How about a way to track loaner equipment? We have a bear of a time keeping track of what is out on loan because we cannot track it inside Evo. Let me 'splain...
 
A hospital calls because there is a problem with their equipment and it is determined that they need to send their product in for repair. We use the S/R module (soon to be RMA module) and give them instructions for returning their items. Cool. However, they might have a surgery tomorrow and need a loaner to get through their cases for the 4 or 5 or 10 days that it will take us to get their stuff received, repaired and shipped. We make a Sales Order for the loaner, whether we are charging or not, and ship it toot sweet.  
 
Now it is just plain gone unless we remember to ask for it back. We have setup and abandoned several methods in turn, including a) not billing the loaner so that it stays open, b) invoicing from special location to which and equal an opposite transaction is posted on return, and c) tracking the loan in the customer record of our CRM. Option a) failed because we were left without a transaction record, option b) requires an auditing step that was let slip for various reasons, and option c), which we are currently using, is hit-or-miss due to its being a manual, external process.  
 
The best solution would be if there were a real Loaner type of order in the RMA module with its own inventory of equipment and reporting for what is due back when.

Quote from GasGiant on 05/17/07 at 10:02:33:

 
 What if an internal sales order is established for the loaned equipment, including two line items.  This first line item is a positive quantity for the piece(s) of loaned equipment shipped to the customer.  (this will be deducted from inventory)
The second line item is a negative quantity representing the return of the loaned equipment (adding back to inventory). Could not the "customer due date" be used for the return date of the loaned equipment and the loan be tracked by this date for open sales orders?  
Perhaps a unique series of sales order numbers could be assigned for loaned equipment. Then an open sales order report could be printed for that range of numbers assigned to loaned equipment orders.

Quote from lmk223a on 05/18/07 at 06:28:38:

 
That's a very decent idea... having a pile of "back ordered" loaner returns sitting on the billing clerk's desk might not be popular with her, but it could do the trick for keeping track of things. We already have Excel queries for orders due that are looked at by the managers daily, so adding another would not be a big deal. I could even web deliver the report to her based on our loaner location. Hmmm. Should only take a few days to implement, too, since all that is needed is a little training for the order entry people and the billing clerk.  
 
I'll add that to the list of subjects to discuss at the little loaner pow-wow we'll be having on Monday. our loaner problem is out of control because we have two different offices and four field people placing them in the field, poor controls, and even poorer enforcement of our own rules/policies. We will be centralizing all loaners and putting them under the control of the Repair/QC group so that we can reign them in. Would be a good time to implement the two-line method, as well.

Quote from GasGiant on 05/18/07 at 08:24:59:

 
XML has it's place but it's way over used and abused. I'd be more in support of direct output of text or HTML for auto generated reports. XML may work but it tends to be a data organization format rather than a display format and I think that most of the time it's more important to VIEW a report than to play with it's data layout. So, if at all possible my vote would be for HTML. And for everything else there's XML and mastercard but only if absolutely necessary.