Order types in Sales Customer Relationship Management
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Summary of Order types in Sales Customer Relationship Management
ServiceNow Order Management supports two primary sales order types:customer ordersandservice orders. Understanding their distinctions helps ensure accurate order processing and fulfillment tailored to your business needs.
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Key Features
- Customer Orders: Used for purchasing or changing tangible or digital products. These orders consist of one or more line items with product specifications and are suited for all industries.
- Service Orders: Intended for activating new services or handling post-sales service requests already delivered to customers. These orders include service specifications and are especially preferred in telecommunications but applicable across industries.
- Order Record Structure: Customer orders are based on product offerings, while service orders rely on service specifications, each with their respective characteristics and values.
- Order APIs: Customer orders use TMF622 (Product Ordering API); service orders use TMF641 (Service Ordering API).
- MACD Options: Customer orders support Add, Change, Delete actions; service orders support Add, Change, Disconnect, Suspend, and Resume actions.
- Order Decomposition: Upon approval, customer orders decompose into product, service, and resource orders; service orders decompose into service and resource orders, generating domain orders (service orders prefixed SO(nnn) and resource orders prefixed RO(nnn)) that manage fulfillment.
- Unique Roles: Distinct roles exist for managing each order type, including order agents and fulfillment managers for customer orders, and service order agents and managers for service orders.
- Inventory Impact: Customer orders impact sold product inventory; service orders impact product inventory related to services.
- Order Identification: Captured orders have IDs with prefix ORD(nnn). The Order Category field specifies whether the order is a Product (customer order) or Service (service order).
Key Outcomes
- By selecting the appropriate order type, you ensure that orders are processed efficiently and accurately through the entire fulfillment lifecycle.
- Service orders enable detailed management of technical fulfillment and resource allocation, crucial for post-sales service requests and new service activations.
- The decomposition process generates actionable domain orders, facilitating clear tracking and fulfillment responsibilities.
- Service orders have two fulfillment actions: Deliver (providing the ordered service) and Qualify (validating fulfillment feasibility through external systems via API integration).
Customer orders and service orders are the two main type of sales orders in ServiceNow Order Management. Learn about their differences and how to select an appropriate order type for your use case.
Use customer orders for ordering products or services. Use service orders for the activation of new services or for the post-sales requests for the services that were activated for and delivered to customers at earlier dates. By using this process, you ensure that service orders are correct and handled efficiently throughout the entire fulfillment process. The following
table compares customer and service orders and lists the differences between the two.
| Aspect | Customer order | Service order |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Orders for products (tangible or digital) that a customer wants to purchase or change. |
Orders for services that are non commercial in nature and only require technical fulfillment. Use service orders for the activation of new services or for the post-sales requests for the services that were activated for and delivered to customers at earlier dates. |
| Order record structure |
|
|
| TMF APIs for order capture | TMF622: Product Ordering API | TMF641: Service Ordering API |
| MACD order options |
|
|
| Decomposition |
|
|
| Unique roles |
|
|
| Inventory impact | Sold products | Product inventory |
| Suitable for | All industries | All industries, highly preferred for the telecommunication industry |
Differences between the pre- and post-approval service orders
Like customer orders, captured service orders also have an ID with a prefix of ORD(nnn). The Order Category field in the order forms indicates if the order is for a Product (a customer order) or a Service (a service order). These labels enable you to identify the type of order.
When you approve a captured service order for fulfillment, the post-approval decomposition process generates actionable service orders and resource orders. You may see a single service order, multiple service orders, and resource
orders that are associated with your approved service order.
- Service orders with a prefix of SO(nnn) are referred to as domain orders. These orders, and their related resource orders, with a prefix of RO(nnn), must be fulfilled to complete the service order line items on the captured service orders.
- The resource order manages the resources required to fulfill the services that the customer is requesting.
- These domain orders manage the fulfillment of the requested service orders.
Order types for service orders
The following are the two key fulfillment actions for service orders:
- Deliver: Involves providing the ordered items to the customer once the order is ready.
- Qualify: Validates whether a service or product can be fulfilled before actual execution.
Service qualification request orders with fulfillment type as Qualify can only be created in the ServiceNow Order Management system using APIs from external qualification request systems. When you capture an order using Order Management, the orders are created with the fulfillment type as Deliver.