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Understanding Installed Products

This section discusses:

Installed products track the products (standard products or product packages) that are installed at a customer's site or issued to an internal worker. In PeopleSoft Support and PeopleSoft Integrated FieldService, you specify installed products in agreement lines to control the availability of these lines to the specific set of products. Installed products determine whether warranties are involved in the entitlement search when installed products are referenced on cases or service orders. Agents can reference installed products (assets) that are defined in PeopleSoft HelpDesk to determine what equipment is issued to an employee and the location of the equipment.

You can manually create and maintain installed products for most products that are listed in the system using the Installed Products component. Use the Product Definition - Installed Product page to define rules that govern when installed products are automatically created and updated.

You can configure the system to create installed products or update the status of installed products when:

  • Orders are placed using PeopleSoft Order Capture or PeopleSoft Order Capture Self Service.

  • The CRM system receives automatic shipping notification (ASN) messages from another system, such as PeopleSoft Order Management.

  • Material usage and removal transactions are recorded using the Service Order component in PeopleSoft Integrated FieldService.

Note: The system automatically creates installed products with the status of Installed for products that are newly registered using the Product Registration component. For registered products that already have installed products, the system does not update the installed product status. Based on how the administrator configures the Product Registration page (for example, what fields are available and whether they are editable), users can update installed products as they complete the registration.

At the installation level, you can define two sets of installed product creation and update rules that the system uses as default values for the Product Definition - Installed Product page: one set for those products that require a service order for installation and another set for those that do not. At the product definition level, however, you can have only one set of rules

When you set up these rules for installed products using the Product Definition component, you can click the Apply Defaults button on the Installed Product page to populate the appropriate default rules. While you can modify the default rules for specific products, you can also update the configurable default values (used across all products) on the Installed Product Defaults page under select Set Up CRM, then select Install, then select Product Options.

See Setting Up Product Registration.

See Registering Products.

See Defining Creation and Update Rules for Installed Products.

Rules for Installed Product Status

You can configure the system to set the status of installed products that it creates or updates to one of three values: Pending, Installed, or Shipped. Typically, implementations suggest these rules, but you can configure them for your own business processes.

For a product that requires a service order for installation:

  • When the installed product is created after submitting an order, set the status to Pending.

    If a subsequent ASN message is received, update the status to Shipped.

  • When the installed product is created as a result of the receipt of an ASN message, set the status to Shipped.

  • When a material usage transaction (recorded on the Order Materials component) results in a creation or update of the installed product, set the status to Installed.

For a product that does not require a service order for installation:

  • When the installed product is created on order capture, set the status to Pending.

    If a subsequent ASN message is received, update the status to Installed.

  • When the installed product is created as a result of the receipt of an ASN message, set the status to Installed.

Note: If a product does not require a service order for installation and a rule has been established for ASN receipt that sets the status to a value other than Installed, you must manually set the status of the installed product to Installed when appropriate.

You may want to set up rules that require manual intervention for business processes that require an action or response from a customer. For example, suppose that you ship a product that requires some type of installation, such as setting up a personal computer that the customer performs. When the customer completes the installation process, he or she can contact you to update the record.

See Also PeopleSoft FSCM Order Management

When defining products using the Product Definition component, you can indicate whether an installed product requires a service order to complete installation. When a user places an order for the installed product in PeopleSoft Order Capture or Order Capture Self Service, component interfaces enable the system to stage a service order for the specified installation service in PeopleSoft Integrated FieldService.

When the status of the installed product or group of records that is associated with the ordered product is updated to Shipped (that is, when the ASN shows that the corresponding order line has been completely fulfilled), the system automatically generates a service order using the information that is defined for the specified installation service.

The initial status of the system-created service order is Open, with all associated service order activities set to Open - Hold Assignment.

If you enable automatic technician assignment and the system has successfully assigned a provider group and group member to the service order, the status of service order activities that are assigned with technicians is set to Open - Assigned.

When an order for multiple installed products that require installation is saved in PeopleSoft Order Capture or Order Capture Self Service, the system creates one service order for each product-site combination on the order.

You can define or update warranties using the Warranties component under select Customer Contracts CRM, then select Agreements. Associate an item with a warranty on the Item Definition page under the select Items CRM, then select Inventory Item Definition.

When a user creates a case or service order for a customer's installed product, the system first checks for entitlements that are associated with a valid warranty on the customer's installed product before searching for entitlements on an agreement.

When you create an installed product using an item that is associated with a warranty, the system activates the associated warranty and calculates the warranty duration using information from both the warranty and installed product.

Note: The system can calculate the warranty duration for an installed product only if the appropriate process updated the base date that is used to calculate the warranty's start date.

For example, suppose that the warranty is defined to start upon shipment but no ASN (shipment) status update rules are defined for the product. In this case, the installed product is created at order time, with an order date but no shipment date. The warranty is associated with the installed product at order time, but no warranty dates are populated.

In this scenario, a user must manually update the installed product's warranty start and end dates for the warranty information to appear in entitlement matches. However, if the product has ASN status update rules defined, the system automatically records the ship date and the warranty start and end dates on the installed product as soon as the ASN is processed for the product.

If necessary, you can manually update the warranty status and coverage period on the installed product using the Installed Products component.

In PeopleSoft CRM, you can establish parent-child relationships between installed products and display them graphically from several points in the system. This functionality can be implemented to support a wide range of business needs, including the ability to view the associated parent assembly or subcomponents for a given installed product, view the geographic locations of specific network components, or view the components of a customer's service package.

Hierarchical Relationship Creation

You can manually define relationships between installed products using the Installed Products component. For a given installed product, you specify the installed product of the parent product to establish a parent-child relationship. When two installed products reference the same parent record the system creates sibling relationships.

The system automatically defines the relationships for installed products that are created when product packages are ordered in PeopleSoft Order Capture or Order Capture Self Service. The system automatically defines relationships for orders of static kits that originate in PeopleSoft Order Management.

For both package and static kit orders, the system creates installed products for each of the products in the package or static kit that are defined as installed products. If a product in a package or static kit is not defined as an installed product, the installed product hierarchy does not display that product.

For example, suppose that a parent product is defined as an installed product, the child product is not, and the grandchild product is. When the package is ordered, the system creates records for only the parent and grandchild rows and establishes a parent-child relationship between them.

How Hierarchical Relationships Are Viewed

Once you define the appropriate relationships, users can view them graphically in a tree format by accessing the Installed Product Hierarchy page. In PeopleSoft CRM, you can access this page from pages and page toolbars in these components:

  • Installed Product

  • Service Order

  • My Service Order

  • Support Case

  • HelpDesk Case

  • RMA (return material authorization) Form

  • Site (under Customers CRM)

  • Product Registration Installed Assets

  • Installed Products (search) page

  • Installed Assets (search) page

  • Customer 360 Degree View

  • Worker 360 Degree View

  • Order Capture Entry

  • Self-Service Support Case

  • Self-Service HelpDesk Case

Note: For cases that you access from the corresponding Case components, the View Hierarchy button (which you click to access the Installed Product Viewable Hierarchy page) is not available if the business units to which they belong are associated with call center configuration templates that are set to hide installed product information.

The system filters the installed products that appear in the viewable hierarchy using the name of the customer or internal worker, site, product, and department values that are available on the page from which you accessed the viewable hierarchy.

For example, if you access the viewable hierarchy from a page where customer and site fields have values, the system returns all of the installed products for the specified customer and site. If you access the viewable hierarchy from a page where the customer and product fields have values, the system displays all of the installed products for the specified customer and product.

This table summarizes the installed products that are returned for specific field values:

Field Value on Source Page

Installed Products Returned

Site

All installed products for the specified customer or internal worker and site plus any related parent, sibling, or child installed products.

Note: Not valid for PeopleSoft HelpDesk.

Product

All installed products for the specified customer or internal worker and product ID plus any related parent, sibling, or child installed products.

Department

All installed products that match the specified customer or internal worker and department plus any related parent, sibling, or child installed products.

On the Installed Product Hierarchy page, the system lists the filter criteria values that are used to select which installed products to display. Initially, the system displays all records for all statuses. By default, the system also displays the immediate family relationships—parent, sibling, or child—for each installed product that is returned. You can modify the initial display to view records that match a specific status. You can also elect to filter the family relationships and view only those records that meet the filter criteria on the source page.

Additional runtime filters, other than Status as mentioned previously, exist. Installed Product ID and Product are always shown, whereas the other filters are configurable using the Tree Set Up component.

These filters include:

  • Installed Product ID

  • Product

  • Site

  • Department

  • Status

The Installed Product component (RF_INST_PRODUCT) supports the use of display templates in controlling its appearance and behavior for a variety of business needs. At the setID level, you can specify a display template for each of the installed product types (that is, installed product and installed asset), which is used to control, among other things, the visibility of pages, sections, fields and labels of the component.