Sending, Locking and Revising Vendor Orders
Freeze an order into a version, download its request for quote PDF, mark it sent, and revise a sent order while keeping a record of what the vendor holds.
Once a vendor has your request, the order in BackOps and the document in their inbox need to agree. If someone quietly changes a quantity after the order went out, the vendor quotes the old spec and nobody notices until the truck arrives short. Orders prevent that with versions: frozen snapshots of everything the vendor sees, a lock on sent orders, and a record of exactly what changed since the vendor was last told.
BackOps never emails the vendor. You download the request for quote, send it however you normally do, and record that you sent it.
What a version holds
A version freezes the vendor-facing side of the order: its name and external notes, dates, delivery choice, billing and delivery contacts, groups, resource lines with their attribute values, expense lines, and the schedule blocks of the needs on it. Versions are numbered v1, v2 and so on, and a number only advances when a version has been sent. Internal notes, documents and payments are not part of a version.
The order's details panel has a Revision row that tells you where it stands: nothing sent yet, the last version sent with nothing changed since, or an unsent draft such as v2 draft with a count of the changes the vendor has not seen.
Send an order for the first time
Mint v1
On a new order, the details panel shows No version yet. Select Mint v1 to freeze the current spec. The order stays editable until v1 is sent, and later edits update v1 in place.
Download the request for quote
Select Download PDF in the bar above the order. It appears once the order has a version. The PDF is rendered from the latest version, never from the live order, so it always matches what was recorded.
Send it to the vendor
Mark it sent
Marking an order confirmed (or ordered, for an internal order) also records the working version as sent. Marking a version sent from the Versions list does the same, and moves a Draft order to Sent.
What locks once an order is sent
When an external order is declared Sent or Confirmed, or an internal order is declared Ordered, and there is no unsent revision, its vendor-facing content locks:
- Lines, expense lines and line-item groups cannot be added, changed or removed.
- Billing, delivery, the Delivery required switch and the order's dates cannot change.
Name, internal notes and external notes stay editable, as do quotes, invoices and payments. Reordering lines and groups is always allowed.
Revise a sent order
Mint a revision
On the Line Items tab of a locked order, the banner reads that the order was sent or confirmed. Select Mint v2 (or the next number). You can also start one from the Versions list.
Make the changes
Review what changed
On the Revision row, select Review and send. The list compares the working revision with the version the vendor holds, change by change.
Send the revision
Download the new PDF and send it, then select Send v2 to record it. If you changed something and changed it back, nothing differs, and the only option is Discard v2.
Discarding throws away only the unsent revision. Sent versions are history and cannot be discarded.
Editing a need on its procurement, such as moving a schedule block, can also change what a sent order says. BackOps warns you before saving with a list of the orders the change will revise, then creates an unsent revision on each sent order whose vendor-facing content actually changed, so it shows up on that order's Revision row.
An abandoned or canceled order cannot be revised. Its unsent revision is kept as a record of where it stood, but no longer counts as something to tell the vendor.
The Versions list
Select the history icon above the order to open Versions. Each version shows its number, its own status, how many documents priced it, and when it was created and sent. From each row you can Download PDF, Mark sent if it has not been sent, and View changes against the version sent before it.
A version's status is worked out from its own evidence: the quotes and invoices captured while it was the sent version, and every payment on the order. A newly minted revision starts at Draft even when the order itself is Confirmed, because nobody has seen it yet.