In this blog, I will talk about the Order Promising feature in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and how it can be easily configured to enable an organisation to promise delivery of an order to a customer on a specific date.
The Order Promising feature saves the hassle of working out a delivery date when entering a sales order. At the same time, it ensures accurate delivery information is passed on to the customer.
The Sales order promising is based on two key concepts:
Available to Promise (ATP)
Available to Promise functionality calculates dates based on item availability for the unreserved quantities i.e. available Inventory = inventory + expected receipts – gross requirement. If Item is available, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central automatically calculates the delivery date for the sales order.
Capable to Promise (CTP)
Capable to Promise is used if an item is not in inventory and if no supply orders are scheduled. It uses “what if” approach to calculate the earliest date the item can be available.
How to set up order promising
Search for the ‘Order Promising Setup’ page and define the:
- Offset (time)
- Order Promising No.
- Order Promising Template
- Order Promising Worksheet.
Update the Outbound Warehouse Handling time on the location card (or inventory setup to use a default handling time for all locations).
Update the ‘Check-Avail. Period Calc.’ and ‘Check Avail. Time Bucket’ fields on the company information.
Update the Shipping time on the shipping agent services.
To ensure only the required items are considered for Order Promising, you need to nominate these items as ‘Critical”. To do this, go to the Item card, and tick the ‘Critical’ field. Only Critical Items are included in Order Promising.
How to calculate an order promising date
Go to the ‘Sales Order’ and select the applicable line. Then, from the menu select Actions > Plan > Order Promising.
Select a line, and then choose one of the following options from the available options:
‘Available-to-Promise’ (red box) or
‘Capable-to-Promise’ (orange box).
To change your selection, close the order promising lines page and re-open the window. Business Central will then recalculate the dates.
Choose ‘Accept’ (Green box) for the earliest shipment date available.
The sales order line ‘shipment date’ will be updated.
