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We are seeing more and more customers now, asking for us to separate their agreements into more than one contract.  For example they want all the Preventative Maintenance work on one contract and all calibrations on another.  Often this is because they way to invoice them separately, sometimes because the PM work is handled by a separate service company but they pay for calibrations directly (so two different customers).

We get a problem when we try to set up the same Installed Item onto different contracts, if we want to have visits because if you manage to get a PM Date on an Installed Item on one contract, it removes the dates from the other, probably because the visit date information is held on the Installed Item Service Info module, so only one place to have just one date.

We tried various things to fool the system, such as starting travel on the first job before “stealing” the dates for the next contract but ultimately the system wants to cancel any service orders already created, if new jobs are created from the other contract, even if work has already been completed on the existing Service Order (without warning).

Does anyone have experience of this and have a way to handle such cases where it is necessary to have two contracts, with visits, for the same machine?

Thank you

Hi Chris,

As you are already aware, it is not possible to have the same item (OOS) on different contracts when they have an overlapping date range for validity.  Sounds to me like you should take this up as a change request so that perhaps the check only considers the type of request (PM or UM) with your IFS consultant.

I am not aware of a way to manage this other than perhaps making dummy items with a very similar serial number (1234 vs 1234-1) but this also means managing more data in your system as well so not always desired.  Best is to consult with one of the IFS business consultants.

Phil

Thanks Phil, I have even tried changing/deleting the Problem Code and Request Type AND removing the contract ID from the Service Order and it still gets cancelled.  As a minimum we would want a way where no Service Order gets cancelled unless done manually, or a way to “disconnect” it from the contract and leave it in place.

Sadly for us, the requirement to invoice work types separately is a growing trend with out customers.

Hot off the press: I just found that if I use the eraser to remove the Installed Item from the Service Order and apply, then put it back, it seems to disconnect the link.  Doing that I was just able to send service orders to one SA for the same installed item from 3 different contracts.  Do you think there might be a hidden issue I need to be scared of?

When you do this, does the service order still have a link back to the contract or not?  I would be concerned if the pricing for the demands would be different between a service order associated to the contract and one that is not.

Honestly, I have not tried your suggested process and still suggest discussing this further with a consultant.

Hi Phil,

You’re right, it does remove the contract too.  I added that back and it seems like that is OK although I have not checked everything of course..

I’ll certainly discuss with a consultant, thanks.

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