Lifecycles
The states things move through, who moves them, and what cannot be undone.
The states things move through, who moves them, and what cannot be undone.
A conversation
One email conversation and everything hanging off it.
Needs processing ──────► Read
▲ │
└── new mail that ────┘
changes the
requirement| State | What it means | Who moves it |
|---|---|---|
| Needs processing | Never processed, or the last run did not finish, or mail has arrived that changes the requirement, or documents remain unread | The system, at sync; a person, by processing it |
| Read | A complete reading — line items, parameters, suggested products — and nothing outstanding | The system, on a successful run |
- Closing a conversation (“done for now”) is not built yet: nothing takes a conversation off the board by hand, and there is no Closed state to reopen from.
- Re-processing replaces the previous reading; it does not patch it (R13).
An enquiry on the board
Where an enquiry’s card sits. Nothing here is set by hand.
Only enquiries with gathered requirements and processed mail appear. Pending mail is hidden from all inbox users. Terminal extraction failures appear in Needs Review to people who read across all offices.
Six stages, placed by the first of these that fits, from the top.
| Stage | What it means | What moves it |
|---|---|---|
| New | You have processed conversation mail you have not opened, and no quotation is issued | Opening the conversation moves it to its requirement-progress stage for you |
| To review | A line needs review, a client’s change on a line waits for a person, or gathering found no lines | A person, by confirming or excluding lines and accepting or declining the client’s changes |
| Ready to quote | Every line is confirmed or excluded, and no client’s change on a line waits | Editing a value on a confirmed line, which returns the card to To review; a client’s change reaching a line; gathering again, which replaces the lines |
| Quoted | A quotation has been issued from FlowOS and nothing is outstanding on it | Issuing a quotation |
| Revision requested | A quotation is issued and the client has asked for a change that is still to confirm or on the revision list, or a line needs review again | The client’s change arriving, or a line returning to review; resolving them returns the card to Quoted |
| Ordered | The client has signalled an order | The client’s first sign of an order |
- Until a quotation is issued, new mail can move a card into New for people who have not opened it. From Quoted onward, unread mail does not move the card: it shows as an “N new” badge and the card sorts first in its column. Another person’s read state does not change yours.
- A card leaves your board when its enquiry is assigned to someone whose enquiries you do not see. It stays on the board while its email is processed or gathered again. Closing a conversation is not built yet, and no stage records an enquiry as won, lost or regret.
- An enquiry is marked Ordered from the client’s first sign of an order: a purchase order, a confirmation in their own words, a request for a proforma invoice or a note that they will raise a purchase order. The mark moves the card to Ordered, whatever stage it was in. Changes the client asks for in later emails are held.
A client’s change
Each change a client’s email asks for is recorded with a state taken from when the email arrived, and does not edit the quotation by itself.
| State | What it means | What moves it |
|---|---|---|
| To confirm | The email came before any quotation was issued, or the quotation was made outside FlowOS | A person, in line review; an answer to a query fills its field and a line the client adds in writing is gathered as a new line, which shows as applied (R117, R120) |
| On the revision list | The email answers an issued quotation version | A person who may edit the quotation: Accept, Decline, or Reopen a decided one (R118) |
| Declined | A person declined it | A person who may edit the quotation can Reopen it (R118) |
| Accepted · carried by R1 | Accepted, and the next revision has taken it | Starting the revision; a carried change cannot be reopened (R119) |
| Held | The email arrived after a purchase order | Nothing; a person decides how it fits the order |
See Revision requests.
A document’s commercial type
Separate from open/closed — this says what the mail is.
| Type | What it means |
|---|---|
| Enquiry | A request for a quotation |
| Revision request | A change to a requirement already quoted |
| Quotation | A quotation or offer from Flowtech to a customer |
| Purchase order | An order the customer is placing |
| Sales order | Flowtech confirming or acknowledging an order |
| Follow-up | A question, chaser or request about an existing quotation or order that asks for no new price |
| Other | Invoices, payment and finance matters, complaints, thanks and automatic replies |
Once a person corrects the type by hand, later mail never changes it again (R6).
A document attached to a conversation
Waiting ──► Read
│
└────► Not read ──(email processed again)──► WaitingA picture or scan is asked once more straight away only when the picture reader failed with a temporary fault. After that a document that is not read is tried again only when its email is processed again (R49), which today means a developer reprocesses it. Nothing reprocesses a finished email by itself.
A quotation
A quotation starts as a draft, rebuilt from the enquiry on every view. Issuing freezes a version; revising makes the next draft from it. Issuing is not sending: FlowOS does not send yet. A later PO is compared to the quotation it accepts.
A rate, discount, quantity or skip typed on a quotation line that has since changed, because the line is no longer on the enquiry or now offers another item code, is withheld and not applied (R36). It is listed on the quotation with what it set. The person enters it again on its line if it still stands and dismisses what is left, and the quotation cannot be issued until none is listed. Dismissing cannot be undone.
Issuing, revising, discarding a draft and deleting a quotation all ask first. A revision’s draft becomes the latest version. Until it is issued it can be discarded: its edits are lost and the quotation goes back to the last issued version. A quotation that was never issued is deleted instead, with its draft; its number is not given to another quotation, so the series keeps a gap (R85).
A purchase order
A purchase order is read from the client’s email once it is linked to an enquiry. It is saved as Open. A later reading with the same number amends it: the earlier one becomes Amended, and the amendment is the one that counts. A copy with the same content is not saved again. A person with approval rights records one decision on an open order, and a later decision replaces it. An amended order takes no decision. Cancelled, short-closed and on-hold orders are not set by anything yet.
The decision is one of Accept, Accept with deviations and Ask for amendment. See Checking a purchase order.
A sales order
Raised after PO-vs-quote verification, or manually when there is no inbound PO (a separate permission). Amendments are revisions. ERP handoff is the step after a confirmed order; retries are against the row, not against a message that already forgot the state.
See Enquiry to quotation.