Messages

The Messages form displays all or a selection of the messages existing in Isah. A message might be a complaint or a question. Related data (entities) are linked to a message. Entities include the customer who passed on the message, the supplier involved, employees, a sales order, and the sales invoice the complaint relates to. You can also link an action to the message, such as 'Resolve failure'. The message can be linked to a related message.

All entities linked to the message are displayed in a pane at the bottom of the form. This will give the person responsible immediate access to all related data.

Opening the Messages form from outside the Relationship Management module

If you open the Messages form from the entity itself, all messages linked to the entity are displayed. You can do so by clicking the Relationship Management button, or by choosing Relationship Management from the Go to menu. You could, for example, select a customer on the Customers form and view all the messages related to that customer.

Linking actions to a message

Click in the pane at the bottom of the form to link an action to the message. The linked action appears in the pane.

Linking entities to a message

1. Select the message to which you want to link an entity.
2. Click in the pane at the bottom of the form and select the entity you want to link to the message (for instance, 'Customer') from the list. To use the same entity as before, simply click the icon of the last chosen entity (to the left of ). The list contains only those entities to which you have rights.
3. Select an entity on the entry form and fill in the fields, where appropriate. When entering a customer, you could specify an address if the message relates to a specific location (see also 'Link between message and entity form'). The entity has now been added to the pane containing linked entities.

Link between message and entity form

Note: If you select 'Sales offer' or 'Sales order' from the list of entities, the type of the linked entity will be determined by the sales order code of the selected sales file, if it has a sales order code. If you select the 'Sales offer' entity, but then choose a sales order with a sales order code for the link with the message, the type will automatically change to 'Sales order'. A linked sales offer may also be converted into a sales order at some point. The type of the linked entity will then automatically change to 'Sales order'.

Note: A user who needs to be able to link messages to an entity, should at least have View rights to the form of the entity itself, Add rights to the entity's relationship management program code, and View rights to a preset on the form where the link is created. (The relationship management program code is linked to a linking form only for customers, suppliers, employees, objects and customer and supplier contacts. For other entities, the program code is not linked to a form). The application administrator should take care of this. For example, if a user must be able to link a customer or part to a message, the user must have rights to the following program codes:

Related entities automatically linked to the message

For some entities, links to related entities are created automatically when you link the entity to a message. For example, if you link a sales order to a message, also the customer, the customer's contact and the reference object (where appropriate) will appear in the list of message links.

Linking underlying entities to a message

Some entities have a hierarchical relationship. An example is a production file with underlying production calculation lines. To link an underlying entity to a message, you need to link both the parent and the underlying entity:

1. Link the parent entity, for example a production file.
2. Select the entity from the pane and click . The underlying entities related to the selected entity are displayed above the line in the list box.
3. Select an underlying entity, for example 'Production calculation for operations'.

Tip: You can sort the list of linked entities in various ways. To group related entities, such as customer contacts with the customer or sales lines with a sales order, double-click the column title Line.

Changing and deleting a link

Click at the bottom of the form to change the link. If the message is linked to a customer, for example, you can choose a different customer. To link the message to another entity, however, delete the link by clicking at the bottom of the form and creating a new link.

Service messages

Service messages entered on the Service messages form can also be viewed on the Messages form. The employee involved and any linked objects, customers, actions and related messages are displayed in the pane with linked entities on the Messages form. You can add any of the entities that are available on the Messages form. On the Service message, Address, Handling and Memo tabs, you can view the service-related information, but you cannot change this information.

Messages entered on the Messages form are not displayed on the Service messages form.

Fields

Relationship management type

Person responsible

Status

Note: The date and time of the message can only be changed by using the Change date and time process.