Lead, Offer and Order Management
- proaxia
DSW serves as the front-end tool for the salesperson to create lead and manage sales activities as well as capturing interaction with the customer. DSW supports both retail sales and wholesales transaction. VSS on the other hand, serves as the back end application for order processing where source of data for example model and prices are created and maintained. The sales transaction captured in DSW is transmitted to VSS where the subsequent sales processes for example delivery, vehicle preparation, goods movement, billing, and accounting entries are recorded.
The following are list of possible functionalities that can be executed:
Prerequisites
Before sending sales transactions from DSW to VSS, you must ensure the following:
Technical connection has been established between VSS and DSW.
Common parameter and validation have been properly set up, in both application for example user settings, DSW setup keys and organizational structure.
Lookup values relevant to order processing has been mapped between VSS and DSW for example PaymentMethod, ItemGroup, DocumentStatus, and SalesPerson.
Item Group has been configured in VSS in the following path: Customizing for Logistics Execution, choose “Vehicle Sales and Service (VSS) > Vehicle Sales > Integration with VSS Order > Digital Sales Workplace (DSW) > Define Item Group
Mapping for Item Category has been configured in VSS in the following path: Customizing for Logistics Execution, choose “Vehicle Sales and Service (VSS) > Vehicle Sales > Integration with VSS Order > Digital Sales Workplace (DSW) > Define Mapping for Item Category”
Control Value for Sales Order Type has been configured in VSS in the following path: Customizing for Logistics Execution, choose “Vehicle Sales and Service (VSS) > Vehicle Sales > Integration with VSS Order
> Digital Sales Workplace (DSW) > Control Value for Sales Order Type” (Sales Order Type must have control code FO Fleet Order)Control Value for Sales Campaign has been configured in VSS in the following path: Customizing for Logistics Execution, choose “Vehicle Sales and Service (VSS) > Vehicle Sales > Integration with VSS Order
> Digital Sales Workplace (DSW) > Control Value for Sales Campaign”
Description
DSW is the source of sales transactions. Both retail sales and wholesales scenario can be supported. In DSW, the salesperson creates the lead, sales offer and convert the offer to an order as well as manages the sales activities. The sales offer and sales order created in DSW will be transmitted to VSS. Creation of offer or order in VSS and sending it to DSW is not supported in this process (API not available).
The following table describes the sales processes between DSW and VSS:
The following table describes in general, the sales processes that is executed between DSW and VSS:
No. | Process | Application | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
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:
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:
|
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. |
Possible business case
Create lead or wholesale lead
Before creating the sales offer, the salesperson must first create a lead or a wholesale lead in DSW. A lead normally refers to individual customer (purchasing a single vehicle) while a wholesale lead refers to bulk
or fleet customers (purchasing more than one vehicle). DSW supports both retail sales and wholesales scenario. In both cases, it is possible to create an offer from the inventory vehicle or from a configurator.
The following describes the type of configurator supported by DSW:
Light configurator – A very basic mechanism to build a vehicle. It does not support dependencies between models and its options or features. Simply, the models and features maintained in VSS will be available here to be selected when configuring the vehicle of interest.
Advance configurator – Support complex mechanism to build a vehicle. Dependencies between models and its options or feature can be built for example grouping sets of features or equipment or packages
for a specific vehicle model. An admin page is provided to build the dependencies.
In both type of configurators, the models and features information originate from VSS based on the model uploaded to DSW. Choosing between light configurator or advance configurator is a customer decision
in the project implementation.
Create sales offer
Once the lead or wholesales lead is created, the salesperson can use DSW to prepare offer to their potential customers. DSW supports both retail sales and wholesales scenario. The following describes on a high level, the possible functionalities within the sales offer.
No. | Functionalities | Retail Sales Offer | Wholesales Offer |
|---|---|---|---|
1. | Vehicle quantity | Fix to 1 | More than 1 |
2. | Add manual discount | Add discount by percentage or absolute amount. In case of wholesales, discount can be added for each vehicle. | |
3. | Add additional items | Add additional items for example accessories or charges like transportation fees or registration fees. In case of wholesales, additional items can be added for each vehicle. | |
4. | Consume sales incentives | Consume sales incentives that are available or applicable for the selected model. | |
5. | Maintain payment and financial information | Maintain payment terms, finance type, estimated delivery date and financing or leasing information | |
6. | Capture down payment | Capture down payment information which will be converted to a cashdesk document in VSS. | |
7. | Maintain terms and condition | Select terms and condition relevant for the lead. For example, retail sales and wholesales may have different terms and condition. The terms and condition can be maintained in DSW and selected during the offer creation. | |
8. | Add additional notes | Add additional notes related to the sales activity for example, “follow up in 1 week”. | |
9. | Simulate sales prices | Before saving the offer, the salesperson can simulate the sales price to VSS to ensure the prices for each item are up to date according to the pricing master data maintained in VSS. | |
10. | VSS order type | As part of VSS-DSW integration, creating the sales offer in DSW will trigger the creation of VSS sales quotation in VSS with order type 3501. In some implementation, the creation of VSS sales quotation may not be required. For example, quotation may not be required in case of retail sales. This function can be configured in the VSS customizing according to the business requirement. | |
Example of items within an offer:
Initiate sales price simulation
VSS is the source of master data which includes sales price information. You can initiate sales price simulation when creating an offer in DSW. In this case, an API will be called to transmit the sales price simulation to VSS.
Activities
Login to DSW and enter credential.
Create a lead by selecting a business partner.
In the sales activity menu, select the action “Create Offer”.
Maintain the relevant items for the offer for example add up-selling items or add manual discount.
Hit the “Get DMS Prices” button.
In case of successful price simulation, VSS will send the updated price to DSW.
In case of error, the error message will be displayed accordingly.In case of troubleshooting or monitoring, refer to section “Monitoring and Tracing” below.
“Get DMS Prices” button within the offer.
Convert sales offer to sales order
Upon acceptance of the offer by the customer, the salesperson can covert the sales offer to a sales order. Once this is executed in DSW, a call will be made to send the sales order to VSS.
The following then will be executed in VSS:
In case a sales quotation exists in VSS, a VSS sales order will be created by copying the sales quotation
to a sales order with VSS order type 3500.
In case a sales quotation does not exists in VSS, a sales order with VSS order type 3500 will be created. The content of the sales order is based on the information received in the API.
Assign vehicle to sales order
During the creation of sales order in DSW, an actual vehicle or reference vehicle may have been assigned
to the sales order. This is considered a logical assignment as at this point, the salesperson may not be aware of the actual situation of the vehicle in the stockyard for example, is the vehicle ready for delivery or what
is the aging situation of the vehicle. In this case, the vehicle administrator or stock controller have better visibility of the situation and will have better understanding of which vehicle to be assigned to the sales order. Therefore, a valid vehicle assignment to sales order is commonly executed in the backend (VSS).
By standard VSS, the vehicle assignment is executed by the VSS action MB_VEH_ASSIGN while the vehicle un-assignment is executed by the VSS action MB_VEH_UNASSIGN. Once these processes are executed,
a call will be made to send the vehicle assignment/un-assignment information to DSW. This ensures that the information is synchronized between VSS and DSW and identical information is displayed on both applications.
Sales order status update
Sales order status updates in VSS should be sent to DSW to keep both systems synchronized and avoid any inconsistency. Order status is one of the mapping values, meaning, what order status
to be mapped between VSS and DSW can be defined in a customer implementation. Only relevant order status should be mapped. The following are some examples of a possible sales order status mapping:
VSS Code | Description | DSW Code | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
H000 | New | 3 | Released |
H020 | Credit limit check - Blocked | 8 | FinanceVerificationFailed |
H025 | Credit limit check - Approved | 7 | FinanceVerificationApproved |
H100 | Rejected | 4 | Cancelled |
The credit limit check will be performed in VSS, and the check result should be sent to DSW as a status update. Therefore, two new header process statuses (H020 and H025) are introduced in VSS to handle the credit limit check.
Example in DSW as a result of the credit limit block status.