Projects
Projects, the starting point for Rebates, are used to manage rebate rules.
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Projects, the starting point for Rebates, are used to manage rebate rules.
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Projects are the starting point for the Rebates module. A project is a collection of rebate rules. You can have as many projects as required to efficiently manage your rules and meet the needs of your supply chain.
You typically use a project to organize rules, so before you start creating projects and rules, take a minute to think about how you want to structure those projects.
The rules in a project don’t have to be related to each other. However, they do need to be based on the same Phocas database and stream. You will need several projects if your rebate rules are based on more than one Phocas database or different streams within a database.
In summary, you can have multiple projects linked to one database, and separate projects for different databases.
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Click Rebates in the Phocas navigation menu to open the Rebates homepage.
If you are just starting with the Rebates module, you’ll have no projects, so the grid will be empty. Otherwise, the grid will display a list of all your organization’s projects. To open a project, click the its name (blue link). What happens next depends on whether the project has been set up or not:
If the project has already been set up, you’ll land on the project page, which contains a list of its rules. You can then proceed to manage the rules as required. To open the project setup screen, click Setup in the top-right corner.
If the project has not been set up yet (you have just created the project), you land on the Project Setup screen. You can then proceed to set up the project as required before adding rules.
To close an individual project page and return to your homepage, click the Close button in the top-right corner.
There are two ways to create a project in Rebates: clone an existing project or create a new one from scratch.
Cloning a project is the simplest and quickest option, as you base the new project on one that you already have set up, taking advantage of existing rules, and so on. Cloning also saves time if you need to duplicate several rules, which is useful in the following situations:
To create a backup project before making changes to rules.
To create a draft project to experiment with different scenarios, such as calculating different commissions.
To roll all the rules within a project over to the next financial year, without having to recreate them all.
On your Rebates homepage, select the project you want to clone by clicking the number to the left of its name, then click Clone.
Enter a name for the new project.
(Optional) Change the validation period that applies to the rules within the project: Select the Alter Validation Period checkbox, then use one of these methods to set the period:
Select Increment and enter the number of months by which you want to change the period. For example, if the validation period for your project started on 1 July 2023, entering 12 would move the start date by 12 months to 1 July 2024.
Select Fixed Dates and select the period start date (mandatory) and end date (optional).
Click Clone.
On your Rebates homepage, click New Project.
Enter a name (required) and description (optional) for the project.
Select a database to use for your rule calculations.
The dropdown list displays all Phocas databases to which you have access. If you cannot see the required database in the list, contact your administrator and request access to that database.
As the project holds a collection of rebate rules, the type of rule you want to create in this project helps you select the correct database. Typically, payable rebates are based on a Sales database and receivable rebates are based on a Purchases database. If you plan on having both types of rebate rules in the project, you’ll need to select a database that contains both sales and purchases data.
Click Save.
After you create a project using either of the methods above, you’ll see the name of the new project in the grid along with the name of the underlying database. If you cloned another project, you’ll see the new project has the same description as the original one.
Your new project is not yet ready for use; you need to set up the project before you can add any rules.
Click the project name. If you are setting up the project for the first time, the Project Setup window opens automatically. If not, the project page opens, in which case, click Setup in the top-right corner.
The project setup is organized into several sections, as outlined below.
You can only delete one project at a time. When you delete a project, you also delete all the rules it contains. This action cannot be reversed.
On your Rebates homepage, select the project and click Delete, then click Yes to confirm.
Rather than delete a project, you can deactivate it. You can then reactivate it later. When you deactivate a project, you also deactivate the project's rules.
By default, projects are active, as indicated by the selected Active checkbox in the Project Setup. To deactivate a project, clear (deselect) the Active checkbox.
Select which measures from the database to use to calculate the quantity and value rebates for all the rules in the project. This is separate from the for an individual rule, which might use one of those same measures, or a different measure altogether. For example, a project’s rules might pay fixed amounts per quantity measure Pallets and/or a percentage of the value measure Value (USD).
When you have set up the project as required, click Save. You land on the project’s page, where you can proceed to or edit the project setup (click Setup) if required.
