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Create a prospect and Inactive customer for a contract quotation

  • 15 December 2023
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athobie
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Hi,

I would like to run this use case : 

1/ Create a prospect (a person)
2/ Create a Customer (not active)
3/ Create a Quote Contract
4/ Add New OOS (Installed item) to the contract
5/ Send the quote to the customer for Validation.

Is it possible to define a contract quotation as an opportunity  ? (or opportunity are only for sales order)

A sale or installation is not needed, because, the installed item is already on the customer site.

The customer only want a contract quotation to change his current service provider to a new one who will manage the maintenance for installed items. 


Thanks and regards

 

antony

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Best answer by Jacques Cormier 20 December 2023, 16:48

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Phil Seifert
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Hi Anthony,

Confirming in the Glossary of Terms on the meaning of Opportunity:

 

athobie
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Hi @Phil Seifert 

in this case, I understand that we can have a contract quotation as opportunity.
If Yes, how can I add it in the Prospect Screen
If I click to add, I don’t have the choice to add a contract quotation, only a sales opportunity.


I didn’t find the way to create a conctrat quotation directly from the screen prospect.

 

Thanks and Regards

anthony

Phil Seifert
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This should be answered by a business consultant.

However, my thinking is you can create the opportunity for a sales order, have a product defined that would have contract integration for the order line.

My only concern is that in your use case the customer is inactive so I don’t see how that is going to work with a prospect related to an inactive customer. I would think you can not add an opportunity to the prospect who is linked to the inactive customer.

Screen below, I had a prospect defined that was linked to the inactive customer, however from the prospect module, I clicked the opportunity link and it tried to open the Sales Opportunity but this failed with the message is linked customer is inactive.

 

Jacques Cormier
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We used to have a Sales Force Automation tool built in PowerBuilder up to version 6 before Alliance was converted to use the framework that came with version 8.  I thought it was a good product and it had more features than any of the other competition.   The problem with selling Sales Force Automation is that the expected users are sales reps, and they don’t want to have on their resume that they were using a no-name product like Astea.  Instead they wanted SFDC (Sales Force Dot Com) or Oracle.  When planning the conversion, the decision was made to drop SFA from our go-to-market strategy, and only offer it for companies who just needed basic lead tracking for sales opportunities.  The same reason we dropped having full financials in Alliance and offered integration to any GL package.  I have worked with a few customers who wanted SFA and decided on SFDC or Oracle and we made the integration with Alliance.  This can be a very complex integration especially with bi-lateral pathways with data.

Even when we had SFA in earlier Alliance, we did not permit a prospect to be linked to an inactive company.  A company can be inactive for many reasons:  Failure to pay in the past, company located in a country were laws could be enforced, company was declared bankrupt, Mis-representing the products and warranties,  etc.  If some of those reasons are now reversed, then someone in finance should activate the company first.

When I have worked with smaller companies who needed SFA, I told them to track contract quotations or service quotations.  Instead of prospects, they would use contacts and add 2 fields on each document:  % of having an opportunity evolve into a sale, and the another field for the sales process step which the opportunity is at.  These can be added with Customizer.  Reports can then be created based on the likelihood of the opportunity resulting into a sale by using the due dates on either document by sales rep assigned.  Sorry for the long answer.

Phil Seifert
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Thanks Jacques!

I love long answers regarding the backstory of the product.


It was interesting I could link a prospect to an active company but then later make the company inactive. The prospect was still accessible but of course as I noted above, it was not possible to create an opportunity for that prospect who was linked to the inactive company. I would have expected the prospect to also be inaccessible if the company they were linked was not active.

Just my thoughts…

Jacques Cormier
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Phil,

You would be right, if the prospect never became a contact, which means that the prospect was not the source of business for that company and therefore should be made inactive.   I am reluctant to suggest fixing this, as this is old code and unless someone has a good business case for changing it, then I would leave it alone.   I’m ok with leaving the current validation that you found as it is.

athobie
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  • Hi @Phil Seifert  @Jacques Cormier 

    Thanks for your detailed explanation.

    I’m not sure that create a sales opportunity will be a good way, because I have to ship the product (and in my use case the product is already installed)

    So, for my use case  : A potential customer who asks for a preventative contract quotation  : what can be the best way to do that in Alliance ?
    If the customer is OK : We just validate the contract and then run the preventative maintenance. No installation, No shipping in this case.
    The potential customer only want to change his service provider.

    Possible ways : 
    - Don’t use Prospect transaction ? but Use Contact Transaction 
    - Identify with customized fields : Customer is a “prospect” and Contact is “prospect”
    - Use Contract Quotation instead of Contract Opportunity ?

    I sent in attachement 2 process : tell me for you the best (simple) way or advices for other ways.

    Thanks and Regards

    anthony
1 Attachment
Jacques Cormier
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Anthony,

I like process 2 example, which gives you what you need with fewer steps.

Phil Seifert
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Just a small question, the prospect is the one with the installed item? Your intention is to give a contract quotation to cover this item to the customer (not the prospect).  So, doesn't the prospect need to be a site hosting the installed item to add it to the contract?

Or are you adding the installed item on the customer level so they are the site hosting the item?

In any case, second scenario seems better to me.

athobie
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Thanks @Phil Seifert @Jacques Cormier for your advices.

 

For the process 2 : for you : Contract opportunity is better than contract quotation ?
Contract quotation will be used only for a renewall process.
 

I will have a relation between the customer (C1) who asks for a new contract and the customer (C2) where installed items are. The contract will be for this customer and we are invoicing for this customer (C2). 
but the Invoice will be sent to the customer C1 (contact) who asks for contract quotation.
I assume I have both as customer an not only site, especially for C1 for the invoicing process.

regards

anthony

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