In this lesson, we will explore the concept of an Installed Base and how it can be used to effectively manage and track products installed at customer locations. An Installed Base is a hierarchical representation of products at various customer sites, helping service agents streamline asset management and customer support. We will also discuss how to access and maintain these Installed Bases within the SAP Service Cloud Version 2.
What is an Installed Base?
An Installed Base of Registered Products and Installation Points
An installed base is a hierarchical arrangement of your products that are located or installed at a customer's location. If your customer has your products located at multiple locations, you could have an installed base per location. Alternatively, you could keep the one installed base for this customer but with the products' varying locations denoted as functional locations (also known as installation points) within it.
For example, assume a customer of yours is a rental car agency operating in two cities, with two rental locations in each. This could be represented in your system as an installed base of four functional locations/installation points (sites). If there are 25 cars per site, that’s 25 products and/or registered products.
Another example could be a hotel company’s exercise bikes as illustrated above. This is an installed base hierarchy comprising of two functional locations (cities), each with a hotel, but the one, larger hotel, is further sub-divided into two more functional locations because it has two gyms not one (different locations in the same building).
An installed base allows you to better track and manage your products at customer sites, enabling you to significantly streamline your customer service process.
A customer’s installed assets can:
- Be tracked.
- Each could have an employee responsible and maybe a primary technician assigned.
- Have their service histories tracked.
How to Access Installed Bases?
Service Agents can access the Installed Bases worklist from the navigation menu by searching for Installed Bases. From the worklist screen, service agents can create new Installed Bases or access existing ones. There are no configuration settings to be maintained as a prerequisite for using Installed Bases. However, service agents must be granted appropriate authorization access.
Hierarchical Arrangement of Items
When maintaining an hierarchical arrangement of items for an Installed Base, only the following new objects can be associated:
- A new Registered Product.
- A new Product.
- A new Functional Location.
Additional Information Available on the Installed Base
In addition to the items hierarchy, the following information can also be maintained on the Installed Base:
- lnvolved Parties: are individuals or groups who are involved in a service request or ticket. For example, the customer.
- Related Service Objects: are specific objects that are related to a particular service request or ticket, such as existing Cases involving any items of the Installed Base.
- Attachments: refer to files or documents that can be uploaded and associated with a specific service ticket. For example, drawings or technical diagrams representing the items.
- Changes: refers to Change logs.