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Checking Availability to Promise (ATP)

Your Siebel application can check with your back-office software to determine the availability of products in a quote or order, so that an end user can confirm availability for a customer. Using this feature, an end user can request delivery by a particular date, inquire about availability, and then reserve the items. An end user can also request that items be shipped from a particular source, such as a warehouse or other inventory location. If a customer decides they do not need all of the items, the end user can also unreserve items from the quote or order.

NOTE:  Your Siebel application must be set up to make special calls to your back-office system in order to use this functionality. For details, see Process of Setting Up Third-Party Product Availability Applications

An end user can specify a requested date and source for the entire quote or order, or for individual line items. The end user can also request that certain items be shipped together, or that all items be shipped together.

This task is part of the Common Tasks for Creating Quotes and Orders

To check availability and reserve items in a quote or order

1. Navigate to the quote or order for which you want to check availability.
2. Click the Fulfillment view tab.
3. In the Fulfillment form, enter any requested information that applies for the entire quote or order. The following table shows some of the fields you may want to set.

   Field	Comments
   Requested Date	The date you would like the items delivered. When entered in the fulfillment form, this date is for the entire quote or order; it will be copied onto each line item. Leave this field blank to request the earliest possible date.
   Ship Complete	Check this field to indicate that the order needs to be shipped complete or not at all. All line items are assigned the number one in the Package field.
   Source	Use this field to request that the items in the quote or order be shipped from a particular source. Leave this field blank to indicate that any source is OK. This source will be copied to each line item.
   Single Delivery	Use this field to indicate that all line items in the order should be shipped from a single source and have a single delivery date.

4. Make any changes to the requested information for individual line items. The following table shows some fields you might want to change.

   Field	Comments
   Requested Quantity	Defaults to the quantity of the line item being ordered.
   Requested Date	Leave this field blank to request the earliest possible date.
   Source	Use this field to request that information be shipped from a particular source. Leave this field blank to indicate that any source is OK.
   Package	Use this field to indicate items that should be treated as one package and use the same delivery requirements. For example, if you have five items in an order, but primarily care that three items be shipped and delivered together, you would enter the same number in the Package column of each of those three records. If you check the Ship Complete field, a one is entered in the Package field for each item, indicating that the entire quote or order is one package.

5. Check availability for individual line items or for all line items.
   • To check availability for an individual item, select the line item in the Line Items list below the Fulfillment form, and then click Inquire.
   • To check availability for all items at once, in the Fulfillment form, click Inquire All.

     Your Siebel application checks with your back-office system to determine availability for the line item, and the fulfillment engine returns information to the Promised Schedule Lines list.

6. If appropriate, reserve individual items or all items.
   • To reserve individual items, in the Line Items list below the Fulfillment form, select the items and click Reserve.
   • To reserve all items at once, in the Fulfillment form, click Reserve All.

     Your Siebel application sends a reservation request to your back-office system and the fulfillment engine returns an indication that the items are promised to the Promised Schedule Lines list.

NOTE:  You can reserve items without having previously inquired about them.

When a line item is reserved, the requested quantity, date, and source are read-only. If you need to make a change to any of those settings, you must unreserve the items first.

Unreserving Items in a Quote or Order

If a customer no longer wants items they previously reserved, the end user can unreserve items in a quote or order.

To unreserve items in the quote or order

1. Navigate to the quote or order with which you want to work.
2. Click the Fulfillment view tab.
3. In the Line Items list, select the items which you want to unreserve and click Unreserve.
4. If you want to unreserve all items in the quote or order, click Unreserve All.

Splitting Line Items To Accommodate Different Requested Dates

A customer ordering a large quantity of the same item may want to request delivery of part of the order at two or more different times. In this case, the end user can split the line item, assigning quantities and requested dates to each new line. To split a line item, the end user enters two or more records in the Requested Schedule Lines and specifies the quantity and dates for each.

To split a line item across requested dates

1. In the Line Items list under the Fulfillment form, select the line item that you want to split.
2. In the Requested Schedule Lines list, click New and enter the requested date and quantity for the first batch.
3. Add another record in the Requested Schedule Lines list for the second batch.
4. Continue to add records until you have the appropriate number of delivery requests. Make sure that the total quantity matches the quantity in the Line Items list.