Backordered items have line item status of cancelled

[Pamela Smith]

In 2.5, when a line item is backordered (via EDI) the item status becomes cancelled. Can this be changed to reflect it's true status?
We would like backordered status so that it is clear that the item is still on order.

[Kathy Lussier (klussier)]

Hi Pam,

I was almost tempted to mark this one as a duplicate of https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen/+bug/1029591, but, even though that fix offers a big improvement by displaying the cancel reason on the PO, we still have the issue that these lineitems are displaying as canceled. Our users find it confusing too.

We had an idea for one approach that you can see at http://markmail.org/message/xvedp2g6r7o5cdt2. If this were done, it would continue to use the canceled status for backordered lineitems, but it would display as backordered on the PO. Do you think this would be a reasonable approach?

One of my assumptions was that we would probably have to stick with the canceled status because it might be part of the EDI protocol. But I could probably be totally wrong on that point.

[Bradley Bonner (bbonner)]

I did a quick and dirty hack to the perl file EDI.pm to get around this temporarily. (version 2.4.5)

Normally, the EDI response read would interpret a 400 response as back-ordererd and assign a cancel reason(and cancel the line item and its copies). I just tried changing it to 401 instead, causing a 400 to be ignored.

If there IS a legitimate 401 returned, that might cause trouble! And, I don't have a way in the client to see back ordered items, although our staff has other ways to determine that from the vendors.

snippet changed (400 changed to 401):

if ($stat = $li_hash->{order_status}) {
                    $logger->info("EDI: lineitem has order status $stat");

                    if ($stat eq '200') {
                        $reason_id = 1007; # not accepted

                    } elsif ($stat eq '401') {
                        $reason_id = 1283; # back-order
                    }

Bradley Bonner
KCLS

[Bill Erickson (berick)]

Lineitem order status "401" corresponds to "On order from our supplier". I don't know if it's used in the wild by suppliers.

http://www.editeur.org/files/EDIfact%20eancom%20pdfs/EDIfact%20library%20supply/L5ordrsp%20(library%20supply).pdf

To use this patch, I would recommend removing the elsif block for back-order entirely to avoid unintentional 401 events.

However, as Bradley says, this is quick and dirty. It causes the system to treat back-ordered items as regular on-order items. The staff cannot see in the UI that an item is on back-order nor can Evergreen tell that an item is on back-order. As such, I would not recommend using this unless you really don't care if an item is on back-order.

[Pamela Smith (pamela-smith)]

 For us Bradley's fix is preferrable. It really doesn't work for us to have backordered items cancelled and not be able to receive them until they are invoiced.

[Kathy Lussier (klussier)]

Hi Pamela,

I just wanted to note that work is being done to address the issue of not being able to receive a cancelled lineitem - https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen/+bug/1115599. I hope to test Bill's most recent branch very soon so that this bug fix can be included in Evergreen.

In our case, I think we do need to see that the lineitem is backordered in the interface. I'm hoping we can continue to work on this issue so that we can further distinguish the cancelled lineitems from those that are really just delayed. One approach we considered at MassLNC was http://masslnc.cwmars.org/node/2920#ACQ-03_Interface_should_provide_a_clear_distinction_between_delayed_and_cancelled_items.

We're reviewing quotes for our development projects this week, and I should have more information next week as to whether we will be able to fund that project.

Kathy

[Bill Erickson (berick)]

Here's a dev proposal for improving the display for delayed items. It's based on the MassLNC proposal, with some slight tweaks and I18N additions. Comments welcome.

http://yeti.esilibrary.com/dev/pub/techspecs/acq-cancel-reason-display.html

[Bill Erickson (berick)]

And... some code:

http://git.evergreen-ils.org/?p=working/Evergreen.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/user/berick/lp1270289-acq-cancel-reason-display

[Kathy Lussier (klussier)]

Works for us. Signed off at:
http://git.evergreen-ils.org/?p=working/Evergreen.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/user/kmlussier/lp1270289-acq-cancel-reason-display

Thanks Bill!

[Ben Shum (bshum)]

Thanks for testing Kathy! Bill's code has been pushed to master for this new feature and slated for 2.7.0-beta1. Thanks Bill!