Understanding Basic Terms
The installed base is a repository of information about items and the organizations that own and use them. An installed base record links three essential elements: an item, the customer who purchased it, and an end user. It also maintains details about an item, including serial number, installation date, warranty coverage, and how often maintenance is required.
The customer is the organization that purchased the item, and represents the parent record to which end users and installed items relate. Each end user must be linked to a customer and, in turn, each installed item must be linked to an end user. As shown in the figure above, the customer can also be an end user.
When the installed base is updated from sales orders, the customer is the sold-to address in Sales Order Maintenance. If you do not sell directly to customers but market your products through retail outlets, you can define a single customer record to use as a place holder in this relationship.
End users are the people who most often use an item, request maintenance for it, and report problems. When the installed base is updated from sales orders, the end user is the ship-to address in Sales Order Maintenance (7.1.1). The end user is not necessarily the customer.
Each customer can have many end users, but a given end user is linked to only one customer. Typically, the end user possesses the item, even though it might have been purchased by the main office.
Example: A parent company buys a forklift and ships it to a warehouse. The parent company is the customer. The warehouse is the end user. The warehouse did not buy the forklift, but uses it at that location. Someone at the warehouse usually reports service problems.
A customer can also be the end user, but an end user cannot exist by itself-it must be linked to a valid customer record. The end user is always connected to the customer who purchased the item that the end user possesses.
