Sales Center Software Requirements

This section addresses the required setup needed within the sales center software.

Note

As a reminder, it is necessary to contact the particular sales center in order to inform them of the integration with WMS, and verify their prerequisites covered in this section are met.

Sales Simplicity Required Setup

Prior to performing any integration functions, a series of default values must be established within the Sales Simplicity database, listed below. These defaults will be applied to ALL incoming lots and options from WMS. You may manually modify these settings for individual Lots and Options after they are imported from WMS.

Set up the following in the Sales Simplicity software:

In the Sales Simplicity software, determine default lot status (Subdivision > Lots > Lot Status). The choices are:
- Available (recommended)
- Unreleased (recommended)
- Admin Reserved
- Spec
- Sold
- Closed
- Model

Note

It is strongly recommended that the user select Available or Unreleased as the default lot status.

Division > Master Options > Add Option Price to Plan Base Price. The choices are Yes or No. This governs whether or not you want to roll the Option price into the Plan Base Price, or keep the price as a separate line item to be added to the option total. The usual setting is No.
Division > Master Options > Customer Choice Required. Your choices here are Yes or No. This governs whether or not a visual cue is displayed to remind the Sales Agents/Design Center Consultants to add an option note to indicate a customer's choice of color, location, style, etc. for the selected option. The usual setting is No.
Division > Master Options > Option Type. The choices are Finance, Standard or Cash.
- (F) Finance - The price of this option is added to the total price of the home and to the Loan amount.
- (C) Cash - The price of this option is added to the Total Price of the home, but not to the Loan amount. Instead, it is added to the Upfront costs.
- (S) Standard - The price of this option, if there is a price, is not added to the Total Price of the home and is not added to the Loan amount. It is not used in any calculation, since it is included in the price of the home.
Division > Master Options > Agent Can Modify Type: The choices are Yes or No. The usual setting is No.
Division > Master Options > Agent Can Modify Price: The choices are Yes or No. The usual setting is No.
Division > Master Options > Agent Can Modify Qty: The choices are Yes or No. The usual setting is Yes.
Division > Master Options > Print on Option Sheet: The choices are Yes or No. The usual setting is Yes.
Division > Master Options > Option Selection Type: The choices are Both, Sales Agent, or Design Center. Both is the usual setting.
Transfer Available Plan Option - Cost Field: This controls any Cost data sent from WMS for an Available Option attached to a Subdivision Floor Plan. Your choices here are Yes or No. Yes means Cost data will be imported. No means it will be ignored. The usual setting is Yes.
Transfer Subdivision Floor Plan - Cost Field: This controls any Cost data sent from WMS for a Subdivision Floor Plan. Your choices here are Yes or No. Yes means Cost data will be imported. No means it will be ignored. The usual setting is Yes.
Transfer Available Plan Option - Cost Field: This controls any Available Plan Option costs sent from WMS. Yes means cost data will be imported. No means it will be ignored. The usual setting is Yes.
Contract Export Trigger: Your choices here are Contract or Approved. Contract means that the sale of a lot will be transferred to WMS when a customer is taken to contract. Approved means that the sale of a lot will be transferred to WMS when an Approval Date is entered. The usual setting is Contract.

In addition to establishing the above key information, Sales Simplicity also needs to be configured in order to accept the Lot Swing field value that comes from the Job Setup screen within WMS. Talk to the Sales Simplicity representative to make the necessary adjustments to accommodate the Lot Swing field value from WMS.

Sales Simplicity requires that options have a value in the Unit of Measure (UOM) field. WMS does not send a unit of measure, therefore the user may get a prompt to provide a unit of measure when looking at that particular option in Sales Simplicity.

Recommendations from Sales Simplicity

Please note: If divisions are to be set up in Sales Simplicity prior to the integration of Sales Simplicity and WMS (although implementing before WMS is not recommended), the divisions should be numbered to match those used in WMS. Divisions in WMS equate to an entire database, the first of these numbered D1. If any additional divisions (databases) are created in WMS, they will be numbered D2, D3, and so on. It is extremely important that this numbering convention be followed in Sales Simplicity, as the division number is the one piece of integration information that cannot be changed after its initial creation in Sales Simplicity.

Also note that subdivisions, called “areas” in WMS, can be numbered arbitrarily (but they must be unique within the builder's database), then changed in Sales Simplicity, if needed, once the WMS database is set up, as this number is editable after its initial creation. Sales Simplicity strongly recommends numbering the subdivisions/areas to match in both programs PRIOR to activating the integration for the first time. If this recommendation is not followed, new subdivisions will be created when they are not expected.

Please be aware that Sales Simplicity requires at least one phase per subdivision. all subdivision > lots will be imported into the “first” phase in any given subdivision. Therefore, there cannot effectively be more than one phase per subdivision.

Builder 1440 Required Setup

Prior to doing any integration, the following series of steps must be followed. Review this section and determine what choices are best for the company.

Obtain the builder code by contacting Builder1440. This code is a unique builder identifier and is tied to the product license.
Establish the administrator name (goes in to the adminname attribute); this represents the builder super user ID to used when running updates (records are tagged by time and user, and a specific user must be used). Obtain this information from Builder1440.
Ensure the data in Builder1440 is set up correctly.Ideally, when applicable, data should match what is in WMS. For example:
- An option MUST HAVE a type and category associated to it. Options in Builder 1440 are associated to both an option type and option category. Set up the option types and option categories in Builder 1440, then enter options and make sure they have the right type and category assigned.
- Builder 1440 requires that each division code be unique within a builder.
- Builder 1440 requires that each division option code be unique within a division.
- Before an option is available in a specific plan in a community, it needs to be added into the division level first. This can be referred to as the "Master Option List." After it is added at the division level, it can be distributed to the community/plan level.
- If construction cutoff phases are being used to designate when the option should/should not be sold, then make sure that those phases have already been added into Builder 1440 as well.
- In order for an option to be available in certain rooms of the house, the rooms first need to be created at the division level, then added to each plan/elevation.

Things to Note About Builder 1440

Builder 1440 software follows a customer-centric workflow (typical workflow is to select or enter a customer, then select the home information). Two types of import functions for Builder 1440 are the Pricing import and Customer import. Pricing import is used to add, delete, or update general pricing and lot construction status database records within the B1440 product. Customer import is used to add customer records within the B1440 product. These are features that are “turned on” for each builder and have separate costs associated with them.

Three main pieces of data used to identify a record are included in the .XML file received from Builder 1440: a configuration ID, a job or lot number, and a model or plan that is built on the job/lot. Since Builder 1440 can allow reuse of a configuration ID on the same lot for the same customer, the potential for errors increases when importing to Sales Pricing. To help address this potential problem, WMS version 4.2.7 and above allows the reuse of previously-used or deleted configuration IDs.

WMS supports the configurations from Builder 1440 included in “Table 1: Builder1440 and BuilderMT Supported Configurations” below. WMS, however, will accept any Delete configuration imported from Builder 1440. If a customer attempts to import an unsupported configuration into Sales Pricing (for example, a “lot reservation”), an error will not appear, but the WMS event log will contain a list of rejected (unsupported) configurations, and proceed to locate and process the next configuration found in the .XML file. For example, if WMS encounters a new “lot hold” configuration from Builder 1440, it will be rejected (e.g., not added to the database). However, it will be accepted if it imports as aDelete configuration if it already imported as a previous Add configuration.

Builder 1440	WMS
Sale	Sale
Spec Home	Spec Home
Ratified Sale	Ratified Sale
Settled Sale	Settled Sale (supported in WMS 4.5.0 and later)
Lot Proposals	Delete (otherwise rejected)
Lot Reservations	Delete (otherwise rejected)
Inactive Spec Home	This is a delete for a spec home
Lot Hold	Delete (otherwise rejected)

Table 1: Builder1440 and WMS Supported Configurations

Only the base information, division, community and lot information are provided in the Builder 1440 .XML import file for a deleted configuration. The base information is the only section that is always provided. All other blocks of information are optional and are only supplied if data exists. For example, the lender information will not be supplied if no lender exists.