Overview

A warranty defines how physical goods bought by customers can be replaced, either free of charge or upon payment, within a specific period after the purchase. Warranties are provided based on configured warranty policies that provide the rules that the warranty follows. Warranty policies establish the physical goods covered by the warranty, the period following their purchase for which the warranty is valid, and the cases in which the warranty offers a free replacement. Warranties are then automatically applied by the system on physical good during the sale. As there can be multiple warranty policies in effect applicable to a physical good, the latest warranty policy set up in the system is the one applied.

Major features

• Automatic application of warranty to goods sold through jobs but not to rented goods
• Automatic determination of warranty coverage of a good through service requests
• Transferring warranty coverage between exchanged items
• Billing of replaced physical goods with warranty coverage
• Moving damaged replaced items to specific warehouses
  
• Preview warranties used through dashboards

Setting Up Warranty Policies

Warranty Policies Coverage Reasons

Warranty coverage reasons are used to determine whether or not a physical good under warranty will be replaced without charge.  Once the coverage reasons are configured, they must be added to warranty policies, where it can be determined whether goods replaced using the coverage reason will be replaced free of charge or not,
i.e. the same coverage reason may cover the replacement of a physical good (for free) when selected for one warranty policy, and not cover the replacement when selected for a different warranty policy

Warranty Policies

A warranty policy defines how physical goods bought by customers can be replaced, within a specific period after the purchase. 

Multiple warranty policies can be set up and the most appropriate one will be automatically applied at the time of sale or swap of the good provided the conditions defined in the policy are met, and the policy has an 'Effective' life cycle state. The life cycle state can be changed between 'Effective' and 'Not Effective' using the dedicated action. 

Warranty policy fields

The table describes the sections of Warranty Policy Data Entry page, and explains how the fields in the page are used.

 Mandatory   Configurable

Main Information
Duration: Determines the period for which a physical good will be covered by the policy, and can be configured in Days, Weeks, Months, Years Life Cycle State: The Life Cycle State of the Warranty Policy which can be: 'Effective' or 'Not Effective'. Note that only 'Effective' warranty policies can be applied on physical goods. Company Responsibilities: a free text area that describes the obligation of the retailer regarding the coverage of the Physical Goods by the Warranty Policy. Customer Responsibilities: a free text area that describes the obligation of the customer regarding the coverage of the Physical Goods by the Warranty Policy.
Validity
The period during which the warranty policy is available to be used when selling physical goods and is defined by an Effective and an Expiration Date. Providing an Effective Date is always mandatory, while the Expiration Date can be left empty if the Validity period is open-ended. The Validity period is used to determine which policy should be applied on goods when more than one policy is applicable. The policy with the most recent Valid From Date is applied and has priority over Always Valid Policies.
Coverage for Physical Goods
The physical goods that can be covered by the policy. Specific products, product types, product brands, or product families can be defined. Each policy must include at least one of the aforementioned product categories which can only be traceable Physical Goods can be specified.
Allowed Coverage Reasons
Coverage Reason: Define the reasons listed and available for selection when replacing a physical good which is covered by a warranty policy. For each reason use Provide Coverage field to indicate whether or not a replaced physical good (using this reason) will be covered by the warranty policy. (i.e. replaced for free or replaced with charge) If Provides Coverage is enabled then the item can be swapped free of charge. If Provides Coverage is not enabled then the new swapped item will be charged. i.e. the customer will have to pay for it.) Replacement Under Coverage Policy: For each reason, the 'under coverage' policy to be used following the replacement must be selected. The available options are: Carry Over Remaining Duration: The remaining warranty policy of the replaced physical good is transferred to the new physical good. Apply New Warranty: The replacement physical good will be assigned a new warranty policy, provided one is available. No Warranty: The new physical good will not be assigned a warranty policy.
Allowed Organisational Units
The Organisational Units to which the user that sells or swaps the physical good should belong to for the warranty policy to be applied on the physical good.

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Related Configuration

The following modules are related to Warranty Policies and must be configured for the Warranty Policies module to operate at its full capacity.

Using Warranty Policies

Providing warranty to sold goods

Warranties can be provided to traceable physical goods sold to customers based on the configured warranty policies. The process is automatic (no user interaction is required) and takes place when selling physical good through Jobs of any fulfillment scope. Once a physical good eligible to a warranty is added to the job the system will decide which warranty policy should be provided. 

If the good is eligible to more than one warranty policy, the system will apply the one that has the most recent Valid From Date.  A warranty policy that is always valid has a lower priority than one with a Valid From Date. 
Once the warranty policy is determined the system will:

• Set the warranty policy on the installed Item
• Set the warehouse issue date equal to the current date, noting the day that the good was actually sold and removed from the company's warehouse
• Set the warranty coverage period, calculated by adding the warranty's duration to the warehouse issue date

Replacing physical good with warranty

Customers at any point may request to replace an owned physical good for various reasons; for example, due to a technical issue, or because they good has been stolen or because they would like to upgrade to a new one. If their existing physical good is under warranty, the system has the capability to check whether the replacement will be done for free.

When a customer requests a replacement of an owned physical good, a job of fulfillment scope 'swap subscription installed item' or 'replace physical good' must be used. The system considers the warranty policy applied on the existing physical good (if any) and according to the user-selected coverage reason determines whether to:

• Provide the replacement physical good free of charge
• Apply a new warranty policy for the replaced physical good
• Apply no warranty policy for the replaced physical good
• Transfer the warranty policy applied on the existing physical good to the new one.

The following steps describe how to check whether a physical good to be swapped is under warranty, and if so, how to select the reason of replacement which will in turn determine if the new physical good will be charged or not.

1. Create a new Job of a type having either a 'Swap subscription installed item' or 'Replace physical good' fulfillment scope and provide the contact and account details, in order for the system to load the customer's physical goods.
2. In the Items section select under the respective tab 'Requested Subscription Physical Goods' or 'Requested Physical Goods To Be Replaced' (depending on the fulfillment scope of the job), the physical good to be replaced

3. If the warranty still covers the physical good then the following related information is made available.

   1. Warranty policy: Displays the name of the warranty applied on the good. 
      Click on the link to view the applied Warranty.
   2. Coverage Reason: Select the coverage reason from the drop down list.
      
      
      

   3. Covered: Once the reason is specified the Covered value is set. The value can either be 'Yes' or 'No'.

      • No  = The new physical good will be charged

      • Yes  = The new physical good will not be charged
        
        

4. Proceed with providing the rest of the information required to save and complete the Job

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Viewing warranties applied on physical goods

If you would like to know if a physical good has a warranty applied to it, or historic data with regards to warranties applied to a physical good then the information is all available in the Manage Installed Items Data Entry page.

1. Navigate to Foundation > Inventory Management > Manage Installed Item
2. Go to Warranty Policy Tab 
   1. Warranty Policy:  The applied warranty
   2. Warranty Expiration Date: The date which the good will not longer be covered by warranty
   3. Warehouse Issue Date: The date which the good was moved from the warehouse to the customer, which is used to calculate the expiration date by adding the duration set on the warranty policy and the issue date.
3. Change History
   1. Warranty Policy:  When the warranty policy is removed from a physical good which was replaced by a new one, then it is shown here
   2. Coverage Reason: When the warranty policy is removed from a physical good which was replaced by a new one then the coverage reason of the replacement is shown here 

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Determining warranty policy applied upon replacement

On replacing a physical good (via Jobs) the system determines whether:

• the existing physical good is Under Coverage, in which case it will be replaced free of charge 
• the warranty policy on the existing physical good will be transferred to the new physical good
• No warranty policy will be applied to the new physical good
• a new warranty policy will be applied to the new physical good

On replacing the physical good the system acts according to the Replacement under Coverage Policy defined on the selected coverage reason (on the Warranty Policy) to determine if a warranty policy will be applied on the physical good and if so which one.

Replacement under Coverage Policy has three possible values:

• Carry Over Remaining Duration
  • The warranty policy is carried over to the new physical good.
  • The remaining warranty period is calculated and applied to the new physical good.
• Apply New Warranty
  • A new warranty policy is applied as in the case of a new Traceable physical good sold.
• No Warranty
  • No warranty policy is applied to the new physical good.

The diagram below displays how the warranty policy on the existing Installed Item (II) affects the warranty on the new item, during a replacement

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Identifying from which warehouse the item will be removed

Each time a physical good is swapped the system must determine the warehouses that goods will be moved to and from, based on the Inventory Management Definitions and the warranty coverage.

The following diagrams display the warehouses that physical goods will be moved to and from, depending on whether or not they are covered by a warranty.

Warehouse transaction movements when the replacement physical good is provided free of charge

• Covered By Warranty:  Coverage Reason Includes Coverage 

Warehouse transaction movements when the replacement physical good is not covered by Warranty

Not Covered By Warranty: 

• Coverage Reason does not include Coverage
• Warranty on existing item has expired
• No Warranty exists

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Warranty Policies Analytics

Dashboards 

Dashboards make information regarding the key performance indicators of applied warranties from a single integrated view. Dashboards are made up of components such as charts and summary tables. Refer to Dashboards for information on their use and set-up.

Dashboard components

Jobs per Coverage Reason per Month 

The component displays the jobs that were raised within the last 12 months grouped by warranty coverage reasons, in a stacked bar and can be filtered using warranty coverage reason, job type and status as well as physical goods.

Note that only jobs of Swap Subscription Installed Item type are retrieved and as long as the requested physical goods include a warranty coverage reason.

Service Requests per Coverage Reason per Month Stacked Bar Component

The component displays the service requests that were raised within the last 12 months, grouped by warranty coverage reasons, in a stacked bar and can be filtered using warranty coverage reason, job type and status as well as physical goods.

Reports

Information can be extracted in a structured format for analysis by using reports. The included in the report are selected and grouped based on user defined criteria. The user can select the fields displayed in the report.
Refer to Reports for information on their use.

Warranty Policies for physical goods

The report provides all the physical good that have been sold and are covered by a warranty policy and it is available under Inventory Management Reports

Physical Goods Covered represent Physical Good sold with a Warranty and which are still covered by the Warranty, while Physical Goods Sold represent Physical Good which were sold or replaced based on the specified warranty policy and may or may not still be under Warranty.

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Printouts

A printout displays all the information associated to the warranty of an installed item. It is available through the Data Entry page of Installed Items in one of the following formats: HTML, XLS, CSV, RTF, PDF.

Refer to  Printouts for information on how they can be created, printed and sent.

Warranty Policy Printout

Warranty Policy Printout displays detailed information of an installed item's warranty policy coverage in terms of duration and coverage reasoning.  The printout is available through Installed Items data entry page and unlike other printouts, it is not available for sending by email.

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Business Examples

Apply Warranty to replace damaged Physical Goods free of charge

Replace Physical Good and charge for its replacement