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Note: Example 2 Tracking supplier quality Remember that an Open ERP partner can be a supplier as much as a customer. You can use the same mechanism
for the management of supplier quality as you do for customer support. If any of your staff detect a quality problem with a product from a supplier they should create a new case in the
Quality section. If the email gateway is installed all you need to do is copy an email to a specified address for example
complaintsmycompany.com while sending your email of complaint to the supplier. The case is auto-
matically created in Open ERP and the supplier’s email response will close the case and be placed automatically in the case history.
In this case the user can add corrective or preventative actions to conform to ISO 9001, without having to enter every action into OpenERP – most of the information comes just from the emails.
The system’s statistics provide analyses about the number and the cost of quality problems from different suppliers. If certain suppliers do not offer the service quality that you expect you can automatically create rules that:
– send a reminder to the supplier after a few days if the case still remains open – remind the production manager to call the supplier and resolve the situation if the case has not been closed
within a week – select and qualify your suppliers on the basis of their quality of service
10.6 Using the e-mail gateway
To automate the creation of current cases you can install the e-mail gateway. The e-mail gateway enables you to use OpenERP’s CRM without necessarily using the OpenERP interface.
Users can create up-to-date cases just by sending and receiving emails. This system works with the major current email clients such as Microsoft Outlook, Thunderbird and Evolution.
Figure 10.7: Schematic showing the use of the e-mail gateway
10.6.1 Installation and Configuration
To use the e-mail gateway you must install the Fetchmail module. You might need a system administrator to carry out this work.
Install the Fetchmail module from the Configuration Wizard CRM Configuration Wizard, Synchronization, Fetch Emails, or install it from the modules list.
Step 1 Go to Tools → Configuration → Email Template → Email Accounts to define the e-mail smtp settings.
In the Description field, type the visible name you would like to use for the account. In Server, type the mail server, i.e. smtp.googlemail.com.
Type the SMTP port e.g. 587, configure the other settings according to the specifications of your server.
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Add the User Information, such as e-mail address for which the mails will enter OpenERP, i.e. sup-
portmycompany.com , the user name and the password. Configure the other settings to your needs.
Save and click the Test Outgoing Connection button to check whether the settings are correct. When everything is correctly configured, Approve the account. OpenERP will automatically create a Scheduler
for the mails. You can also sendreceive mails manually by clicking the SendReceive button. Step 2
Go to Sales Configuration Emails Email Servers to define the e-mail server settings. Assign a Name and select the Server Type, i.e. IMAP Server.
Click Add Attachments if you want to include attachments for the mails received sent. Enter the Server Information, check SSL if necessary, i.e. imap.googlemail.com and the Login Information.
You can also choose to send an automatic reply on receipt of the mail. You can configure the mail here from the Email Server Action
field. Assign the Model to use when a new e-mail arrives, i.e. choose Helpdesk crm.helpdesk if you want every new
e-mail that arrives to be created as a helpdesk case. Click Confirm to confirm the account settings.
On every e-mail check, OpenERP will create a new helpdesk case, or any other object according to the model you specified. You can of course create as many accounts as you want and link them to different objects.
10.6.2 Creating and maintaining cases
Each time you start fetchmail it downloads all the e-mails and creates or updates the cases in CRM. You can turn fetchmail into a daemon to check all new emails every five minutes by using the OpenERP scheduler.
If you want to receive customer requests by e-mail you must first create a rule that automatically assigns new cases to a specified user. You must then verify that this user possesses a suitable e-mail address in the Address
field within OpenERP.
To find out if the new e-mail should create a new case or update an existing case, OpenERP analyzes the subject line of the email. Existing cases are identified by the case number in the subject line, for example
Re: [101] Problem with ... When a customer sends a new request by e-mail the case is automatically created and the e-mail is transferred by
the gateway to the user responsible for new cases, changing the subject line to add the case identifier. The user can then respond by emailing or by using the OpenERP interface to the case. If the user responds by e-mail the case
can be automatically closed in OpenERP, keeping the responses in the history list. If the partner responds again, the case is reopened.
10.7 Supplier relationship management
To manage supplier relations, you should install the crm_claim module. You will then be able to manage supplier complaints and integrate them with your emails and document management.
To do that, use the Reconfigure wizard. Ensure Customer Relationship Management is installed. Once you have installed the crm module, check the checkbox by the Claims option during configuration. OpenERP will then
create a menu in your working database for managing supplier complaints.
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Figure 10.8: Selection of the management of complaints in the CRM installation Once the module is installed you can use the menu Sales → After-Sales Services → Claims.
Figure 10.9: Data entry screen for a supplier complaint The CRM module has many reports predefined. Through the menu Sales → Reporting → Claims Analysis you
can analyse: • the number and the severity of the complaints by supplier or user,
• the response time of your suppliers to your requests, • the supplier problems by type.
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10.8 Profiling
10.8.1 Using Call Center Features
You can manually encode calls that happen or you can pass them into OpenERP. But for mass campaigns, you can import a list of phone calls to make. To do this, click the import link at the bottom of the list of phone calls. On
the GTK client use the toolbar button Form → Import data... at the top.
The different operators can be assigned calls and handle them one by one using the menu Sales → Phone Calls → Outbound
. The operator can open the calls one by one. For each call, after having contacted the customer, the operator can
click on one of the following buttons: • Cancel: you cancel the call. For example you could cancel the call if you have tried to call them more than
three times. • Held: you have spoken to the customer by phone. In this case the operator can change the case section and
send it to sales opportunities, for example. You could alternatively leave it in this state if you do not need to carry out any more actions with this customer.
• Not Held: the customer has not been called, you will try to call him again later.
10.8.2 Establishing the profiles of prospects
During presales activities it is useful to qualify your prospects quickly. You can pose a series of questions to find out what product to offer to the customer, or how quickly you should handle the request.
Tip: Profiling This method of rapidly qualifying prospects is often used by companies who carry out presales by phone. A
prospect list is imported into the Open ERP system as a set of partners and the operators then pose a series of questions to each prospect by phone.
Responses to these questions enable each prospect to be qualified automatically which leads to a specific service being offered based on their responses.
As an illustration, take the case of the OpenERP company which offers a service based on the OpenERP software. The company goes to several exhibitions and encounters dozens of prospects over a few days. It is important to
handle each request quickly and efficiently.
The products offered by OpenERP at these exhibitions are: • training on OpenERP – for independent people or small companies,
• partner contract – for IT companies that intend to offer an OpenERP service, • OpenERP as SaaS – for small companies,
• a meeting in conjunction with a partner to provide a demonstration aimed at providing a software integration – for companies that are slightly larger.
The OpenERP company has therefore put a decision tree in place based on the answers to several questions posed to prospects. These are given in the following figure
Example of profiling customer prospects by the OpenERP company
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