Individuals Required in Order Entry (E01)

Purpose: Use this screen to define whether the system requires you to specify the individual within an organization who places the order for each order you enter.

Yes/no field: Select this field to require that an order placer be specified on each order you enter. Optionally, you can specify an originator for each order as well.

If you create a new sold-to customer in Order Entry, the Select Individuals for an Order Screen will appear after you enter the header information. When you create a new sold-to customer in Order Entry which results in a duplicate sold-to record and you select the existing address, an error message indicates if a placer has not been specified:

Placer Required.

Similarly, if you receive an order through the order API and the message does not specify a placer, the order will fail the edit with an error of Placer invalid.

Note: There are some exceptions to the requirement for individual assignment in order entry; they are described below.

Why use individuals? Tracking the individuals who place or originate orders may be useful if you primarily sell to large organizations, and a variety of people from different departments place orders with you at different times. The system tracks individual customers as subordinate records to the sold-to customer (in this case, the company or organization); this allows you to distinguish among any number of open orders for the same organization based on which individual within the organization placed the order. Typically, you would define the person who actually calls and places the order as the “Placer,” and the person who approves or requests the order as the “Originator.”

Default position: There are situations in which you will not be required to specify an individual for an order. You can use the Individual Position for Consumer Customers (G02) system control value to define a professional position (such as buyer or manager) to:

• use to assign to a new individual that the system creates automatically when you create a new customer in order entry or the order API, and assigns that new individual to the order without prompting, or

• control whether an existing individual for an existing customer should be assigned to the order automatically without prompting

Using the Select Customer Individual Screen screen: This screen allows you to scan based on what you know about the individual, rather than what you know about the sold-to customer.

Summary of individual settings for order entry: The table below summarizes the possible settings related to creating or selecting individuals in order entry, based on the system control value settings and the status of the customer. The same conditions apply to orders you receive through the order API; the Print Phone Errors report lists an error of Placer Invalid in situations where a placer is required but not included on the order.

Individuals required in order entry set to:	Individual position for consumer customers set to a valid position code?	New customer?	Need to select individual(s)?
Yes	Yes	Yes	No: Instead, the system creates an individual using the customer's name and the position defined in the System Control table, and assigns this individual to the order. (However, you can configure this process using a user exit point to control whether an individual is required based on the setting of the customer's Commercial flag, which defaults to unselected when a new customer is created.)
Yes	Yes	No	No: If the customer's first individual matches the position defined in the System Control table, you do not advance to this screen automatically; instead, this individual is assigned to the order. Also, the customer's name fields (first name, middle initial, last name, prefix, and suffix) are filled with the individual's name information. This setting might be useful to you for commercial customers. This automatic advancement occurs whether you select the sold-to customer at a customer scan screen, or the individual at the Select Customer Individual Screen.
			Yes: If the customer does not already have an individual, or if the customer's first individual doesn't match the position in the System Control table, you advance to this screen automatically, and must select an individual placer for the order. If you selected an individual at the Select Customer Individual Screen, the selected individual defaults as the placer on the order. Note: If you set the first individual's position to match the position defined in the System Control table, you will not be prompted again the next time you enter an order for the customer.
Yes	No	Yes or No	Yes: You must specify an individual placer for each order you enter. If you selected an individual at the Select Customer Individual Screen, the selected individual defaults as the placer on the order. Optionally, you can also specify an originator.
No	Yes	Yes	No: The system does not create or assign an individual.
No	Yes	No	No: If the customer does not already have an individual, you do not advance to this screen automatically, and the system does not create or assign an individual; or, If the customer's first individual matches the position defined in the System Control table, you do not advance to this screen automatically, and the individual is automatically assigned to the order. This automatic advancement occurs whether you select the sold-to customer at a customer scan screen, or the individual at the Select Customer Individual Screen. Yes: If the customer's first individual does not match the position defined in the System Control table, you advance to this screen automatically and must select an individual placer for the order. If you selected an individual at the Select Customer Individual Screen, the selected individual defaults as the placer.
No	No	No	No: If the customer does not already have an individual, you do not advance to this screen automatically and you do not need to select an individual for the order. Yes: If the customer has an individual, you advance to this screen automatically and you must select an individual for the order. If you selected an individual at the Select Customer Individual Screen, the selected individual defaults as the placer.
No	No	Yes	No: The system does not assign an individual to the order.

Leave this field unselected if you do not want to require a placer for each order. You advance to the Select Individuals for Order screen only in the situations described in the table above. Similarly, a placer is required for order API orders only as described above.

Option always available: You still have the option of associating a placer or originator with selected orders by completing the related fields on the Work with Order Ship To Properties screen; however, the placer is not indicated on the header and detail screens in order entry, order maintenance, and standard order inquiry (the placer appears in the header version of order entry only). Additionally, the placer and originator are not indicated on the Order Billing History Detail screen (see Reviewing Customer History).

Note: You cannot specify an individual placer or originator in Work with Catalog Requests. See Order Type to Process as Catalog Request/Item Samples (E08) for more information on processing catalog requests for individuals.

For more information:

• Setting Up Secured Features (the Delete Customer Individuals Records (A45) secured feature)

• Selecting Customers in Order Entry (selecting individual placers and originators in Order Entry)

• Defining Order Properties (reviewing individual information in Order Entry)

• Understanding Customer Types

• Creating and Updating Individuals

• Working with Individual Departments (WDPM)

• Working with Individual Positions (WPOS)