Many years ago, our Company had a physical form that we used to monitor any maintenance work done in the manufacturing plant, equipment or retail stores. This was a cumbersome task that was, frankly, hard to monitor and maintain. Physical forms get lost or get spilled with coffee.
When I was surfing and evaluating iDempiere, one statement in a window stood out. If I am not mistaken, it was “Could you please trim the trees for me?”. This statement implied that somebody needed a physical job done and that piqued my curiousity.
I learned that the window was appropriately called the “Request” window. The “Request” window allows managing and monitoring the different types of internal or external requests within the system. In my specific scenario, I wanted the “Request” window to be used in monitoring all physical work done by maintenance technicians in a timely and coordinated manner.
The above is only one scenario where we can use the “Request” window. There are many other ways to set-up the “Request” window for your own specific purpose. The customization may range from managing payment approvals, managing employee requests to developing/maintaining customer relationships via requests. The “Request” window can also be used internally inside the company or used for external customers in tandem with other iDempiere functions. It comes with the initial ERP installation and is a powerful iDempiere feature that your Management team will definitely appreciate.
I love the “Request” Window because:
- You can monitor the status of all requests through the “History” or “Update” tabs.
- You can queue all requests by priority.
- You can configure who can see and act on a specific request.
- You can tie a request to specific document type or workflow.
- You can create visually appealing dashboards for your requests.
- Finally, the feature can help monitor material, labor and other related costs a lot easier and, thus, can help improve a company’s bottomline.
If you are interested in learning more about the Request window, you can check it out via:
https://wiki.idempiere.org/en/Request_Setup_(Workflow_ID-113)
https://wiki.idempiere.org/en/Request_(Window_ID-201)
I’ve been using iDempiere for a considerable amount of time and have now fully embraced Open Source iDempiere ERP as a modern, robust and a comparable alternative to other proprietary and Open Source ERPs in its tier. I believe it gives many small and medium size businesses the flexibility and opportunity to obtain a world-class ERP at a fraction of the cost of other ERPs.
