Inquiries

What an inquiry is

An Inquiry is a sales-job stage between a Potential and an Offer. A Potential is the earlier sales stage, and an Offer is the next stage for pricing the request. You use an Inquiry to complete the request, send it to a principal or vendor when required, correct or approve its outcome, and move an eligible record forward to an Offer.

The sales flow includes these main stages:

mermaid
stateDiagram-v2
    Potential --> Inquiry: Receive inquiry
    Inquiry --> Offer: Go to offer
    Inquiry --> Regretted Inquiry: Regret
    Inquiry --> Cancelled Inquiry: Inquiry Cancelled By Client

Before you start

Prerequisites

The Inquiry Date cannot be later than today, and Bid Due Date cannot be earlier than the Inquiry Date. Client Inquiry Number, Inquiry Date, and Requested Offer Type are required only where your company configures them as mandatory.

Find or open an inquiry

An Inquiries list is the work list for sales jobs at the Inquiry stage. Use it to start a new record or to open a saved record.

1. Open the sales-jobs list.
2. Select Inquiries from its sales-job views.

The list uses Inquiry date, Inquiry type, and Inquiry stage as its visible columns. The other sales-job tabs help you move to the surrounding stages: All, Potentials, Offers, Orders, Archived, and Job Missing Customer Survey.

3. Select Add new.
4. Choose one route from the table.

After you select Direct order, the direct-order workspace opens. Continue there for that separate task rather than completing an Inquiry.

5. Select an existing list row when you need to continue a saved Inquiry.

The saved record opens in the sales-job workspace at /sales/edit/<record-id>.

Result: You are either in a new Inquiry workspace or in the saved sales-job workspace for an existing Inquiry.

Understand the Inquiry workspace

The Inquiry workspace is the part of a sales-job record where you identify the client and vendor, record the request, and enter the requested items. A saved record also exposes companion areas for work that belongs to the wider sales job.

The new-Inquiry workspace showed these fields:

Client and Vendor are required. Bid Due Date is required and cannot precede Inquiry Date. Client Inquiry Number, Inquiry Date, and Requested Offer Type are required only where your company configures them as mandatory. The Inquiry item row requires Item Description. Unit can be unavailable for package items or when the selected product supplies a unit. Qty accepts values greater than zero up to 999,999.00 in the visible validation rule.

Custom fields can appear in the Inquiry area when your company has configured them for Inquiry records. Their labels and values depend on that configuration.

After the record is saved, the workspace showed the Inquiry stage and these companion areas:

Result: You can tell the shared sales-job fields from the Inquiry panel, the item grid, and the companion areas that appear after saving.

Complete and save an inquiry

Completing an Inquiry records the request that the later Offer must address. Enter the client, vendor, dates, requested offer information, and at least one requested item before saving.

Prerequisites

• You know the client, vendor, requested item, unit, quantity, and bid deadline.
• You are in a new Inquiry workspace or have an Inquiry with unsaved changes.

Steps

1. In Client, select the company that sent or requested the Inquiry.
2. In Vendor, select the principal or vendor that will respond.
3. In Client Inquiry Number, enter the customer's reference when one is available.
4. In Inquiry Date, enter the date of the request.
5. In Bid Due Date, select a date on or after Inquiry Date.
6. In Requested Offer Type, select the requested offer type when the field is required for your company.
7. In the item grid, enter the requested product or service in Item Description.
8. In Unit, select the unit for the item when the field is available.
9. In Qty, enter a quantity greater than zero.
10. Select Save.

Result: The saved sales-job workspace opens with the Inquiry stage. The workspace shows Send inquiry to principal when that action is available for the record.

Send an inquiry and handle its branches

The Inquiry action menu changes with the vendor, stage, saved state, and your permissions. Use the route that matches the question you need to answer.

1. Review the current Inquiry stage and the selected Vendor before opening the action menu.
2. Select the action that matches your vendor and stage from the table above.
3. Read the resulting stage or message before choosing another action.

Result: The Inquiry remains in the branch selected by the action, or the action is unavailable until its stage, saved state, vendor, or permission condition is met.

Resolve validation and save problems

When an Inquiry action stops, use the exact message on screen to identify the correction. Correct the field or item it names, then retry the action.

The following messages belong to other workflows. Use the page for the named workflow when one of these messages appears:

Selecting Save with the required new-Inquiry fields empty displayed the following validation summary:

Please Solve the Following Issues : | - Product type is required | - Job title is required | - Client is required | - Vendor is required | - Bid Due Date is required | - Item Description is required | - Vendor and client is the same.. It is not possible.

The Inquiry Date and Bid Due Date boundary rules also apply when you save. If a date is refused, correct the date and retry Save.

Convert an eligible inquiry to an offer

An eligible Inquiry is a saved Inquiry that has no unsaved changes and meets the vendor and stage conditions for the Offer handover. The handover changes the sales flow from Inquiry to Offer.

Prerequisites

• The Inquiry is saved with no unsaved changes.
• The Inquiry is before the Offered stage.
• The vendor and your role meet the current Go to offer action condition.

Steps

1. Open the saved Inquiry workspace.
2. Check the Inquiry stage in the workspace.
3. Open the Inquiry action menu.
4. Select Go to offer when it is available.

Result: The Inquiry-to-Offer handover is initiated, and the next work continues in Offers.