Processing a case

Reading a conversation end to end — documents, line items, parameters, products.

What this process achieves

An enquiry is read: documents converted, line items identified, parameters extracted and checked against what the client wrote. The result is what the quotation is built from, with a product suggested for each line.

Who is involved

The system — the run.
Developer — can process an email again from Mail Debug.
Sales person / Office Head — review the lines, flags and failures.

What starts it

An email read as an enquiry whose reading confirms at least one catalogue category, once it is linked to an enquiry that has no requirements yet, while requirement gathering is switched on and covers the mailboxes it reached. A Developer can also process an email again. The conditions are on Requirement gathering. Later mail on the enquiry does not start it; it is read for what it changes (see Linking mail after a quotation).

The steps

The documents are read first, and the categories asked for are confirmed from the email and an excerpt of each document (Reading documents).
The sources are structured. The email and its attachments are laid out as the client wrote them: the requested items, their labels, the requirements shared by several items and the general information.
Lines are extracted for each confirmed category that holds a requested item, one line per instrument, with each parameter’s origin and the passage that supports it. A category with no requested item is left out.
Values are put in standard form. Worded figures become numbers, units are converted to the catalogue’s, and each line’s fluid is matched to the fluid library.
Each value is checked against its source, and menu values are matched to the catalogue’s options.
Lines are saved awaiting review, none confirmed as it is saved (R71). Products are suggested for each line afterwards; a line nothing could be suggested for still appears, with a reason.
The email is processed, or sent to Needs Review at the step it failed at. A failure that would repeat is not tried again.

Processing an email again replaces the enquiry’s current requirements (R13); gathering that starts by itself never does. A rate, discount, quantity or skip typed on a quotation is withheld when its line is then gone or offers another item code (R36).

Rules that apply

R11, R13, R14, R16–R22, R23–R33, R64–R79, R81–R84, R88, R99, R100, R125.