Human Resources

The primary objective of the Human Resources module in SAP Business One is to maintain general and personal information regarding the employees. This can be achieved using the Employee Master Data window. Additionally, a time sheet is also available for the employees to enter their daily working hours. Let us take a deeper look into the functions of employee master data and timesheet. 

• Employee Master Data: -  This window is used to manage information regarding employee education, previous job records, results of professional reviews, and similar details. The tabs in the employee master data include: - 

• Address Tab: - In this tab the employee’s personal and work addresses are stored. 

• Membership Tab: - This is where the employee’s roles in the organization and the teams that he/she is a part are recorded. 

• Administration Tab: - The  information regarding employee education, previous job records, results of professional reviews, and Absence details are recorded in this tab.

• Personal Tab: - As the name suggests, all the employee’ s personal details are stored in this tab. 

• Finance Tab: - This is where the bank details and the employee’s CTC ( Cost to Company) is maintained. 

• Remarks Tab: - Any remarks regarding the employee can be entered into this tab.

• Attachments Tab: - This tab holds all the attachments that links to the individual employee. Example, Certificates, Letters of recommendation….

• Time Sheet: - This is the window where you make a note of all the working hours that an employee has spent doing his/her work in a day. As of SAP Business One Version 9.2 the timesheet is directly accessible from the administration tab of the employee master data. In addition to recording the working hours, employees will also be able to associate and apportion their working hours to individual Financial Projects and Cost Centers. 

Service Reports (2)

This blog is the continuation of the previous one. We will cover the remaining reports that are available in the Service Module.

• Equipment Card Report: - This report is used to extract information about specific items purchased by or assigned to each business partner. Using this report you will be able to view information such as , business partner, serial number, status of the equipment card, and contact person according to the defined selection criteria. 

• Service Monitor: - The primary function of this report is to analyze the efficiency and monitor the performance of the service department in your organization. You have the option to view either your individual service call or all open service calls. The report offers two dynamic views of the service calls: - 

• Open Service Calls: - The graph displays the rate at which service calls are opened in SAP Business One; i.e. the number of service calls opened per minute during the previous hour. 

• Overdue Service Calls: - The graph displays the rates at which the service calls are overdue in SAP Business One; i.e. the number of service calls that were overdue per minute during the previous hour. 

• My Open Service Calls: - Use this report to view and analyze the open service calls for which you are responsible. You can check each service call, view its progress, and take any necessary action. To remove or display additional fields report fields from the report  choose the form setting icon from the toolbar.

• My Overdue service calls: - This report is used to analyze and take an informed decision on the service calls that have passed their due date. You can evaluate service calls one by one and track their progress, in turn helping you to take necessary action to solve the business partner’s problem as soon as possible. This report can also be used in analyzing the organization’s efficiency and performance.

Service Reports (1)

In this blog we will discuss in detail about the various reports available in the Service Module.

• Service Call: -  This report is used to obtain information regarding all open and closed service enabling you to analyze all the information regarding the management of service calls in your company.After defining the report, you can view it in the Service Calls Report window. You can view summaries of the information about service calls for each employee.

• Service Calls by Queue: - This report lets the user view information about service calls in each service queue and enables the user to check all the service calls waiting in a queue.If your organization uses service queues, the best practice is to use this report when handling the messages that are displayed in their queue. 

• Response Time by Assigned to: - This report lets you analyze the response time of employees that are assigned to specific service calls.If a service is assigned to a queue, you get information about the amount of time the service call was in the queue before an assignee responded to it.

• Average Closure Time: - This report provides detailed insights about the average amount of time required to close service calls. This report can be used to check the efficiency of the service department. You can display service calls with the same closure date. You can also select service calls completed by a specific employee.

• Service Contract: - This report provides precise information about the service contracts of your company’s customers. You can create the report for different contract types and statuses. You can also view service contracts created for specific customers.

Service Module Objects (2)

This blog will be the continuation of the previous blog and we will cover the remaining service objects. 

• Service Contract: -  Service contracts enable your organization to provide maintenance and repair for an item beyond the manufacturer’s warranty coverage. This is a contract between you and your business partners. You can create a service contract manually or with the right settings the system creates it automatically. For automatic service contract creation there are the rules to follow: -

• The item should be a serialized item.

• The item should be either delivered or invoiced(A/R Invoice)

• Predefined service contract templates should be made and kept ready. 

When items with different service contract templates are invoiced together, the system creates that many service contracts in one fell swoop.

• Solution Knowledge Base: - Solution Knowledge Base is a collection of all solutions for issues raised by your customers. This is an invaluable asset to your organization. Imagine a scenario where you have been providing service to your customer for over half a decade. You definitely would have come across a plethora of issues and concerns related to your products. If you are able to record each and every query raised by your customers, you would have a database so strong which would make almost every future service call a cake walk. With Solution Knowledge Base you will be able to do the following functions: - 

• Create and update common solutions to customer’s problems and questions.

• Display all the solutions that were ever recorded in SAP Business One.

• Link an existing solution to a service call or record a new solution from a service call.

Service Module Objects (1)

In the previous blog we discussed about the various objects present in the service module.we make use of these objects to assist in the service processes the organization undertakes. In this blog we are to dive a little deeper into the objects present in the service module. 

• Service Calls: -  This object is used to create and maintain all activities related support services that you receive form vendors or provide to your customers. Major functions of service call window are to: -

• Document whether the service call was opened due to a phone call, E-mail, or fax; through the Internet; or by any other communication means.

• Manage your activities (tasks, meetings, or notes related to the service call) while solving the problem.

• Manage repairs and create invoices for expenses related to the service call.

• Search for solutions to the problem in a solutions knowledge base and record new solutions.

• Keep track of the service call history.

• Schedule service calls.

• Equipment Card: - The equipment card can be addressed as the database for all the serial numbered items that you have sold or purchased for which service can be provided. Equipment cards can be used to track the history of the item from the day of sales or purchase, till the end of its service period.Equipment cards can be automatically created when a serialized item is purchased or sold. Equipment card contains other information such as: - 

• Location of the item at which you provide or receive service

• Service calls related to the item

• Service contracts that cover the item

• Sales information

• Inventory transaction data

Service Module

The organizations that provide support services to its customers, or receive support services from its vendors can manage all their support activities through the Service Module. Some of the functionalities of the service module are: - 

• Handle and organize interaction between service representatives and business partners.

• Store and maintain information regarding service contracts, items, and serial numbers as well as customer complaints and inquiries.

• Monitor and manage the activities of your service department by using standard and custom reports that assist managers and support staff with their daily work.

• Streamline the potential of your sales and service departments and generate additional revenue by supporting business functions such as: 

• Service operations

• Service contract management

• Service planning

• Tracking of customer interaction activities

• Customer support

• Management of sales opportunities

• Build a knowledge base of solutions for issues raised by your customers. You can manage this knowledge base according to your items; therefore, reducing the time required in solving the problem by searching for the solutions by item as and when a problem occurs.

To support your services operations, you work with the following objects in SAP Business One:

• Service Call

• Equipment Card 

• Service Contracts 

• Solution Knowledge Base

• Service Reports

MRP

The Material Requirements Planning (MRP) module enables you to plan material requirements for a manufacturing or procurement process based on the re-evaluation of existing inventories, demands, and supplies on changing planning parameters (such as lead time determination, make or buy decisions, and holiday planning). MRP calculates gross requirements for the highest bill of materials (BOM) level, based on existing inventory, sales orders, purchase orders, production orders, forecasts, and so on. It calculates gross requirements at the lowest BOM levels by carrying down net parent demands through the BOM structure. Dependent levels might have their own requirements, based on sales orders and forecasts. Let us now look into the different windows that are available in the MRP module: - 

• Forecasts Window: -  This window is primarily used to create forecasts for items. In many organizations the production process might consume quite a bit of time, so organizations plan to purchase and produce items in advance, even before they receive the purchase order or create a sales order. This is the goal of a forecast, which is designed to serve as an additional requirement. Therefore, the goods are produced based on the forecast, and when the actual sales orders are received, the company is able to supply the order quickly.

• MRP Wizard: - This is the wizard that is used to avail the standard MRP functionality that is available in SAP Business One. The results of the MRP run are reports and recommendations that fulfill gross requirements by taking into consideration the existing inventory levels and existing purchase orders and production orders. The MRP run also takes into account predefined planning rules such as Order Multiple, Order Interval, Minimum Order Quantity, Inventory Level, and so on.

• Order Recommendation: - This window is used to filter out the recommendations generated by the MRP wizard. If you have run a scenario and saved the recommendations for several times, the application stores the results of the latest MRP run and deletes the results of the previous run.