Project Detail

Description

I need an online cooperation tool for my VERY small starting company, at the moment we have 1 employee and 3 operative partners, but that is very likely to grow. Our work is to find (buy and deliver) stuff for other companies (stuff that is hard to find or that need special import permits etc), we do this trough bidding system and we must be fast and competitive.

Very brief work flow description:
We receive a quote order from our client (say the client asks for some rare tires).
We check if we have a current provider for tires.
We send quote orders to possible tires suppliers (current and new ones).
We receive quotes from several suppliers, with different prices and delivery dates.
We choose the best price/quality/eta.
We make our own quote and send it to our client.
We receive a purchase order from our client (if we are lucky and won the bid)
We double check price/conditions/freight/specs with wining quote.
We send our purchase order to our tire supplier.
We send payment to our tire supplier once supplier acknowledges our purchase order.
We ask/receive tracking number and monitor shipment.
We receive goods.
We check received goods vs quoted specs and invoiced items (vs invoice from tire supplier)
We make our invoice and deliver the goods to our client.
We receive payment from our client.

So... general ideas or tidbits for our wiki (if this can be done easier in something else than a wiki, I am open to suggestions but wikis seem the way to go)

Private, only employees from my firm can see/access/use it

Main page,
as soon as we get a quote requisition from one of our clients, we create one entry in a sortable/filterable table, with a sequential inner number, plus other sensible data like, date, client, what goods he needs (keywords), status, quoted amount, sold amount, etc, the sequential inner control number or ID, should link to a new web page, name it say... quote required page (qrp), keywords should link to all suppliers on my database that have such keyword as a product. By sorting and/or filtering we should be able to see “all orders we win last month”, “all orders still open”, etc.

Quote required page,
In this page, "qrp", we should append every document, action or task related to the order, ie, the very first document to be appended to this page would be the quote required form itself (might be jpg or actual doc), then if we send an email to some possible providers, those emails should be there (link or actual text copy pasted) for reference to other employees to see the status on that order, basically, that page will grow longer as we append emails, quotes, notes, catalog pages, web urls, etc, until we have received all quotes and we prepare our own quote, if accepted, the purchasing order should be added too, until all transactions are done including our invoice to our client.

Wiki does not need to make the emails, invoices, quotes, etc, but that is certainly a bonus if they can be done from inside the wiki and emailed or printed from it too, as to avoid duplicate entries errors.

With this page, all operatives in the company can be up to date on what is going on with a certain order, what still needs to be researched, etc.

It must be very easy and practical to append new information and documents to the wiki.

Invoices
Tracking and printing invoices from the wiki would be excellent.

Supplier Catalog
When we receive quotes from other companies for a certain product, we should be able to create a new page for “suppliers” with details as to what products lines they do sell and to keep track of what we have bought from them for future reference. Obvious data like contact information must be easily available too.

I expect to receive first a demo to evaluate look and feel of the tool and eventually a finished working wiki on my own web space (all ready hired and online) and some help on the learning curve of using it.

I am sure we will need further work on the wiki as we evolve, as more features will surely be required down the road as our experience grows.

So far this is what I’m thinking as the basic needs of my current company. I’m open to ideas, and I can elaborate if further explanations are needed.