System overview
What FlowOS is for, who uses it, the value it aims at, and where it stops.
What the system is for
Flowtech sells industrial flow, level and pressure instruments. Enquiries arrive as email into shared sales mailboxes — usually a customer’s request for quotation, often forwarded on by a colleague, and frequently carrying the real requirement inside attached datasheets, specification sheets or bills of quantity rather than in the message itself.
Reading those enquiries by hand is slow and inconsistent. One enquiry can carry a dozen separate instruments with different fluids, sizes and duties; deciding which Flowtech product fits each one means checking process conditions against published product limits, published sizing tables and chemical-resistance data.
FlowOS does that reading and that checking, drafts the quotation that comes out of it, and holds the order that follows. The sales person reviews and corrects rather than starting from a blank page. Staff never open the mailbox to reply — they read processed mail in FlowOS and send from it.
Who uses it
Named people with offices and roles. See Roles and access.
| User | What they do here |
|---|---|
| Sales person | Their assigned work: inbox through quotation. Cannot approve or hand over to the ERP |
| Office head | The office’s work: assign, approve, send, sales orders, ERP handoff |
| Stakeholder | Oversight across every office, read-only |
| Administrator | People, roles, offices, mailboxes |
| Customer | Does not log in. They email, receive quotations, and send purchase orders |
The business value it is aiming at
- Nothing is missed. Every instrument in an enquiry becomes its own line, including line items buried in an annexure table.
- Gaps are visible before quoting. Each parameter is marked stated, assumed or missing, so someone can see what to go back to the customer for instead of quoting on a guess.
- The product choice is justified. Every rejection, warning and size finding carries a sentence explaining it, so a substitution can be defended to the customer.
- The quotation is a document, not a spreadsheet. The order code, prices, charges, tax and terms come out as Flowtech’s own form, sent from the product.
- The office is visible. Records from more than one office sit in one list; the office mark is how you tell them apart. A grant is not a mode.
- An order is checked before it is raised. An inbound PO is compared with the quotation it accepts. Mismatches are held.
Boundaries — what sits outside this system
- It is not the ERP of record. Confirmed orders are handed off; stock, dispatch and invoicing stay in the ERP. See Connected systems.
- It is not Outlook. Mail is copied in; the mailbox remains authoritative for what was received. Outbound mail is sent through Graph from FlowOS, with the shared office mailbox as reply-to.
- It does not invent ratings. Where the catalogue or the corrosion data has no figure, the option is unconfirmed, not hidden. See Business rules.
- Uncertainty is routed to a person. An unknown sender, an untyped document, or a mismatch against a PO becomes a review item. The product does not silently merge.
Where to read next
- Capabilities — what the business can do, with status.
- Enquiry to quotation — the main journey.
- Limitations — what still needs a person, and what the rail has not opened yet.