Find and Edit Customer

Find Customers (as well as employers, suppliers and, in general, parties of any type and in any role) using the Party Manager application. You will also find shortcuts to the Find Party function from various screens within many of the Managers to enable gathering or changing information about a party, whether Customer, Vendor, Employee, or whatever role the party might be in.

• Go to the Party Manager
  The Party Manager is designed to administer information about Parties, including their identity, their roles, how to contact them, etc. Each party is given a specific Party ID which represents them as they interact within OfBiz. Groups of parties are recognized and assigned a Group ID.
  • What is a 'Party'?
    A 'Party' in Open For Business is a person or a group of parties, which can be persons or other party groups. Sometimes a party is described as a vendor, an employee, et cetera, but these are just 'roles' that a party may be associated with.
    • Roles and Contact Mechanisms
      One type of related data is Contact Mechanisms such as postal addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, internet URLs. Another is Roles that the Party acts in such as Customer, Supplier, Employee, Manager, Merchandiser, etc. Generally a single party will interact with different parts of the system in many different roles.
    • Communications and Agreements
      Another type of data that fits into the Party category is information about communication and agreements between Parties. This gets into the area of relationship management and also includes information about issues or trouble tickets that a Party may have. These entities are used along with the Work Effort entities to plan and track the research and resolution of such issues.
  • Use the Party Manager tab
    To get to the Party Manager while logged into any of the other OFBiz manager applications just click on the 'Party' tab near the top of the page.

• Select the Find link
  • "Find is the default screen in the Party Manager.
    

• Enter known information
  This includes information like Party ID, User Login, Last Name, First Name, Party Group Name, and Role Type.
  • Adding data focuses search
    The more information entered, the more specific will be the find. However, only one of the boxes need be completed to do a search. The search returns all Party IDs sharing the entered information. For example, if only 'Chicago' were entered under the City box, all Parties with a Chicago address are returned.
  • To expand your search ...
    Conversely, the less information entered, the broader the results. For example, if only two letters of a last name is entered, all the Parties with the last name containing those letters will be returned.
  • Show All Records
    Check this box to show all Party records, even if no search criteria are entered.
    

• Click on Lookup Party(s)
  Returns a table of all Party(s) found matching your input. If more than a screenful, you may need to scroll through the pages of results using the Previous and Next links.

• Parties found
  The table of information for Parties found includes the Party ID #, User Login, Name, Type of party, and links to the [Details], [Orders], and [New Order]..2.1.1.7 Select desired party
  Must click on one of the links.

  • Party # or Details
    • Party Profile screen
      Takes you to the Party Profile screen from either of these links.
    • Continuity of selection
      Once a Party is selected, subsequent screen choices will be relative to the selected Party. If you wish to, for example, view the orders from another Party, first identify/specify the party before searching for orders.
  • Orders
    Takes you to the Order Manager and the Find Order(s) - (Order(s) Found screen, even if there are no orders existing. See Find Orders, below.
  • New Order
    Takes you to the Order Manager application, the first Order Entry screen, populating the Party ID box.