Hold Creation

At numerous points during order processing the sales order is checked for price, credit and availability among other things.  When a sales order fails an audit the following happens:

1. The hold code is written to the sales order header, both into the hold_string field and original_holds field.  The hold_string field contains the current holds on the order and the original_holds field contains all holds that were ever on an order.

2. If the hold is line item specific, i.e. a price hold or “ship complete” hold, the hold code is written to the line item hold_string field and to the order header hold_string.

When the sales order is saved, the system processes each character in the hold_string as follows:

1. The system checks who the hold should be assigned to.  This is a three step process.

a. First the system parameter F248: SOHOLDAR is checked to see if the hold should be assigned to the operator in the AR_OP field of the customer master.

b. Second, the system parameter F248: SOHOLDDO is checked to see if the hold should be assigned to the operator in the DUN_OP field of the customer master.

c. If neither of the above specified which operator the hold should be assigned to the system checks the parameter F248: SOHOLD-x, where x is the hold code.  This parameter is then used to assign the hold.  If the hold has not been assigned at this point the hold is ignored, and cleared from the Sohead hold sting.

d. Substitution - The system also checks the DATA_1 field of the SOHOLD-x record (found in step c.).  If this field contains data the system converts the hold code to the code in this field.  This is done to allow the system to create a single hold record for multiple holds on an order.

Warning: incorrectly configuring the above substitution feature can cause orders to be difficult to clear or not to be put on hold properly.

2. Supervisor Holds - The F248: SOHOLD-x parameters can be configured to assign holds on orders above a certain value to a supervisor (or any other operator/queue).  This is configured using the DATA_N1 and DATA_2 fields in the control file record. 

When the hold is assigned the system compares the order value to the value in the DATA_N1 field and if the order is greater than this value the hold is assigned to the operator/queue set in the DATA_2 field.

3. The system then checks if there is an active (status = “O”) record in the sales order hold file (F63) for the specific hold just set.  If no hold record exists then one is created.  The hold is “assigned” to a specific operator based upon the system parameter for the specific hold code (F248: HOLDOP-?).

Other Hold Creation Points

During allocation and night time processing stages the system audits the sales orders for credit, special price record changes and schedule date tolerance.

If the hold is created by the system during one of these non-sales process’ (i.e. allocation, receiving or nightly processing) an action message is sent to the sales person responsible for the order (based on the order header REP).

The operator may select to process orders assigned to themselves or to process orders assigned to a different operator.  When processing orders assigned to a different operator the actual operators’ initials are recorded when holds are released.

To select which operator’s holds should be displayed the operator presses the USER key and enters the operators’ initials.  Or, the operator can enter *** (three asterix) to see all holds. 

Both the company/order#/hold sequence and the hold/company/order# sequence can be toggled between all holds and just the operators’ holds.  The Order# sequence displays all open holds for a specific order, regardless of who the hold is assigned to.

View Hold History

To view all holds ever put on the hold record currently highlighted select the pull down menu, select the “Options” pull down and select the “View Order History Selection”.

Display Filtering

The operator can restrict the number of hold records on their screen multiple ways;

User Holds Only - With USER key the operator can restrict the display to only those orders assigned to them or another operator.  Pressing the key displays a list of the operators, allowing the user to select an operator.  The USER key is also used to remove this filter.  When all hold records are being displayed the ID at the top of the screen displays the message ***.

Last Holds Only - With the USER2 key the operator can select to filter the hold records displayed to ONLY those records that have NO holds other than those entered to filter on.

For example the operator may want to see only those orders that have a hold they are responsible for and not other holds.   This allows the operator to only view those orders ready to go except for the hold(s) the operator is responsible for.

Allocated Only - Using the pull down menu the operator can restrict the display to only those orders that have at least one line allocated to them (i.e. ready to ship).  If the system is switched to this mode a check mark appears in the upper right hand corner of the screen next to the “allocated only” label.

Defer Holds - The user may flags holds as “deferred” to remove them from the display until a later date.  When the user selects to “defer” the hold the system prompts the user to enter the number of days the hold should be deferred.  This number of days is then added to the current date and written to the “defer till” field in the hold record.

During processing the browse will suppress the display of hold record with a “defer till” date greater than the current date.  When the current date is equal to the “defer till” date the system clears the “defer till” field and the hold record is displayed.  This display suppression can be toggled on and off using the pull down menu.  The defer suppression mode can be defaulted using the system parameter F248:063S01DO.

Viewed Flag

The “viewed flag” in the order hold record it set whenever the hold record is viewed using the Expand, Zoom or Enter keys.  This allows the operator to visually verify that they have looked at specific hold records.

Clearing a hold

The operator my clear a hold two different ways.  Each hold on an order may be cleared individually or all holds for an order (that the operator has the rights to clear) may be cleared with a single keystroke.

When the operator “clears” a hold individually, by pressing the key corresponding to the hold code, or releases all hold with CLEAR key, the system does the following with each hold record being cleared.

1. The status of the hold record is changed from open (“O”) to closed (“C”).

2. The hold record is updated to reflect who cleared the hold.

3. The hold is removed from the “hold_string” in the sales order header record, and from the sales order lines in the case of line item based holds.

4. Referent status information about the customers account is written to a comment attached to the hold record.  This is done to allow for latter review of credit and/or pricing decisions.

The following information is written:

Open orders

Credit Limit & Current A/R

Current aging

Account terms & Order terms

Account status

The system parameter F248: SOHOLDCC may be set to “N” to disable the writing of the status information.  This may be done to reduce the amount of disk space used by the system.

Credit Card Hold Processing

Credit card orders can be held by setting the Hold field in the terms record for the credit card terms to either Y or to A.

Any terms with a Y entered into the Autohold field will be placed on a type B (terms hold) and will be have to be manually released by an authorized operator. 

Any terms with an “A” entered into the Autohold field will be placed on hold using the Hold type defined in the Automated processing Code field of the terms record.  The automated processing code is a numeric field with valid entries in the range of 1 - 9. 

More:

Releasing Orders on Hold