The Batch Manager can be used to email a Purchase Order to a Vendor as a .PDF attachment. To accomplish this, we first have to establish the Vendor's email details, along with the contents of the message we want to send. Then we will create the P/O and indicate we want it delivered via email. Let's see how these simple steps are accomplished.
To reach the Vendor master screen where the Vendor's email details may be entered, follow these steps:
Follow this path:
Open a Vendor record for editing
Select the "Transmission" tab
Select the "Email Purchase Order Delivery" option
In the "EDI Email" field, enter the Vendor's email address
Tip
You may enter multiple email addresses by separating each address with a comma (",").
In the "Cc" field, specify addresses you want to receive a copy of the email
In the "Subject" field, specify a subject―optionally include the </docnumber> token to dynamically include the Purchase Order Number in the subject line
In the "Filename" field, specify the name you want to give the attached .PDF file version of the Purchase Order―optionally include the </docnumber> token to dynamically include the Purchase Order Number in the file name
In the "EDI Email Body" section, enter a detailed message to the Vendor to be used whenever Purchase Orders are emailed to the Vendor―optionally include the </docnumber> token to dynamically include the Purchase Order Number in the message body
Tip
Make certain the content of your message appears legitimate so that spam filters will not reject it.
Don't select the "Send Email as HTML" option, which, when selected, enables you to embed HTML references in the body of the email message
The following screen illustrates the steps referenced above:
Once you are satisfied with the content of your Vendor EDI Profile, select the SAVE button. You can also always return to the Vendor email information and change it at a later date.
This next step assumes you know how to create a Purchase Order in xTuple ERP―and that you already have one created for the Vendor you've been using in the exercise. We'll begin on the List Unposted Purchase Orders screen. To get there, follow these steps:
Follow this path:
Highlight the Purchase Order you want to email
Right-click on the Purchase Order
Select the "Deliver" option
The following screen will appear:
As you can see in our example, all the details from the Vendor master have been transferred to the email message. Notice how in several places the </docnumber> token has been replaced by the actual Purchase Order Number. Also notice how the "From" email address is the same as the email address for the user who submitted the email delivery request. You may at this point manually edit the email body if you want to change the default information displayed there. Any edits made to the email body will be included in the email to the Vendor. However, if you want to make permanent changes to the default outgoing message, you need to make those changes on the Vendor master.
Once you select the SUBMIT button, the job will be sent to the Batch Manager, awaiting its turn to be processed. When the job is completed, the Vendor will receive an email with a .PDF of the Purchase Order attached.
Note
To check on the status of the job, simply open the Batch Manager screen―either in xTuple ERP or the Batch Manager client―and review the information there. In this case, look for jobs whose "Action" type is "RunReport". To see jobs which have already been processed, use the "Show Completed Actions" option.
Finally, we want to see what our Vendors see when they receive emails from us with Purchase Orders attached. The following screen illustrates a sample email received by our Vendor:
As you can see in the sample email, our Purchase Order is attached in .PDF format. The following screenshot shows what the file looks like when the .PDF is opened.
Note
The attached Purchase Order in .PDF format will look exactly the same to the Vendor as it does to you when you print the same document yourself in xTuple ERP.