Web Sales is an ongoing development effort to provide a complete web-based solution for initiating the full scope of front office transactions including billing orders, tendered retail sales and direct invoice transactions. This supports convergent selling of wireless and wireline services and products on the same transaction. Leveraging this functionality, you can use a transaction in the Orders web module to either sell, order, or direct invoice any post-paid billing and/or retail catalog item for any service or account.
Web sales functionality is based on configurable starting blocks that facilitate order entry by defining certain defaults and limitations to streamline the order entry process.
Note:
If the starting block and/or direct invoicing solutions are not currently enabled in your system, functionality described in this article will not be visible in your system.
Where to Go for More on Web Sales
Starting Simple – Non-retail Applications
If your business uses a billing order model exclusively (no retail), refer to the articles under Web Sales for Billing-only (No Retail) Applications). These cover just what you need to know about leveraging starting blocks for billing (non-retail) applications. This lets you start simple, and learn the basics. If you need to integrate direct invoicing and/or the Payment us payment vendor with you billing order application, you can consult these more targeted articles:
If your business deals in retail sales and billing orders
Continue in this set of articles . They cover the full range of web sales functionality that supports selling billing and retail products in the same transaction, and other POS applications that require a register. This includes:
Tendering retail transactions via the Payment us payment vendor.
Returns and voids.
Direct invoicing.
Managing service and installment agreements.
Web Sales Release History
Functional milestones will be deployed over a series of IDI solution software releases where each subsequent release builds on the prior one.
Current Release - Version 26.6 - This provides several tendering enhancements for web Orders:
Allowed Tender Types and Cash Back options now follow the Register Policy setup for tendering.
The tender page look and feel has been improved. Also, it supports accepting tender amounts over the balance due and making change.
You can choose to tender to the penny or round up/down to the nickel.
Version 26.1 – This release provides support for viewing and managing AdvancePay products on accounts in Customer Care.
Version 25.12 – This release provides the following additional functionality in support of AdvancePay:
Returning AdvancePay products.
Enforcing exclusivity where only one AdvancePay product within a Catalog Group can be assigned to a service at a time.
Support for all modify service and modify feature actions.
Version 25.10 – This release supports selling and renewing AdvancePay products, and voiding transactions with AdvancePay products.
Version 24.11 – This release supports searching on No Sale transactions.
Version 24.10 – This release supports using Paymentus for tendering web sales transactions. This includes:
Tendering amount due with or without a Paymentus peripheral device. Paymentus-supported payment methods include credit or debit card, ACH, Paypal, Venmo, Google Pay, and Apple Pay channel.
Tendering a refund (via return) on transactions tendered through Paymentus.
Voiding transactions tendered through Paymentus.
This new functionality is supported through POS registers set up via the IDI Desktop Client.
Version 24.7 – This release provides an enhanced user experience for performing credit checks on web transactions. Also, not strictly related to web sales, this deliverable provides:
The ability to manually add deposits to a transaction.
The ability to navigate directly to Customer Care from the Orders Enhanced Customer Search to create a new customer and then return to the order seamlessly.
Version 24.6 – This release provides an enhanced user experience for managing POS registers, including the following on registers you are authorized to use (registers in locations where you are an assigned user as configured in IDI Desktop Client POS Back Office > Locations):
Select a register to use for POS transactions.
Perform a float to open a register at the start of a day or shift with the required cash amount.
View current amounts for each tender type in a register.
Reconcile the expected and actual tender amounts in their registers.
Clear the current user from a register to make it available for a different user.
Note:
Some of these functions depend on user permissions, POS Back Office Register Policy settings, and other conditions.
Version 24.3 – This release provides an enhanced user experience for staging non-serialized and serialized retail products that are for fulfillment, including:
Performing a retail inventory search
Displaying the on-hand quantity during assembly
Adding a shipping contact to a retail item being fulfilled
Calculating and applying retail taxes based on the shipping contact
Completing the fulfillment of retail products
Version 23.12 – This release provides support for service/installment agreements. This lets you add and manage service/installment agreements on web order/sales transactions. With this enhancement, when a contract with an agreement is added to a transaction at the service level, associates can:
See that one or more service/installment agreements are present on the transaction, and be alerted when action is required (skip, sign, or verbal acknowledgement).
Capture signatures or initials per agreement template configuration for remote transactions (without a client-based peripheral).
View and email completed agreement documents during order assembly.
Access agreements within the Document Storage web module.
This release also includes some button and banner labeling improvements.
Version 23.10 – This release provides the following enhancements:
Bill payments on order transactions
Return items
Void transactions
Behavior options to order pages when not applicable for the current transaction (for instance, a disconnect customer or hotline service). You can choose to skip one or both of the following pages when the starting block’s and/or Order Field configuration provide the required information:
Skip New Transaction (Basic Information) page and begin on the Details (Assembly) page.
Skip New Transaction and the Details pages and begin on the summary (either the Review Cart or the Summary page).
Display New Transaction page and then skip Details page. After saving the basic information, the transaction resumes at either the Review Cart or Summary page.
Additional starting block options for certain starting actions – Additional options are presented for starting block configuration when applicable for the selected starting action. This lets you prepopulate the required information on the order to streamline the process and potentially avoid errors. The options depend on the selected starting action. For example, when Starting Action = Return Item, drop-down menus are provided for selecting a return reason and inventory status.
Version 22.12 This release provides an enhanced web transaction experience and new starting block functionality. You can initiate an order, sale, or direct invoice transaction that requires a retail location and register. You can do this by either:
Configuring the specific register and location on the starting block. In this case, the selected starting block sets the register and location for the transaction without any user involvement.
Applying the location and register from the user’s specified My Location as set via the Orders web module application tray.
Version 22.4 – This release provides an enhanced direct invoicing solution aligned with Web Sales and starting block functionality. With this release, you’ll use a starting block to begin the direct invoice transaction that is tailored for that user experience by page labeling, icon, and button names. Prior direct invoice functionality required you to begin a direct invoice transaction as either an order or cart/sale where it would be converted to a direct invoicing experience by adding a direct invoicing item. With this release, direct invoice transactions are initiated via a direct invoice starting block, so this conversion is no longer needed.
First Deliverable – Version 22.1 – This release introduces configurable Starting Blocks. Starting block configuration and maintenance is done in the Product Catalog web module. Leveraging starting block configuration, you can initiate either a front office sale transaction (remote customer presence) or back office order transaction (no customer presence) in the Customer Care and/or Orders web modules. The type of transaction you initiate drives order or sale-oriented functionality from assembly to completion.
When you configure a starting block, you can also define parameters to streamline transaction assembly by setting default values and/or limiting options. For sale transactions, you can assemble, review, and finalize a remote sale containing billing items that can be assigned to either an account or to any type of service.
In addition, this milestone enhances Orders web pages to support desktop- and mobile-friendly presentation/usability.
Terminology
Order | Typically, providers that function exclisively in billing orders will use starting blocks set up to start order transactions. Orders follow the assembly and billing order phases of the traditional (pre-web sale) orders. |
Cart/Sale | The cart/sales model supports a transaction flow where sales associates can review the transaction content with their customer (in person or over the phone. A cart is the assembly phase when you select a starting block configured as a sale transaction. This is a transient phase where items are selected for eventual checkout (purchase). Carts also provide a review cart page where you can review the result (change in customer’s invoice) based on the cart content. Carts do not persist after being finalized. At this point the cart transitions to a sale. A sale is the result of a finalized cart. The cart/sale scenario fits retail sales, but may also be of value in billing order scenarios where sales associates handle over-the-phone orders would benefit from the opportunity to review the transaction with the customer prior to submitting. |
Transaction | This term is used in this article as a generic reference to carts, sales, and orders. |