This series uses Dingli, a Patisco demo account. Every system screen and all the data shown here came from real operations in the system, including the exchanges between buyers and suppliers; they are not mock-ups. The people and dialogue are dramatized, and the illustrations are for illustration only. Screens are shown in the system's Chinese interface; Patisco is also available in English and other languages.
In the story: The first Tuesday after the fair, 10:00 a.m.
63 emails
With Marta's quote sent, A-Zhe went back to his inbox. 63 unread.
The people who'd left business cards at the fair were starting to write in. Some attached Excel files. Some attached PDFs. One attached a phone photo of a handwritten order, shot slightly crooked, with a coffee cup still visible on the desk.
Manager Sato of サイクルワークス東雲 in Tokyo sent an email whose subject line was a single word: "注文" (Japanese for "order"). The message was three very polite lines of Japanese, with a PDF order form attached. Manager Sato doesn't use any system. What he has is an old printer and an Excel template he's been using for fifteen years.
How it used to go
These 63 emails used to be A-Zhe's problem and nobody else's.
He read them one by one, typed the items from each attachment line by line into Dingli's Excel, then issued a PI back to the customer. Mistype one item number, and you'd find out on shipping day.
Worse, the emails lived only in A-Zhe's inbox. If A-Mei wanted to know how many hubs Tokyo had ordered, she asked A-Zhe. If Chairman Lin wanted to know how many orders had come in since the fair, he asked A-Zhe. And if A-Zhe took a day off, the emails just sat there where no one could see them.
How it goes in Patisco
First, connect the mailbox
A-Zhe connected his company mailbox under [My mailbox]. From then on, his correspondence comes into Patisco's [Email inbox].
The inbox has two sections:
- To place: the sender matches a buyer or seller Dingli already has. The system offers suggestions, such as filing the email under the discussion on a particular order, or [Start new thread].
- To claim: senders the system has never seen. It records only the sender, subject, and date. If A-Zhe reads it and decides this is a real customer, he clicks [This person is from…] and matches the sender to a company.
Once an email is in a discussion, colleagues can see it. A-Mei can check on Tokyo's hubs without asking A-Zhe.
Manager Sato's PDF: have AI copy it word for word
Manager Sato has no Patisco account. His order is just a PDF.
On that email, A-Zhe clicked [This is a new document]. AI read the attachment and transcribed it word for word into a proxy copy, which is a record on Dingli's side of a document from someone who isn't on the system. Items, quantities, and unit prices all stay exactly as he wrote them, and even the Japanese product names are copied rather than translated. The copy is only created after A-Zhe has reviewed and confirmed it.
This copy has "Proxy (email)" marked beside its order number, an extra Source column on every item, and a link at the top that opens the original attachment Manager Sato sent. However they wrote it, that's how the system records it.
"Could it copy something wrong?" A-Mei asked.
"Sure it could. That's why I look it over before I confirm," A-Zhe said. "And the original is right there next to it, so a mistake jumps out at you. If it really is wrong, I void it and have it transcribed again."
A proxy copy can't be edited. It records "what they sent us," not "how we'd like to change it." The PI going back to Manager Sato is one A-Zhe still issues himself.
Replying, in the same thread
In the same discussion, A-Zhe clicked [Reply by email] and wrote two lines in Japanese: received, and the PI goes out tomorrow.
Type a message and press Enter, and it's only an internal note for colleagues. Only what goes out through [Reply by email] reaches Manager Sato. Both kinds sit side by side in the same thread, so it's clear who said what, and to whom.
Before vs With Patisco
| Before | With Patisco | |
|---|---|---|
| Where the emails live | A-Zhe's inbox | In a discussion, visible to colleagues |
| Orders customers send | Typed line by line into Excel | AI transcribes them word for word into a copy; a person confirms |
| How you catch a typo | On shipping day | The original is right beside it, visible before you confirm |
| A-Zhe takes a day off | The emails just sit there | Whoever steps in can see the emails filed in discussions |
A word for the boss: Your customers don't have to switch to any system for your sake. They keep sending emails and PDFs, and you can still catch them.
Further reading
- How to connect a company Google or Microsoft mailbox to Patisco
- How to add participants to a thread, reply by email, or upload attachments