Zones

SME Zones, WorkGroups, Warehouse, Technician and Subcontractor Setup

SME has a number of ways to organize customers, warehouses, and workers for categorizing work orders or for simplifing dispatching. Although zones and work groups can be used for different purposes, this article will go over some typical scenarios for zones and work groups.

Zones: Use for multiple divisions of an organization.

SME will support an organization spread over geographic zones and covering multiple divisions. If you have a large organization covering the west coast area with different divisions for Washington state, Oregon, San Francisco, and Los Angeles it really wouldn't make since to try to scehdule technicians from Washington to do a job in LA. Also it wouldn't make sense to try to utilize parts in a Washington warehouse for a job in LA. SME zones can help manage these different divisions.

In order to setup SME to handle these geographically dispursed divisions, you want to setup Zones for each division. Once you setup zones, they you assign technicians and subcontractors to each zone and you assign warehouses for each zone including a default warehouse for the zone. Follow these steps:

1. Setup Zones in Setup>Company>Lists. Zone setup must be done first before setting up warehouses, techs and work groups.
2. If you want to setup warehouse by Zone, then setup warehouses and assign to zones. Warehouse setup is also in Setup>Company>Lists>Warehouses.
   1. Create a new warehouse or edit an existing warehouse
   2. Set the zone for the warehouse.
   3. If this is intended to be the default warehouse for this zone or division, then select "default warehouse for zone".
   4. Setup zones for ALL warehouses. If you are assigning warehouses to zones, then every warehouse should be assigned to a zone.
3. Setup Techs and assign to zones.
   1. If techs will only be working within one zone, then select a zone for the technician.
   2. Tech zones are setup in Setup>Users and select the zone for the tech
   3. If a technician is available for multiple zones, you can leave the zone blank and they will show in all zones.
4. Setup Subcontractors and assign to zones
   1. Select Inventory>Vendors and select the subcontractor
   2. Select the zone for the subcontractor
   3. If a subcontractor is available for multiple zones, you can leave the zone blank and they will show in all zones.
5. Setup work groups
   1. If a work group is only applicable to a specific zone, then set the zone for that workgroup
   2. Go to work group editor in Utilities>Utilities>Work Group Editor
   3. If a work group is set with no zone, then that work group can apply to multiple zones. If a work group is set to a specific zone, then it's only applicable to the specific zone.
   4. Leave zone blank if you want the work group to apply to any zone.
6. Setup customers or sites to specific zones
   1. The final step is to setup your customers or job sites to specific zones. This will identify the customers to the zones so it will help find warehouses and workers related to the customer's zone area.