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Documents from proALPHAquery the order file instead of searching the archive.

The documents proALPHA keeps on an order are meant to come into your instance: drawings, bills of materials, routings, quotes, purchase orders, inspection and commissioning documents and correspondence with customers and suppliers. Read-only access is planned; nothing is changed in proALPHA.

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proALPHA

after clarification · database export

Example question

“Which bill of materials belongs to the assembly from order 2024-118, and which revision applies?”

1 Answer with source

Connection

How the connection is designed

proALPHA includes a document management system through which records and documents are assigned to transactions and parties involved. Depending on the installation, the plan is either to mirror an archive directory on your server, encrypted, into your instance — read-only and only via outgoing connections — or to use an agreed, scheduled export. Article, project, customer and supplier master data can come along via the export so that questions can be asked by order number and assembly. Whether and how this works for you, we check with you and your proALPHA support partner before we start — depending on version, licence and installation.

Once set up, synchronisation runs automatically: new and changed documents from proALPHA are added by themselves, without anyone having to upload anything.

Set-upWe estimate the effort after the preliminary check — it depends mainly on whether the archive exists as a directory or an export has to be agreed. It is discussed with you, and gladly with your proALPHA support partner, before anything is set up. It is billed by effort.

Documents

Which documents may be stored in proALPHA

  • The DMS document for the business transaction: the record linked via its index terms to an order, purchase order or goods receipt
  • Drawing revisions with change management — which index was actually built into which order and what the customer approved for the change
  • Goods receipt and inspection reports, inspection certificates to EN 10204 and suppliers' material certificates
  • Complaints and quality assurance measures, up to the 8D report a customer expects after a complaint
  • Operating manual, declaration of conformity, circuit diagram and spare parts list delivered with the machine
  • Service reports and commissioning reports for systems that have been at the customer's site for years — and which otherwise often exist only in the head of the technician who installed them

Example questions

Examples of questions to your documents

  • “Which bill of materials belongs to the assembly from order 2024-118, and which revision applies?”

    1 Answer with source

  • “What did the supplier write about the deviation on purchase order 45-2231?”

    2 Answer with source

  • “How was the system at the customer Huber's designed at commissioning in 2021?”

    3 Answer with source

Start

Before a connection is set up

A connection is set up for you, not activated in one click. Every source comes with its own logins, permissions and folder logic — whether and how it can be connected at your company, we check together beforehand. Set-up and maintenance are billed by effort; how much that is depends on the source and is discussed beforehand.

Until then, and independently of it, you can upload files, whole folders, emails, photos and voice memos. Before we start, we go through real questions with you to see how the answers look.

Preliminary check

What we check in advance

Beforehand, we look at where the assignment lives in your setup. In many installations, a file in the archive carries only a sequential number, while order, article and customer are in the database — that is why exporting these index terms is part of the connection; without it, the knowledge base lacks the link to the order number. Stock levels, dates and costs stay in the ERP: what changes today on an ongoing order is a question for proALPHA. And a drawing revision is only as reliable as the way it was filed — we clarify beforehand whether index changes are tracked in the system in your company or also corrected on paper.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions about this connection

We have twenty years of orders and drawings in the archive. How far back do we go?

You decide — going far back often makes sense. The question about how a system was designed usually comes when the customer rebuilds after fifteen years or a spare part is no longer available, not in the year of commissioning. The plan is to read in the agreed scope during the first pass; after that, whatever is new or has changed is meant to follow. Which years and record types come along, we discuss beforehand — often drawings and service documents going far back, accounting records only as far back as you keep them anyway.

In our setup, index terms decide, not a folder. How does the system find anything then?

The plan is to bring the index terms along: order number, article, customer, supplier and date as index terms, so that the drawing matches the assembly and the delivery note matches the purchase order. What the system reads from the document itself is checked against them — if an inspection report has a batch number that also appears in the goods receipt, that is meant to hold the chain together. Which document type a record is assigned to is confirmed by a person during the first pass, because it determines who sees it. How well this fits your index terms, we look at beforehand.

A release change is a project of its own for us. What does it mean for the connection?

That depends on what shifts with the release. The connection only reads and writes nothing into the ERP; the change becomes relevant where the archive path or export format changes. Bring us into the test phase and the export can run once against the test system before it is needed in production — that is the calmer route. If nothing comes in afterwards, the plan is for the knowledge base to flag the gap instead of presenting yesterday's drawing revision as the valid one.

The workshop should see drawings and routings, but not purchase prices and cost calculation.

The plan is to do this by document type and role, not file by file: drawing, routing, inspection instruction and operating manual for production; purchase orders, prices and post-calculation for purchasing and management. A cut-off date can be added, for example for temporary staff during a peak. Documents covered by a non-disclosure agreement with a customer can be given their own document type so that they are only visible to the roles cleared for them. Which types and roles you need, we decide together before we start.

Industries

Typical for these industries

Integrations

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In thirty minutes by video we show what answers with sources look like, and clarify whether and how proALPHA can be connected at your company.

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