Notes When Copy BOMP Structure                                       Y  N  P

Notes From Item To BOMP Structure                                    Y  N  P

Notes From Item To BOMP Production Order             Y  N  P

Notes From BOM To Shop Floor Control

If a note can be copied, the system will prompt you if you wish to copy, e.g., Customer Notes to Order Header.  If the note is to be printed without copying, there will be no prompt.

What actually determines if a note will be printed and on which document it will be printed is determined by the Note Type setup.

2. Notes Processing/Note Type

The Note Type “Y” or “N” flag determines on which documents this note type will be printed.  Print document destinations available are:

Customer Invoices                                                                            Y or N

COP Order Acknowledgments                                               Y or N

Purchase Orders                                                                              Y or N

COP Quotes                                                                                                Y or N

COP Picking and Packing Slips                                            Y or N

Accounts Receivable Aging Report                            Y or N

BMOP Work Orders                                                                         Y or N

SFC Shop Orders                                                                            Y or N

Notes Printing Rule #1:      One setup procedure does not take precedence over another.  Rather, they work together in an “AND” relationship.  Examples:

(C) Copy Customer Notes to Order Header and (Y) Print Note Type on Invoice = Note will print on Invoice.

(P) Print without copying Customer Notes to Order Header and (N) Print Note Type on Invoice = Note will not print

Notes Printing Rule #2:      Blank/Generic notes will never print on documents, only user defined Notes Types can print.

Notes Printing Rule #3:                        Know your Note Function and Note Type default setups.

Knowledge Base

Application Overview

In the notes file there is a wealth of user, customer, vendor, item, contact management, and even human resource management information that the user can use as a knowledge base.

Run Instructions

To use the “Knowledge Base” function of Notes, you would use both the “Search” and “Filter” functions in the note list box window.

Let’s take an engineering company, for example.  This engineering company has a customer technical support help desk where the representatives have the responsibility of answering customer’s technical questions when they run into difficulty.  This company has a policy of logging every single help desk call as a sales order and keeping track of the content of the conversation as a note that is attached to the order.

As a new support representative, it is very helpful to search other representatives’ help incident information to learn about similar situations and how the problem was solved.  This is one situation where the knowledge base becomes very helpful.  The support rep needs to bring up the note list box window first.  Then, identify one or more key words of the problem and enter them in the search box.  Click on the “Filter” box, choose to search “All Notes” and click “OK” on the Filter Window.  The system will start to search all the records in the notes database for the key words entered.  If you enter more than one key word, the system will use the “AND” condition.  That is, a note must contain both words in order for the note to be found.  You may want to start with one key word first.  If this results in too many matched records, you can consider limiting it further by entering the second keyword.  Enter the additional keyword after the first keyword with a space and start search again.  The system has the intelligence to know that it does not need to go through the entire note database again.  Instead, it will search the current result set to narrow down the list.  This results in a much faster search when entering the second keyword.

Narrowing down the search criteria also speeds up the search process.  For example, choose notes for a table such as “All Customer Notes” or “All Order Notes” rather than “All Notes”.  You can also speed up the search by limiting the date criteria to a certain date range.  For example, you might decide not to search for notes that are more than six months old.

Application Overview

Who can use the Note Function?

Salespersons, technical support people, purchasers, assembly staff and system personnel can use notes to enhance Customer Relationship Management.

Sales Department:

When dealing with customers, it is always useful to record key conversation issues.  Later, if the customer calls and the salesperson is not at their desk, other sales personnel can assist this customer by accessing the note window to review prior meetings or conversations with the client.  For that extra “Personal Touch” a salesperson can record the customer’s personal information, such as spouse’s name, hobby, birthday, anniversary date, etc.  Imagine calling a vendor and they say “Happy Birthday” to you.

Security can also be established when using the Note Function.  If implemented, only those who have permission to access the notes can read the notes.  Please refer to Note Security in Notes Processing – Note Type.

Technical Support Department:

It might be useful for technical support people to record the problems a client has each time he calls.  By reading the customer’s troubleshooting log, the technical support person can have a better understanding of the client’s system and nature of the problems. Therefore, more effective and accurate solutions can be achieved.  In another case, where some items need more detailed information for support purposes, a note window can be attached to those item records for easy access to that piece of information.

Purchasing Department:

Purchasing staff can use note windows to record the specifications or requirements for purchasing items, or any important information about vendors.  In the former example, the purchasers can attach a specification note to an item and print it on the purchase order for the vendor at the point of doing the purchase order entry.  All this information can definitely assist the purchasers in accomplishing their work in a more accurate way.  Assembly staff: There are certain products (parent items) that need instructions for assembly.  In this case, comments in the note window can be used in the production workorder of BOMP as instructions.

Personnel Department:

Notes can also be used as a human resources management tool.  Any additional information about an employee that you would like to track can be put into Note Windows.  This includes, but is not limited to, emergency contact, phone number, blood type, spouse’s name, insurance information, etc.

System Users:

The Note Window is a very versatile and generic tool; the applications are unlimited for all users in the system.

Run Instructions

Accessing Notes

The Note Window can be accessed by clicking the Notes icon or by pressing the F6 key at different menu levels.  Due to the fact that each note is attached to a specific record in a specific file, the locations for accessing the Note Windows are distinct.  The following page displays a table listing all locations where general notes and Note Types can be used: