Content Comparison

1.

Create Lead

DSW

Salespersons create lead or wholesales lead in DSW. In this process, the salesperson manages the sales activities and interaction with the customer. It is possible to setup a workflow in DSW to control the sequence of sales activities for example create test drive appointment, execute test drive, maintain test drive questionnaires, record trade-in vehicle, schedule follow up activities and create or cancel offer. A lead can be created for an inventory vehicle or via a car configurator.

2.

Create Offer

DSW

In this process, the salesperson prepares the offer according to the customer requirement. The salesperson can perform the following:

1. Add discount by percentage or absolute amount

2. Add additional items for example accessories or charges like transportation fees or registration fees

3. Consume sales incentives

4. Maintain payment terms, finance type and estimated delivery date

5. Maintain financing or leasing information

6. Capture down payment information

7. Maintain service contract

8. Maintain terms and condition

9. Add additional notes

10. Email a copy of the offer to the customer

In case of wholesales offer, the salesperson can indicate the quantity of vehicles and each vehicle will be represented as separate lines in the offer.

3.

Initiate Price Simulation

DSW

Once the offer has been prepared, the salesperson can initiate a price simulation. This process ensures that the offer prepared for the customer always reflects the latest price from the source application.

Once the “GetDMSPrice” button is triggered, DSW sends a request to VSS via the above-mentioned API and call the price simulation engine. 

4.

Simulate Price

VSS

Upon receiving the price simulation request from DSW, VSS response back to DSW with the latest price and updates the prices in the offer. In general, the sales price simulation engine in VSS is technically similar to creating a sales order in VSS, just not committing to create a document. Therefore, it is important that DSW sends to VSS the required fields in order for VSS to correctly simulate the price. In the event of error or missing fields, VSS will return an error message to DSW and prices in the DSW offer will not be updated. 

5.

Update Price in Offer

DSW

Salesperson verifies that the sales prices is updated correctly in the offer. 

6.

Save Offer

DSW

Upon verifying the prices, the salesperson saves the offer, and a message will be triggered to VSS to create a VSS sales quotation.

 The API used for sending sales offer or sales order from DSW to VSS is the same. There are also certain cases in a project implementation where creation of VSS retail sales quotation is not a mandatory process. This integration supports this scenario where the sending of retail sales offer to create a VSS sales quotation is deactivated/turned off. In this case, pressing the Save Offer button in DSW will not trigger any request to create a VSS sales quotation.

7.

VSS Sales Quotation

VSS

Upon receiving the request to create a quotation from DSW, VSS will use the information in the API to create a sales quotation in VSS. It is important to ensure that the control value for order type has been correctly configured in VSS. Refer “Vehicle Sales and Service (VSS) > Vehicle Sales > Integration with VSS Order > Digital Sales Workplace (DSW) > Control Value for Sales Order Type” in customizing.

DSW structures the offer or order by item types. Examples of item types that are possible in DSW are Item, ItemWithoutTax, InventoryVehicle, ConfigurationVehicle, TradeIn, VehicleExtraOption, VehicleManualOption, VehicleStandardOption, DealerPackage, ImporterPackage, TaxOnly, Damages, VehicleEvaluation, Discount, ServiceContract, Charges, Accessories, TextLine, AutoItem, Other.

This can be found in the API, under the “dealItems” section as follows:

On the other hand, VSS structures the quotation or order by item categories or condition types (in case of sales incentives). Therefore, it is important to ensure that the mapping between DSW item types and VSS item categories are correctly configured in VSS. Refer “Vehicle Sales and Service (VSS) > Vehicle Sales > Integration with VSS Order > Digital Sales Workplace (DSW) > Define Mapping for Item Category” in customizing. Example as follows:

8.

Customer Accept Offer

DSW

After sending the offer to customer, the salesperson can utilize DSW functionalities to schedule follow up calls or other sales activities and subsequently turn the lead into opportunities. If the lead is successful, the salesperson can trigger the “Accept Offer” action in DSW to indicate that the customer accepts the offer and agrees to purchase the vehicle. 

9.

Convert Offer to Order

DSW

Upon securing the lead, the salesperson will then convert the offer to an order. This triggers a request to VSS to create VSS sales order.

 Once the order has been created, it can no longer be updated or changed. In case a change is required, the order needs to be cancelled and the process restarts where a new offer will be created for the customer.

10.

VSS Sales Order

VSS

Upon receiving the request to create an order from DSW, VSS will use the information in the API to create a sales order in VSS. It is important to ensure that the control value for order type has been correctly configured in VSS. Refer “Vehicle Sales and Service (VSS) > Vehicle Sales > Integration with VSS Order > Digital Sales Workplace (DSW) > Control Value for Sales Order Type” in customizing.

VSS will create the order with reference to quotation, the order will be created by copying it from the quotation (similar logic with transaction /DBE/ORDER05). If the quotation doesn’t exist (Retail Offer is not relevant for DSW integration: Parameter /DBE/QT_RETAIL_P = ‘ ‘), the sales order will be automatically created from scratch based on the information from the API.

11.

Assign Vehicle to Sales Order

VSS

If the offer is created in DSW based on inventory vehicle and converted to order, then the same vehicle will be assigned automatically with the order creation in VSS.

Usually, once the sales order has been created, the subsequent sales process will happen in VSS for example vehicle preparation. In general, the vehicle will be prepared by the logistic department. The vehicles that are ready for delivery will be assigned to the sales order in VSS. In some project implementation, it is common to have a custom logic (for example FIFO) to select which vehicles will be assigned to the sales order based on certain criteria for example by vehicle aging or by last goods receipt date.

Vehicle assignment or un-assignment happens in VSS via the “MB_VEH_ASSIGN” and “MB_VEH_UNASSIGN” action triggered within the sales order. Upon triggering these actions, a request will be sent to DSW to send the vehicle assignment/un-assignment information.

12.

Status Updates

DSW

Upon receiving the vehicle assignment or document update status request from VSS, DSW will update the document status accordingly. It is important to ensure that the document statuses are correctly mapped between DSW and VSS. These statuses may vary according to project implementation and specific customer business requirement.

In general, there are two statuses that will be updated from VSS to DSW:

1. Document Status

2. Vehicle Status

VSS

Upon receiving the document update status request from DSW, VSS will update the document status accordingly, i.e., order cancelled.

13.

Delivery, Billing, etc

VSS

The subsequently sales process to complete the end-to-end vehicle sales cycle happens in VSS. These processes vary between brands or project implementation. Example of these processes are managing deliveries, handling goods movements, billing, and accounting entries. These processes are not executed by the salesperson and are normally or traditionally handled in the backend application, in this case VSS.