Agency OrderAhead

Purpose of this document

This document describes how to setup Ceres to process Agency OrderAhead functionality.

Ceres Object release 6.00.00 is required for the functionality described in this document.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Overview
• Setup
  • Location
  • Item Card
  • OrderAhead Setup
  • Job Queue
• General Workflow
  • Moving Product
  • OrderAhead Queue
    • Menu Options
    • Action Ribbon

Overview

The OrderAhead program provides food directly to the individuals and households in need. The distribution model involves food being transported from the food bank to a central location or locations within a given County or Counties, and then being distributed from there. While the food may be tracked in Ceres at a higher unit of measure (UOM); case for example, the food is distributed from the central location at the each UOM.

The OrderAhead program as well as the OrderAhead Inventory Control System (ICS) are both administered at and by the food bank. However, the OrderAhead ICS is segregated from Ceres.

Setup

Location

Locations can be accessed by selecting “Search” from the Dynamics 365 Business Central Banner and entering “Locations” in “Tell me what you want to do” then selecting “Locations” from the results in the Go to Pages and Tasks section OR by selecting the “Locations” menu action (if present) from your Role Center home page.

Select the location to be used for OrderAhead to open.

Special Zones must be setup for the OrderAhead functionality to isolate the inventory from regular food bank inventory. Select Zones from the menu options.

This will open the zone list. It is required that OrderAhead product be segregated by storage requirement. We have created 3 zones (OA-COOL, OA-DRY and OA-FRZ) for OrderAhead.

Note: The following fields are important for the correct functionality of OrderAhead.

Bin Type Code: This field must be set to a bin code that allows picking.

Exclude from Whse. Doc.: This field should be checked to indicate that inventory pick documents are not required for products in this zone.

Not Available for AE.: Check this box to ensure the OrderAhead product is not available for agency express online ordering.

OrderAhead Zone: Check this box to indicate that the product in this zone is available for OrderAhead.

UNC Storage Requirement Code: Select the appropriate UNC Storage requirement for the specified OrderAhead zone from the values REF, DRY or FROZEN. Product storage requirements should be considered when moving products so that the product is moved to the correct storage requirement zone.

Once zone setup is complete, you must now create one bin in each zone. Click on the zone and then select Bins from the Navigate Ribbon.

When the bin list is open, create a new bin. To keep things simple, we have chosen to name the bin the same code as the zone.

Repeat this process for each of the other two zones so that each OrderAhead zone has a valid bin code.

Item Card

On the Item Card it is required to provide the Eaches per Base UOM quantity. Since OrderAhead will be ordering in the smaller unit of measure as the product is distributed, it is necessary to define the quantity of individual items contained in the case.

Items can be accessed by selecting “Search” from the Dynamics 365 Business Central Banner and entering “Items” in “Tell me what you want to do” then selecting “Items” from the results in the Go to Pages and Tasks section OR by selecting the “Items” menu action (if present) from your Role Center home page.

On the General FastTab of the Item Card enter the correct quantity of eaches in a case into the Eaches per Base UOM field.

OrderAhead Setup

OrderAhead Setup can be accessed by selecting “Search” from the Dynamics 365 Business Central Banner and entering “OrderAhead Setup” in “Tell me what you want to do” then selecting “OrderAhead Setup” from the results in the Go to Pages and Tasks section OR by selecting the “OrderAhead Setup” menu action (if present) from your Role Center home page.

OrderAhead utilizes the web services as MealConnect. For that reason, the MealConnect setup information will be filled in and non-editable as it is maintained from the MealConnect setup page. Refer to MealConnect Setup documentation for more information if needed.

Agency Order Nos.: This field specified the number series to be used for OrderAhead agency orders created form the process. You may specify a different number series from regular agency orders if you wish to have an easy way to identify OrderAhead orders from other types of orders.

Send Availability URL Suffix: This information is provided by Feeding America and specifies the correct URL to be used.

Record Distribution URL Suffix: This information is provided by Feeding America and specifies the correct URL to be used.

Job Queue

To automate the process of sending availability and recording distributions received from the web service it will be necessary to create a new Job Queue Entry. Job queue setup documentation is available for reference. The job queue entry information for OrderAhead is shown here.

Object Type to Run: Set this field to Codeunit.

Object ID to Run: Set this field to 14012376.

Parameter String: Set this field to RecordDistribution.

Job Queue Category Code: Set this field to ORDERAHEAD. If this category does not exist, you must create it first.

Recurrence: Select the days of the week you wish the job to run; we have selected every day. Next, specify the No. of Minutes between Runs; we have specified 5 minutes between jobs. Depending on the volume of OrderAhead orders you expect, you may set this value higher, for example, 60 to check once per hour.

General Workflow

Moving Product

The process of making product available for OrderAhead involves moving product to the OrderAhead bins as specified on the location card. You may utilize any one of 3 methods to accomplish the move of product to this bins:

1. Item Reclass Journal
2. Movement Worksheet
3. ADCS Bin-to-Bin transfer

Once product is moved into zones designated as OrderAhead using any of these functions, and send availability transaction is generated and queued up for transmission to the OrderAhead Inventory Control System.

OrderAhead Queue

The OrderAhead Queue can be accessed by selecting “Search” from the Dynamics 365 Business Central Banner and entering “OrderAhead Queue” in “Tell me what you want to do” then selecting “OrderAhead Queue” from the results in the Go to Pages and Tasks section OR by selecting the “OrderAhead Queue” menu action (if present) from your Role Center home page.

This will open the OrderAhead Queue page.

From this page you have several functions you can perform.

Menu Options

Expand All: Use this function to expand record distribution records to see all item transactions on a particular order.

Collapse All: Use this function to collapse the record distribution lines to a single line for each OrderAhead order.

Reprocess Entry: Use this function to resend and availability transaction to the web or process inbound record distributions that have previously erred after the error condition has been resolved.

Note: The Reprocess Entry will be unavailable for selection on successful Record Distribution transactions to prevent double posting of OrderAhead distributions.

Show Error: Use this function to display the reason why a particular entry has erred.

Show/Hide Archived: Use this function to toggle between showing and hiding archived transactions.

Action Ribbon

Archive: Use this function to archive transactions. Select the line or lines you wish to archive and press the archive button.