The Relationship Between Products and Items
In PeopleSoft CRM, a product is associated with only one item (one-to-one relationship). For any physical product that you sell in-store, there is an item equivalent in the inventory system, which establishes the one-to-one relationship. You stock the item on the warehouse shelf and use it for fulfilling orders of that product.
More than one product can use the same item. This typically happens when you position or price the same item differently for different product lines.
Items are associated with products for fulfillment and servicing purposes in PeopleSoft CRM.
See Defining Creation and Update Rules for Installed Products.
Items in PeopleSoft Integrated FieldService
In PeopleSoft CRM, products are used in the Installed Product and Services component and are required. Items are an option in the Installed Product and Services component. The Installed Assets component is for internal assets that are used in PeopleSoft HelpDesk.
Service technicians order items that they need to perform service using the Order Materials component, either as an interunit transfer or purchase order. After the purchasing or inventory system processes the order and ships an item to the technician's truck, the technician installs the item and uses the Time Material Expense page within the Service Order component to report the receipt and usage of the new item, as well as the removal of the old one.
You can set up rules to govern when the system creates or changes the status of installed products.
For example, the system creates an installed product or changes its status when:
A product is ordered through PeopleSoft Order Capture.
An automatic shipping notification (ASN) for the product is received from a fulfillment system.
A material usage or removal is recorded in PeopleSoft Integrated FieldService.
When these activities occur, the PeopleSoft CRM system passes product information along with the inventory system serial number (if applicable) to the installed product.
For example, an electrical appliance retailer might keep stock in a warehouse. The inventory system associates each product with an item on the warehouse shelf. When a customer places a product order and the order comes through the fulfillment system, the associated item of the product is picked from the warehouse and shipped.
The serial number is sent as part of the ASN message, which triggers either the creation of an installed product for the shipped product or an update of the existing installed product for that product.