Sending Internet Order Ship Confirmation (ESCF)

Purpose: Use the Send Internet Order Ship Confirmation menu option to generate email notifications or the Outbound Email XML Message (CWEmailOut)) to customers when an order shipment or return takes place. The confirmation is sent to the order-level email address on the order; see Working with an Order-Level Email Address.

Confirmations for all orders? See Shipment and Return Confirmation Emails for a discussion of which orders are eligible to generate these email confirmations based on the settings in your company and the customer’s email information.

Generate shipment confirmation during billing? If the Send Shipment Confirmation from Billing (L98) system control value is selected, the system generates shipment and return confirmations during billing. You can still use this menu option to generate an additional shipment or return confirmation. See this system control value for more information.

Periodic function: You can also use the periodic function ECSHCNF (program name = ECR0154) to generate shipment and return confirmation emails or messages. See E-Commerce Setup.

About the outbound email XML message: See Outbound Email API for an overview.

For sample emails and more information: See Shipment Confirmation Email Sample and Contents and Return Confirmation Email Sample and Contents.

Interrupting or completing email generation: If you generate emails for a single day, the system keeps track of the last email generated so that you do not send the same email more than once; however, this option is not supported if you consolidate invoices. See Stopping and Restarting Shipment and Return Confirmation Emails for more information.

Save in email repository? The Write Outbound Email to Email Repository (H99) system control value controls whether the email notification or the Outbound Email XML Message (CWEmailOut) is stored in correspondence history. See this system control value for more information on identifying and reviewing outbound emails for a customer.

Order history message: When a shipment or return confirmation email or Outbound Email XML Message (CWEmailOut)) is sent, Order Management System creates an order history message such as Retrn Conf to kbrown@commercialware.com. You can review order history messages at the Display Order History Screen.

No emails generated? If the Shipment Confirmation Program (G51) system control value is blank, or if you are generating an actual email (rather than the Outbound Email XML Message (CWEmailOut)) and the system control value is not set to ShpConf, no shipment confirmation emails are generated. Similarly, if the Return Confirmation E-Mail Program (H53) system control value is blank, or if you are generating an actual email (rather than the Outbound Email XML Message (CWEmailOut)) and the system control value is not set to RetConf, no return confirmation emails are generated.

Send Internet Shipment Confirmations Screen

How to display this screen: Enter ESCF in the Fast path field at the top of any menu, or select Send Internet Order Ship Confirmation from a menu.

Field	Description
From...	The first shipment date to include when generating shipment confirmations. All eligible orders with shipments on or after this date, and not later than the To date, are included for shipment confirmation. The current date defaults. Numeric, 6 positions (in user date format); required.
To...	The last shipment date to include when generating shipment confirmations. All eligible orders with shipments on or before this date, and not before the From date, are included for shipment confirmation. The current date defaults. Numeric, 6 positions (in user date format); required.

Instructions: To generate shipment confirmation emails and return confirmation emails or the Outbound Email XML Message (CWEmailOut)), override the From and To dates if necessary. Select Accept to generate the confirmation emails for the selected date(s).

Stopping and Restarting Shipment and Return Confirmation Emails

Overview: When you generate shipment and return confirmation emails through the Send Internet Shipment Confirmations Screen or through the ECSHCNF periodic function, the system can keep track of the last email generated based on invoice number, enabling you to:

• generate confirmation emails throughout the day for new shipments

• continue email generation if you need to interrupt the process for any reason

Supported when? Stopping and restarting shipment and return confirmations is supported only if:

• the Consolidated Invoice (B49) system control value is not selected

• you do not enter a range of dates at the Send Internet Shipment Confirmations Screen. To be able to restart generation where you left off, you must make sure that the To...and From...dates are the same.

Otherwise, you do not have the option to restart the email generation process without generating duplicate emails.

How to stop email generation: To interrupt the generation of shipment and return confirmation emails, use the Purge Active Procedures Across Users (MACX) option to delete the active procedure with a Type of SC and a Program of ECR0154. After you delete the active procedure, the generation process might generate approximately 25 more confirmations before it stops.

Restarting email generation: To restart email generation where it left off for the date, simply run the periodic function or use the Send Internet Shipment Confirmations Screen to generate confirmations for the same date. Using the periodic function generates email confirmations for the current date, while the Send Internet Shipment Confirmations Screen enables you to specify a single date for email generation.

How does the system keep track? When you generate shipment and return email confirmations, the system writes a record in the Report Generic table noting the date and the last invoice number with a confirmation email generated. If you generate email confirmations again for that same date, the process starts with the next invoice number. Similar to the Active Procedure record, the Report Generic record has a Report type of SC. If for any reason you ever need to regenerate a group of confirmation emails again, you can use SQL to reset the last invoice number in that table before you restart the email generation process.