Describe transactions types and create quality orders

15 minutes

Quality orders can be created both manually and set up for automatic creation. Once you create a quality order, you're able to work with them to perform inspections and record test results in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management.

You can configure the system to automatically create quality orders based on item sampling rules.

To manually create a quality order, use the following steps:

Go to Inventory management > Periodic tasks > Quality management > Quality orders.
Select New.
In the Quality orders dialog box, in the Reference type field, select the inventory reference that your quality order is related to.
Follow one of these steps, depending on the value that you selected in the Reference type field:
1. If Inventory was selected, no other reference information is required.
2. If Sales or Purchase was selected, specify the following information:
  1. Account selection – Reference the customer or vendor number.
  2. Reference number – Reference the sales order or purchase order number.
  3. Reference lot – Reference the specific sales order line or purchase order line.
3. If you selected Production, Quarantine, or Co-product production, in the Reference number field, reference the production order, batch order, or quarantine order number.
4. If you selected Route operation, specify the following information:
  1. Reference number – Reference the production order or batch order number.
  2. Oper. no. – Reference the specific route operation number.
  3. Operation – Reference the specific route operation.
  4. Resource – Reference the specific resource that must be used with the route operation.
In the Test group field, select the group of tests that must be performed.
In the Quantity field, enter the quantity of items that must be tested.
In the Inventory dimensions section, enter any extra inventory dimensions that are required for the selected item.
Select OK.

After a quality order is created, you can begin to inspect the inventory and record the test results.

Quality order reference types

Quality orders are used to track the details of inspections and test results for specific inventory in your warehouse. A quality order must include a reference that represents the source of the inventory that is being tested. Quality orders can be related to the following reference types:

Inventory – This reference type indicates that you're inspecting inventory that is on hand. Inspections of this type are typically random or unplanned and are done when a warehouse worker identifies a problem.
Sales – This reference type indicates that you're inspecting inventory that is related to a specific sales order. Inspections of this type are typically related to customer specifications or the generation of a certificate of analysis (CoA) that must be provided to a customer as part of a shipment. (A CoA is sometimes also referred to as a certificate of compliance (CoC) ).
Purchase – This reference type indicates that you're inspecting inventory that is related to a purchase order. Inspections of this type are often used to inspect incoming goods before they're put into inventory or consumed in production processes.
Production – This reference type indicates that you're inspecting inventory that is related to a production order. Inspections of this type are often used to inspect finished goods before they're put into inventory.
Quarantine – This reference type indicates that you're inspecting inventory that is related to a quarantine order. Quarantine orders are a special type of order that tracks inventory in a segregated warehouse or a segregated area in your warehouse. Inspections of this type are often used to inspect goods that a customer has returned or that's been put into quarantine for further analysis. Quarantine orders can be generated from quality orders. Alternatively, they can be generated from other sources, and then quality orders can be related to the quarantine orders.
Route operation – This reference type indicates that you're inspecting inventory that is related to a specific step of the route for a production order. Inspections of this type are typically used to analyze the work in process (WIP) of a product before it moves to the next step in the production process.
Co-product production – This reference type indicates that you're inspecting inventory that is related to a coproduct of a production order. Inspections of this type are typically used to inspect the coproduct of a batch order before the coproduct is added to inventory.

View and create quality orders from various parts of the system

Quality orders can be manually created. Alternatively, they can be automatically created based on the quality associations that you define. For more information about how to create and manage the automatic creation of quality orders, see Quality associations.

You can use the quality order page to manually create a new quality order or view the status of a quality order that is related to another record. There are several ways to access the quality order page.

Create quality order from quality orders page

To manually create quality orders and view all existing quality orders, go to Inventory management > Periodic tasks > Quality management > Quality orders. The Following provides more information about how to work with the Quality orders page.

To work with quality orders that are related to your sales orders, go to Sales and marketing > Sales orders > All sales orders, and then follow any of these steps:
1. Open a sales order or select it in the grid. Then, on the Action Pane, on the Pick and pack tab, in the Quality management group, select Quality orders to open the Quality orders page. There, you can view, create, or update quality orders that are related to the sales order.
2. Open a sales order, and then, on the Header tab, select the General FastTab. The Quality order status field shows the overall status of all quality orders that are related to the sales order.
3. Open a sales order, and then, on the Lines tab, select the Sales order lines FastTab. The Quality order status column shows the status of each line of the sales order.
To work with quality orders that are related to your purchase orders, go to Procurement and sources > Purchase orders > All purchase orders, and then follow any of these steps:
1. Open a purchase order or select it in the grid. Then, on the Action Pane, on the Receive tab, in the Quality management group, select Quality orders to open the Quality orders page. There, you can view, create, or update quality orders that are related to the purchase order.
2. Open a purchase order, and then, on the Header tab, select the General FastTab. The Quality order status field shows the overall status of all quality orders that are related to the purchase order.
3. Open a purchase order, and then, on the Lines tab, select the Purchase order lines FastTab. The Quality order status column shows the status of each line of the purchase order.
To work with quality orders that are related to your production orders, go to Production control > Production orders > All production orders, and then follow any of these steps:
1. Open a production order or select it in the grid. Then, on the Action Pane, on the View tab, in the Manage quality group, select Quality orders to open the Quality orders page. There, you can view, create, or update quality orders that are related to the production order.
2. Open a production order or select it in the grid. Then, on the Action Pane, on the Production order tab, in the Production details group, select Route to open the Production route page. To view the quality orders that are related to a route operation, follow one of these steps:
  1. Select the target route operation in the grid. Then, on the Action Pane, select Inquiries > Quality orders.
  2. Select the value in the Oper. No. field for the target route operation to open its Production route details page. On the General FastTab, the Quality order status field shows the status for the quality orders that are related to the route operation.
3. Open a production order and select the General FastTab. The Quality order status field shows the status of the quality orders that are related to the production order.
To work with quality orders that are related to your quarantine orders, go to Inventory management > Periodic tasks > Quality management > Quarantine orders, and then follow any of these steps:
1. Review the values in the Quality order status column. In this way, you can learn the overall status of all quality orders that are related to each quarantine order in grid.
2. Select a quarantine order in the grid, and then, on the Action Pane, select Quality orders to view, create, or update quality orders that are related to the quarantine order.

Advanced actions for quality orders

You can take several actions on quality orders to manage the status, generate documents, and inquire about more details.

Reopen a quality order

By default, you can no longer edit or update a quality order after it has been validated and the tests have been passed. However, in some cases, you might have to reopen a quality order after it has been completed.

To reopen a quality order, follow these steps:

Go to Inventory management > Periodic tasks > Quality management > Quality orders.
Open the validated quality order or select it in the grid.
On the Action Pane, select Reopen quality order.

Create a certificate of analysis for quality order

A CoA is a report generated at an organization's quality assurance team. It validates that a product meets specific regulations or requirements. Your customers or regulatory establishments in your geopolitical location might require CoAs. They might also be required based on your industry and the type of products that you handle, purchase, produce, or sell.

Supply Chain Management lets you generate a CoA from a quality order. The report includes the results of any tests on the quality order where the Certificate of analysis report option is set to Yes. This option can be set by default, based on the test that you define on the Tests page. However, you can override the setting on specific tests for a specific quality order.

To generate a CoA for a quality order, follow these steps:

Go to Inventory management > Periodic tasks > Quality management > Quality orders.
Select the quality order that you want to create a CoA for.
On the Action Pane, select Inquiries > Certificate of analysis.
On the Certificate of analysis page, on the Action Pane, select New.
Optional: In the Contact field, select the contact person that the certificate should be addressed to.
On the Action Pane, select Print.
In the Certificate of analysis dialog box, define how the report should be printed. Then select OK to print the report to a printer, to the screen, to a file, or to email.

Block or unblock inventory for quality order

When a quality order is automatically generated from a quality association, the item sampling that is assigned to the quality association can be configured to block the full inventory quantity of the reference that is being tested. For more information about item samplings, see Quality management item sampling.

If you aren't using full blocking, or if you're manually creating a quality order, the system automatically creates an inventory blocking record for the quantity of the item that is being tested on the quality order. In the record that is created on the Inventory blocking page, the Inventory blocking type field is set to Quality order.

To view and edit the inventory blocking for a quality order that is selected on the Inventory blocking page, select Inquiries > Inventory blocking on the Action Pane. For more information, see Inventory blocking.

Inquire about details of quality order

Use the following buttons on the Action Pane of the Quality orders page to view more information about or related to a quality order:

Inquiries > Work details – Open a page where you can view warehouse work that is related to the quality order.
Inquiries > Non conformances – Open a page where you can view any non-conformances that's related to the quality order.
Inventory – The commands on this menu are common across all inventory transactions. You can use them view or update details such as transactions, on-hand inventory, reservations, and marking.

You can create cases that are related to quality orders. In this way, you can track details about issues and work toward a resolution. You can then use the workflow features of case management to route a case through a predefined business process to obtain extra approvals or get more information about a specific issue. You can also use the knowledge articles feature to create a knowledge base of resolutions for common issues.