MYOB Advanced Tips & Tricks - How to Use Business Events in MYOB Advanced to Automate Processes

Business Events offer a powerful solution to respond to data changes by generating email notifications and updating business data. This empowers you to automate intricate business processes effortlessly, without the need for programming. As MYOB Advanced is dedicated to continuous innovation and enhancement, we are excited to introduce additional options for notifications and data updates, including SMS messaging and activity creation.

Business automation scenarios

The system allows you to automate many diverse business scenarios, such as:

• Warning customers of upcoming invoice due dates.
• Notifying customers when their orders are ready for delivery or pickup.
• Updating (closing or re-assigning) sales opportunities X days past their expected close.
• Notifying support personnel when case SLAs are not being met.
• Reminding customers to order if they have quarterly budget remaining.
• Notifying warehouse personnel to be on the lookout of incoming shipments.

The flexibility of Business Events can be used to support several other scenarios.

In this blog post, we will showcase a solution that effectively manages support cases. Our business offers customers the convenience of creating support cases through our user-friendly online portal.

We understand that customers often submit support cases without providing sufficient information for our support personnel to resolve the issue promptly. Therefore, it is crucial to keep these cases on track to deliver excellent customer service. To address this challenge, we have implemented an automated system that streamlines various tasks, allowing our support team to focus on assisting customers rather than constantly following up on information requests.

To do this, we will:

• Notify the case creator/customer when additional information is required to continue working on the case.
• Send an automated reminder to the customer if five days have passed without receiving any information.
• Automatically notify the customer and close the case after 10 days have passed without receiving required information.
  
  

MYOB Advanced Implementation: Customer support case management

Business events in MYOB Advanced are generically configured as described below.

1. Build a Generic Inquiry that includes the data you want to monitor
2. Define how you will monitor the data
   1. Monitor continuously as records are changed
   2. Monitor according to a user defined schedule
3. Define the criteria for taking action
   1. Set triggers based on data field changes
   2. Set triggers based on data record adds/deletes/changes
4. Build the actions to take when your trigger criteria are met
   1. Create email templates to notify people
   2. Create import scenarios to change data records

In this example, we create three business events to help us manage support cases.

During the implementation, we explore options and show how easily the criteria can be modified.

Step 1: Select data

MYOB Advanced Business Events are driven from Generic Inquiries. To begin the implementation, we need to write a generic inquiry that contains the following:

• Monitoring: All data fields that you want to monitor must be included.
• Triggers: Include all data fields that you will use to decide when to react (i.e. case status and change date)
• Action Schedules: Include data to be used in the conditions for your schedule.
• Email Notifications: Include data fields that you want to paste into your email (i.e. customer name)

To simplify the process, I used a generic inquiry that already exists in my demo data called Cases. 

Step 2: Create a Business Event

Business Events include data, monitoring conditions, triggers, and subscribers. In this example, subscribers are either email notifications or import scenarios.

For the first event, we want to help customer service notify customers when they need additional data. To do this, we define the fields in the screen below. 

1. Create a new Business Event (System Management>System Preferences>Business Events)
2. Define an Event ID.
3. Select the generic inquiry with the data you want to monitor.
4. Define the monitoring type. In this example, the system monitors when a record in the inquiry changes.
5. Define the trigger conditions. When a case is changed, the system determines if the case status is ‘pending customer’. If so, the system initiates the actions defined in the subscribers tab. Subscribers are activities that are performed when my trigger conditions are met.

For this event, I want to email the customer, so I click Create Subscriber and select Email Notification.

I define the notification template below.

1. Enter a notification template description.
2. Select a system email account that the email will arrive from. There is only one email in the demo data, but an actual implementation may utilise support@SomeURL.com.
3. Select the destination email address. This is the address of the Contact on the support case. In my demo data, the Contact Email was not available, so I opened the generic inquiry called Cases and added a field containing the email address that I wanted to select as shown below.
4. Add a subject. By clicking the magnifying glass on the line, you can add data fields from your generic inquiry.
5. Create your email using the editor. Note that I added information about the case and created a URL string so the recipient can open the support case with one click.

Set the Business Event as Active and save your new Business Event.

Step 3: Test

To test this event, simply enter a support case as shown below.

After you save the record, open the screen ‘Emails Pending Processing’ and uncheck the Assigned to Me box. Then you will see that the notification has been created and added to the list of emails that will be sent.

If you activate the email scheduler, then the email is sent automatically.

When you click on the email subject, you can see the email that will be sent to your customer.

Implement Business Event 2: Trigger by Schedule

For the second event, we want to move cases forward by automatically reminding customers that they have cases that require input. Automating this process will keep cases moving without creating busywork for support personnel.

In this example, I demonstrate how to create a schedule to inspect data.

1. In this case, the Type ‘Trigger by Schedule’ exposes a new tab where I can define an automatically recurring process to check the conditions. The scheduler will run even when nobody changes the record.
2. I added two additional conditions.
   1. The reason condition (if activated) allows me to be more specific about when to create an email. This allows me to tailor my email to the situation.
   2. Since I plan to run the process one time per day, I inspect the Status Change Date to determine when the case is between five-and-six days old.

The subscribers tab allows me to create a notification template similar to the first example. This is illustrated below.

Next, I navigate to the schedule tab and create a schedule. The schedule is set to run automatically and initiate the business event. In this case, I set the schedule to run daily at 5 pm. Do not forget to activate the schedule.

Testing this example is more difficult because it requires a case that is between five-and-six days old.

Implement Business Event 3: Trigger by Schedule with Record Change

For the third event, we want to automatically close cases which seem to have been abandoned by the customer.

The implementation looks like Event 2 with a slightly different trigger condition.

I can use the same schedule that I created for Event 2.

In the subscribers tab below, notice there are two different activities to perform. The first activity involves creating an email as in the prior events. The second activity uses the power of integration services to modify the support case. In this example, the case will automatically be closed.

Below is the import scenario that will automatically close cases that are passed to it. The business event will only pass cases where the trigger conditions (status = Pending Customer, Status Changed Date > 10 days) are met.

Below are notes describing the screen shot above.

1. Screen name: Select the ‘Cases’ screen since we will be updating case records. Unlike other areas in Business Events, integration tools do not use the generic inquiry.
2. Provider: The system automatically creates a provider for your business event. Instead of having to specify a spreadsheet or other input, you can use the records linked to the generic inquiry that powers the business event.
3. Provider Object: Select Results so the output of your inquiry, including all data fields, are available to the import scenario.
4. Mapping Key: In the mapping section, your first record must specify the key to uniquely define the record. The key field(s) must be included in the output of your generic inquiry so they can be selected in the Source Field/Value column.
5. Fields to Update: Include values for all fields that you want to update. In this example, we only need to change the Status field from ‘Pending Customer’ to Closed. 
6. Always remember to place an “Action: Save” step at the end or your scenario will not work.
   
   

Testing the Result

Before testing the results, I ran the generic inquiry and created a filter that was identical to the Trigger Conditions in the business event. The result of this query shows a record that should be changed when I activate the automation schedule.

Next, I activated my Automation Schedule. After doing this, I switch to my Business Event screen to see if the event was processed.

From this screen, I see that the Business Event was executed. This should have caused two things to happen. First, an email should be queued to the case creator. Second, the case above should be closed.

By opening the case, I can see that the status was automatically changed.

And on the Emails Pending Processing screen, you will see that several emails have been created to notify users that their cases were closed.

Extending the support-related example

Configuring additional customer support events is easy. Here are a few examples of things that can be automated:

• More Granular Messages: You can introduce the reason field on cases to create business events with different email instructions depending on whether you are waiting for input or waiting for acceptance.
• Case Oriented Responses: You can use the case class to provide different actions depending on the type of support case – you may want to prepare a different schedule for urgent cases than for billing questions.
• Customer Exceptions: You can utilize business account fields so persnickety clients do not receive notifications.
• Keep Others in the Loop: Include the salesperson ID or other field in your inquiry so you can notify salespeople when their clients open support cases.

Additional Business Automation Examples

I demonstrated a straightforward example that focused on customer support processes, but the power of Business Events extends beyond just that. These events can be applied to any object within MYOB Advanced, allowing for endless possibilities and automation across various areas of your business.

• Client Budget: Suppose you have a client with several employees who place orders with you. The billing contact wants to be notified when his organization is approaching a monthly budget. Using MYOB Advanced Business Events, you can easily configure this scenario to provide best-in-class service to your customers.
• Process Completed: Business Events can be used to notify people when critical processes are completed. Assume there are several employees that want to run reports as soon as you close a financial period. You can easily configure a process so that the minute a financial period is closed, relevant employees are notified by email.
• Purchase Delayed: Using a dashboard, you can track overdue purchase receipts, but using Business Events, you can provide additional business automation and notifications. Assume your warehouse manager needs to verify that goods shipped from an off-shore supplier are going to arrive on time. Using Business Events, you can email the purchasing manager seven days prior to the expected receipt of the goods so he can call the vendor and make sure that things are on track.
  
  

MYOB Advanced Business Events streamline your business processes

MYOB Advanced Business Events offer a robust solution for streamlining and automating your business processes without the need for programming or customisation. These events work hand-in-hand with MYOB Advanced dashboards to drive productivity and efficiency. While dashboards provide real-time visual data for those regularly logged into MYOB Advanced, Business Events deliver near-real-time notifications to employees who require infrequent updates or external contacts without system logins.

What sets MYOB Advanced Business Events apart is their ability to be tailored specifically to your business needs. The flexible framework and user-friendly interface empower non-technical individuals to configure scenarios on-the-fly, ensuring that the automation aligns perfectly with your unique internal processes.

By leveraging MYOB Advanced Business Events, you can automate tasks and workflows, resulting in improved efficiency and enhanced communication across your organisation. If you have any questions or need assistance with MYOB Advanced Business Events, please don't hesitate to reach out to us. We're here to help you optimise your business operations.