Hello All Sales associates,
Just to let you know that there have been several major updates to the web application since you first saw it in December. Many of these were made in response to suggestions from users like yourselves. I want to personally invite you to login and check out some of the new features. If you don’t have a login (or can’t remember it) then contact us by email and we’ll get you fixed up.
Below is a brief listing and general description of some of these new features and how they might benefit you either at home or when you’re on the road.
- Availabilities
- Make an Order online
- The Query pages (orders and shipments)
- the Online Help system
- The new CMTmobile service
1) AVAILABILITIES
By far the most popular tool in the application is the “Availability” page. Using a style and color code you can look up the size availability of an item. With this you will know if it’s available for immediate shipment or when it will be. This page has been updated to include a ‘Style-color Lookup’ page so if you don’t have the style-color codes handy you can just look them up by their description, category, class, division, partial style-color code, etc. Once you have located the items you can save them to a list. With the list you can check on one availability after the other in very little time. You can also export each result to your own PC if you need to with the new export tool.
2) MAKE an ORDER online
You can create a skeleton order that will supply enough information to get your order in first. The customer’s information is automatically completed in this order just by entering the customer’s customer number. If you can’t remember your customer’s ID then there is a Lookup page for that too where you can search for your customer by name, city, state, zip code, partial number, etc. Once you find them you just click them and it’s entered for you.
Items in this order contain the style-color code and the quantities of each required size for the item, along with manually entered ship and cancel dates. As you add or edit items an integrated availability table shows you the items status and provides a guideline for the ship date you must enter.
Best of all your order is date stamped so office operators knows whose order arrived first.
3) The Query pages (orders and shipments)
These were the original pages of the initial system but there have been some updates here too. You can still lookup order and shipment information (master and details) by a number of filter settings but now it is easier to find and load these settings. You can use this page to find out if your order was processed and that the line items are correct. You can check to see if the order has shipped or what has shipped and what has not. Regardless of where you start in these pages you’ll be able to access a cross reference to shipment, order or availability information from the details you are on. So you could get that tracking number even you’re in orders, or you can check the availability of that item that didn’t ship. Best of all you can export your result pages to your own PC if you want to.
4) the online Help system
Putting an online apparel system together is no easy task. On one hand, are the intrinsic limitations of the internet and web pages; on the other, is the very nature of the industry that sets a level of complexity which is difficult to smooth over. We think we have managed the compromise. The system is relatively easy to use (especially for those who have an understanding of the industry already). We have also added a context controlled 'Help' system incase you should have a problem or question about what you should or can do. To access the help files simply click the button and when the help opens just click on the topic it suggests. The help page opens in a separate window allowing you to continue your work while accessing the information you need. If the suggested topic is not what you want just click the search and see what help topics are available. You can even try a search for your topic.
5) The new CMTmobile service
We have recently introduced the CMTmobile service. The main purpose is to give those salesmen using a PDA or some other mobile device, a way to access availabilities on these devices. It takes a separate login which is the same as your CMTonline login. If you are a salesman then you are given a summary of your sales and shipment activity since January 1st. After that you can click a button to take you to the 'UPC input' page. Here you can enter a UPC number or a style-color number and get the availability for that item. Once you have that item displayed you can check on different colors by using the drop down color list and 'GO' button. By attaching a barcode scanner to your PDA you can simply scan in the UPC or the catalog style-color barcode into the page. This application is accessed with the following URL.
http://www.cmtsys.com/CMTmobile/Logon.aspx
Also, If you need more help or have a specific question then please contact us, we are here to help.
