PROPOSAL FOR AUTOMATING CUSTOMER ORDER APPROVAL & PRIORITIZE ORDERS FOR EXPEDITE PROCESSING

Requirement 

Corp Designs needs a customization that automates the customer order approval process in NetSuite and setting priorities for orders and sending them to Footprint accordingly for expedited processing.  

Deliverables

Customer Approval Process 

• When an order is created in NetSuite, we will set its default status to ‘Pending Approval‘. 
• We will incorporate two buttons into the sales order upon creation as “Send for Customer Approval” and “Send for Manager Approval“. 
• The CSR can initiate email notifications to the customer by clicking the “Send for Customer Approval” button, requesting their approval. 
• Upon clicking the button, a popup page will appear displaying available templates and recipients. The CSR can then select the desired recipient and template and then click on submit to send the emails. 
• If no email template is selected, a custom email body will be sent to the customer. 
• We will define a custom email body as follows: 
• “Please confirm your order, if there are any discrepancies or need to make a change, please contact your dedicated CSR_________ immediately. Please note that your order will be automatically approved within 12 business hours if we do not get approval or don’t hear back from you. Once the order has been approved, no changes can be made to your order.” 
• The “Send for Customer Approval” button will disappear upon sending email. 
• We’ll add a checkbox called “Email Sent For Customer Approval” to mark orders where emails have been sent to customers for approval. 
• The sales order details will be included as PDF attachments in the email. 
• When creating a parent order, the CSR must add the sub-orders to be combined before sending the email to the customer. 
• The email notification will also have the details of the suborders attached as pdf along with the parent order details. 
• We’ll include two buttons in the email body as “Approve” and “Reject”. 
• The customer can review the attached PDF order details and approve the order by clicking the “Approve” button in the email. 
• We will develop a functionality that, when the order is approved by the customer the status of the order will be automatically changed to “Pending Fulfillment” from “Pending Approval” status. 
• If the customer needs to modify any details in the order after reviewing, they can click on the “Reject” button in the email.  
• When an order is rejected, we will send an email notification to the CSR notifying that the order is rejected. 
• When an order is rejected by the customer, we’ll identify the order and uncheck the “Email Sent For Customer Approval” checkbox. 
• When an order is rejected, we will include a field in the email for entering the rejection reason. Upon submission of the reason, an automated email will be sent to the CSR to notify them of the rejection. 
• When an order is rejected, the “Send for Customer Approval” button will reappear, allowing the CSR to resend the approval email to the customer. 
• If the customer does not respond or approve the order within “12 hours” from the email being sent, we will automatically change the order status from pending approval to pending fulfillment. 
• Once the order status is changed to “Pending Fulfillment,” it will be promptly transferred to Footprint, provided it has a ship date. This transfer will occur immediately without considering the previous criteria of 4 business days, 3 business days, and 2 business days. 
• If a customer-approved order does not initially contain a value in the shipdate field, it will be sent immediately to Footprint once the shipdate is added. 

Manager Approval Process 

• For replacement orders that require manager approval first, the CSR can click on the “Send for Manager Approval” button to trigger emails to the manager requesting approval. 
• In this scenario, we’ll hide the “Send Email to Customer” button. 
• The email will include buttons such as “Approve” or “Reject” the order directly within the email body. 
• The email will include the order details attached as a PDF. 
• We’ll include a checkbox labeled “Email Sent For Manager Approval” to indicate orders for which emails have been sent to the Manager for approval. 
• The manager can review the order details and approve the order simply by clicking the “Approve” button. 
• We’ll create a checkbox labeled “Manager Approved” in the order. 
• When the manager approves the order, the “Manager Approved” checkbox will be marked as true, and the “Send for Customer Approval” button will be displayed.  
• If the manager rejects the order, the “Manager Approved” checkbox will remain unchecked, and the “Send for Customer Approval” button will not be displayed. 
• When an order is rejected by the manager, we’ll identify the order and uncheck the “Email Sent For Manger Approval” checkbox. 
• In this case the “ Email Sent For Manger Approval” button will reappear, allowing the CSR to resend the approval email to the Manager. 
• When an order is rejected, we will include a field in the email for entering the rejection reason. Upon submission of the reason, an automated email will be sent to the CSR to notify them of the rejection. 

Setting Priority to Orders 

• We will add a checkbox in Sales Order records in NetSuite. 
• The checkbox will be labelled as “Expedite Order”. 
• The checkbox created can be used by the ‘Corp Design’ team to prioritize the orders in NetSuite. 
• For orders with this checkbox marked as checked we will send the order details to footprint by setting priority. 
• This will be a real time process. 
• The orders with a value in the shipdate field will be only considered for this functionality. 
• The orders will be sent to Footprint only if a ship date is present. However, they will be sent regardless of the specific ship date value added. 
• If priority is to be set for an order which is already sent to footprint, It can be done only if the order is not yet processed in Footprint. 

To Identify Orders Processing Initiated in Footprint 

• To identify orders with order processing already initiated in Footprint, we can add a checkbox in the order in NetSuite labeled “IS PROCESSED IN FP“.  
• Once order processing is initiated in Footprint, Footprint system will automatically send us an email notification to notify that the processing for the order has begun. 
• We will develop an email plugin to capture this email and while receiving the email we will set the checkbox “IS PROCESSED IN FP” as true. 
• To set priority for orders for which processing has already begun in Footprint, Corp Design needs to directly contact Footprint and the order should be marked with priority high. This limitation arises from the fact that updates cannot be applied to orders already processed in Footprint. 
• The order priority will be always sent as ‘Critical/Severe’ to Footprint. 

Sales order per CSR report 

• We can create a custom report for sales orders per CSR to be displayed on the dashboard. 
• This report will include both orders that were sent to the customer for approval and other pending approval orders. 
• We will highlight the orders sent to customers for approval in the report. 
• The CSR’s can easily view their pending approval orders using this report. 

Assumptions 

• The orders will be sent to Footprint in real-time.  
• Only orders with a date specified in the ship date field will be considered for sending to Footprint. However, orders will be sent regardless of the specific ship date value. 
• The order details for customer review will be attached as a PDF along with the email sent. 
• We assume that if the customer does not approve the order or respond to the email within 12 hours of it being sent, the order will be automatically changed to pending fulfillment in NetSuite and will be transferred to Footprint. 
• We assume that when the order is approved by the customer, no changes will be made to the order. If any updates are made to the order after that Corp Design will need to directly communicate with Footprint and handle the updates themselves.

Risk 

• To prioritize orders that are already being processed in Footprint, Corp Design has to reach out directly to Footprint for assistance. This is because once orders are in process in Footprint, we can’t make any further updates to them in footprint. 
• If an order that was meant to be combined with a parent order is mistakenly sent for customer approval separately, and the customer approves it, the order will be sent individually to Footprint immediately after approval. In this scenario, even when the order is later combined with the parent order, its details will not be included with the parent order.