Previous	Next		Contents	Index	Navigation	Glossary	Library

To populate the installed base from Order Entry/Shipping, sales orders must use an order cycle that contains the Service Interface cycle action. Pick Release and Ship Confirm are required cycle actions for shippable orders. Receivables Interface is a required cycle action for invoicing to take place in Oracle Receivables.

After a serviceable product is sold and copied to the installed base, it becomes a customer product. You can order a new service program for a customer product, or renew an active service program that is about to expire. When you order or renew service programs for a customer product, Oracle Service uses the Order Import program in Oracle Order Entry. Order Import automatically creates new sales orders for the new or renewed service programs. As you book these sales orders, the Installed Base Interface copies information about the new or renewed service programs to the installed base.

You can also terminate an active service program and credit your customer appropriately. When you terminate a service program, Oracle Service uses the Terminate Service program and the Receivables Interface to create credit memos in Oracle Receivables.

The figure below shows the Installed Base Interface in more detail. This interface consists of three "concurrent programs" which work together to populate and update the installed base. Concurrent programs are background processes that run on a scheduled basis, perhaps hourly or nightly as determined by your system administrator. (Note that "Service Interface" is the name for both a concurrent program and an order cycle action.)

After you enter, book, and ship sales orders, the Service Interface concurrent program and the Update Shipping concurrent program send order and shipment data to an installed base interface table. The AutoCreate Installed Base concurrent program processes the order data in the interface table to create new customer products, service programs, and warranties in the installed base. As the AutoCreate Installed Base program finds shipping information in the interface table, it updates the customer product records with the ship date, serial numbers, and revision numbers. If you subsequently cancel a sales order that has already been processed by the Installed Base Interface, the Cancel Orders form in Order Entry/Shipping sends the cancellation data to the interface table. The AutoCreate Installed Base program then updates the customer product (i.e., sets the customer product status to cancelled) in the installed base.