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As you ship the product to your customer, you can record the product serial number, lot number, or revision. If the product is a pick-to-order configuration, you can also record the serial numbers for the various options that your customer selected.

The serviceable product, service program, warranty, and other information, such as the customer name, installation addresses, contacts, and ship date, form the installed base customer service database. You can use the installed base to view what products have been sold and to whom, and which products are covered by a service program or warranty. The installed base also helps you determine when these support services are due to expire.

Perhaps you sell your products to distributors who, in turn, sell them to the end customer. When you know who the end customer is, you can optionally transfer the serviceable product and its service programs and warranty from the distributor to the end customer.

If you need to plan the product installation at the customer site, you can enter a service request to assign the installation task to a field service engineer. After the installation, you can enter additional details, or service request actions, which serve as the service history for work performed at the customer site. Then you can also activate the product warranty.

For example, if the warranty expires after 90 days, your customer might want to purchase a service program for extended coverage. You can then create another sales order for this service program and bill the customer accordingly.

If your customers purchased a service program for telephone support, they are authorized to call the hotline during certain business hours. The installed base helps you verify each supported customer when the customer calls. You can define the different reasons for calls as service request types, with various degrees of urgency and severity. To track these calls, you can enter a service request for each call and assign each service request to your support personnel who are responsible for resolving and closing the service request. Each type of service request can have a resolution process that you define, with various actions, owners, and so forth. Customer service representatives can search the knowledge base to determine what approaches have resolved this problem in the past. Once all actions against a service request have been completed, the service request can be closed.

Oracle Service supports depot repair functionality for customer returns, including repair-and-return and replacement. If the serviceable product becomes defective, your customer may call your hotline to report this problem. You can enter a service request to track this call, and enter a return material authorization (RMA) to track the defective product when it is returned to your service center. After you receive the defective product from your customer, you can replace or repair it. If you decide to repair it, you can diagnose the problem, enter an estimate for the repair, and optionally seek customer approval before beginning the repair. The estimate, which you can enter before, during, or after the repair, can include the labor and material for your repair. If the product is covered by a service program or warranty, you can apply the coverage to the estimate to reduce or eliminate the repair charges.

If the service program for the telephone support is due to expire, perhaps after several months or a year, Oracle Service reports the expiring support services, enables you to renew the service program, and creates a new sales order for the renewal.