Chasing a part
Mark the job as waiting, say who you ordered from and when they said, and Benchtop will chase them so you do not have to remember to.
On any job card, change the status to Waiting on a part and three fields appear.
| Field | What Benchtop does with it |
|---|---|
| What you are waiting for | Shows on the Partswatch list and on the customer's page |
| Supplier | Who the chase email goes to |
| Promised date | **The morning after this passes, we email them** |
The third one is the whole article. A job with no promised date sits on the list and ages, which is useful. A job with one chases itself, which is the point.
The email is short and carries no branding, because a trade counter reads the first line and stops:
Subject: Order 88214 — freehub body, promised Aug 22
>
Hello,
>
We are still waiting on one freehub body, 11-speed, against order 88214. It was promised for August 22.
>
Could you let us know when it will ship?
>
Wickenden Cycles
You can read it before you switch it on, and you can turn it off per supplier for the ones who would rather you rang.
Booking it in
When the box lands, mark the part received on the job. That takes it out of Waiting and puts it back on the bench queue, where somebody will actually see it.
This is the step that stops the failure people expect from ordering and actually get from receiving: the part arrives, goes in a drawer, and the job sits blocked for another week because nothing connected the two.
A part arrives for a job you have given up on
Book it in anyway, then close the job if you still want to. The part stays recorded against a real job rather than becoming an unexplained item in a drawer, which is the version that costs you money eighteen months later when nobody knows what it was for.