PrintVis Case holds every piece of information about the project, from request for quote all the way to invoicing and archival.
It allows us to track every interaction that happens during quoting or production.
A case contains customer information, billing information, all quote versions, all order revisions,
all live production information (shop floor data collection reports), all costing and invoicing information.
Each case automatically receives an ID number the moment it gets started (usually, by a salesperson initiating a quote request).
At different later stages, a Quote number and an Order number get attached to the case.
A lot of other parameters get assigned to a Case as well, the main ones are:
A – Customer, B – Order type, C – Product group, D – Various status codes
A, B and C usually (but not always) get assigned once, at the beginning of the Case.
Status Code assignment always changes - as the project moves through the production stages.
Status Code is a high-level indicator of a project status.
Project virtually “moves” through production stages in PrintVis because different status codes get assigned (manually or automatically) to a Case.
Some status code changes are “logical” – allowing for semi- and fully-automatic status change.
Other status code changes are “not logical”, meaning that we would have to select them manually.
Example of a “logical” status sequence:
QUOTE REQUEST - QUOTE IN PROGRESS - QUOTE COMPLETE – QUOTE WITH CLIENT – ORDER.
Example of a “not logical” sequence:
QUOTE REQUEST – QUOTE IN PROGRESS - QUOTE COMPLETE - QUOTE WITH CLIENT – back to QUOTE REQUEST (quote needs revising).
A Case can only have one Status code at any given time.
For example, when some parts of the job are still printed while other parts are already in the bindery, the case will remain assigned to PRESS status – which is the latest status.
Status codes are not a “scheduling” tool.
Status codes are a “workflow enabling / automation” tool.
Based on the kind of the Status Code assigned, different things can or cannot happen to a Case.
For example, PrintVis may or may not allow production plan revisions, material purchasing, job costing, order cancellation. PrintVis can also generate certain reports while we are switching into a specific status code. PrintVis can check for certain production details automatically, also based on the Status Change.
For each status code, we assign a specific person / a group of people / the whole department as “responsible”.
2 basic things each status code has are
- a deadline that is pre-set in the system (but can be adjusted manually)
- and a next status
Next status actually gets assigned in 2 different areas:
1 – at the “basic” level, on the Status code card.
2 – on the “Responsibility Areas” page – much more detailed (see more about this below)
Case flow
As mentioned earlier, case production flow depends on different parameters assigned to it.
For example, a Case will be sent down the specific Status Code path based on the assigned Order Type:
We can assign different Status Code sequences based on Order Types / Customer groups / Individual customer numbers / Specific dates.
This is all done on the “PrintVis Responsibility Areas” page, by specifying the “current” and then the “next” status.
In the screenshot below, the same PROOF_OUT status code will switch to a different “next status” (digital, hybrid, offset and wide format), based on the Order Type assigned to a Case:
Each customer company will have different workflows, so planning out the status codes is a very important part of implementation, and it usually starts with pen on paper…