This Tech Tip outlines four guidelines for using the duplicate consolidation functionality in Advantage.  The four involve these activities:

1)      Matching levels customer types

2)      Creating consolidation sets dialog during customer service

3)      DUPSET review when more than two customers match

4)      The consolidate one set button – (starting at revision 9R2)

1)     Matching levels set by customer types

Using this feature ultimately reduces the number of duplicate customers and improves your customer database.

You can use the CTM DUPMTLVL (customer duplicate match level) system option to set different match levels by customer type.

This allows you to tighten or lessen the matching criteria for certain types of customers.

Set the option in the SYSOPT view.

The matching levels identify potential duplicates when adding or changing customers.

Levels available:

1-Loosest Match Criteria

2-Medium Low Match Criteria

3-Medium High Match Criteria

4-Highest Match Criteria

7-Medium Match Criteria

N-Duplicate Matching Turned off

It works like this:

Your initial customer search returns potential matches based on the criteria you enter (e.g., postal code, last name, company name).

However, you choose to bypass these potential matches and proceed to add the customer as new.

When you click "Finish," the Potential duplicate Customers / Create Customer Relationship dialog appears (see 2nd tip).

2)     Creating consolidation sets dialog during customer service

When adding/changing customers at SVCDAT, the system prompts you with several options for how to handle potential duplicates.

You can choose to:

-Continue – Ignore the potential duplicates and continue with your change/add of current customer

-Continue and Link – Continue with the current customer but relate it to one of the potential duplicate customers identified

-Consolidate – Create a consolidated duplicate set for later consolidation in the DUPSET view or next run of the DUP430

3)     DUPSET view

Be sure to review for accuracy the sets that have more than two customers who are identified as potential duplicates.

Change the filter in the upper portion of the view to show only sets with more than two potential duplicates.

Click the "Set Size" column two times to sort in descending order (largest number of records first).

4)     Consolidate one set button – (starting at revision 9R2)

The one set consolidation performs the consolidation very quickly and you don't need to wait for a DUP430 run.

This consolidates one customer set at a time but still does it across all tables.

You can do it with users on the system.

Do it one of two ways:

A)     Use the upper portion of the view.

Select a set in the upper portion of the DUPSET view.

Click the Consolidate button to consolidate this one set (see Consolidate… button in above view).

A consolidation results report is available to view online.

B)     Use the lower portion of the view.

Highlight customers in the list frame that you want to consolidate with the primary customer.

Right-click and choose the Consolidate action. 

Working with data entry scripts can be challenging because of the number of fields they contain.

Beginning at revision 2011R1 you can quickly get to a specific data entry field with the new filter.

All data entry scripts can be viewed with the CDSSYS/DES view.

The FAST-OE script called ADV-NEW FAST displayed below shows the new filter box on the Select Phase line.

Remember, you can check the "Show advanced elements and enable Move Up/Down" check box located just above the Select Phase line to view more data entry fields.

Filter Box

Initially, the filter is blank and all the fields display.

The filter evaluates only fields included in the customized set of columns chosen to show in the list frame window. For example, if the "Adv. Caption" isn't part of the set of columns shown at the top of the list frame, it won't be evaluated by the filter. To change the chosen set of columns to display in the list frame, click the "Customize…" button. The "Customize…" button is just below the lower right-hand corner of the list frame (see above). Use it to add fields to the chosen set of columns.

Now let's use the filter box to locate a data entry field so we can change the prompt.

Let's say you want to change the purchase order prompt from the Advantage default "Customer PO #" to "Purchase Order #".

1) Make sure the column of the field you are filtering is included in the list frame customized set of columns

 - Click the "Customize…" button and add "Your Caption" to column list

 - Move the "Your Caption" field so it displays after "Adv. Caption" in the column list by

 - Clicking on the "Your Caption" field then click the "Move Up" button in the Customize view

 - Click Ok to close the Customize view

2) Type "customer PO" in the Filter Box

3) The Field and the Phase it belongs in show in the list frame

4) Fill in the Script Caption – which is "Your Caption" in the list frame

5) Now you can filter for "Your Caption" value or the "Adv. Caption" value

 You can quickly get a list of reports and processes that have been run today, yesterday or any day. You can find how frequently certain reports or processes get run, their status and what options were used.  View the history of when reports and processes have been run at the Request History view (CDSOPR/RQH).

View Processes Run for a Particular Date

The following display was set to Search By the 26^th of the current month and Exact Only has been checked.

No filter was used.

The columns were customized to include the Request Status code and the Job Stream columns.

The display shows

1)      Which processes were part of a job stream called ARP-BASE

2)      The status of the processes (D means Done – processing complete)

3)      No processes ran with a Select Set

4)      CIR230 process ran with publication codes LTP and SHE

5)      131 processes were run on this date

6)      Scroll down the list to view more processes

 

View a Full List of Request Status Codes - Use Contextual Help

1)      Inquire on one of the processes

2)      Click the ? in the upper right hand corner (the mouse pointer retains a ?)

3)      Click the mouse pointer on the status value

4)      Finally click the Valid Values… button

View Frequency of the CDSCLN Process

In the display below the Search Criteria for Process Name is CDSCLN and Exact Only has been checked.

A filter was created called Date Range and Start Date field set between 1-Oct 2010 and 31-Oct 2010.

The list results tell you

1)      Frequency CDSCLN process was run in October 23 times; once a day

2)      The CDSCLN process completed without error during the month (status was consistently D)

View a Full List of Request Status Codes - Use Contextual Help

1)      Inquire on one of the processes

2)      Click the ? in the upper right hand corner (the mouse pointer retains a ?)

3)      Click the mouse pointer on the status value

4)      Finally click the Valid Values… button