General
Q: Is Inventory Management an add-on functionality?
A: No. The Inventory Management functionality is available for trial and paid subscribers of D-Tools Cloud.
Q: I do not want to use the Inventory Management functionality. What do I have to do?
A: You don’t have to do anything. While the Inventory Management functionality and its options will be visible on the Cloud UI, you will not use the Inventory Management functionality if you don’t enable the functionality on the "Inventory” page.
Initial setup
Q: What do I have to do to use the Inventory Management functionality?
A: Go to "Inventory," click the "Enable Inventory Management" link, and enable the functionality.
Then, you will need to complete the initial setup, which includes adding your inventory locations and setting up the initial inventory for products on which you want to enable Inventory Management.
Once you complete the initial setup, you will have access to the full spectrum of functionality.
Check out this QuickStart article for more details.
Q: Will Cloud enable the Inventory Management functionality on all products in my catalog?
A: No. You have the option to enable the Inventory Management functionality on selected products via the catalog. To do so, you will need to mark the product in the catalog as a “stock item.”
If you want to mark all products in the catalog as stock items, you can do so via the Export products and Import products workflows on Cloud.
Check out these articles for more details.
Q: Are there specific user permissions for Inventory Management?
A: Yes, there are five user permissions for Inventory Management. You will need to assign the required permissions to the relevant user groups.
Check out this article for more details.
Q: Will Cloud automatically reserve stock items for projects that are currently active?
A: No. When you mark some products as stock items, they will show a "Needed" quantity, which is the total quantity required across all active projects.
We want you to prioritize your projects and manually reserve stock items from the on-hand quantity.
If priorities change, you can always unreserve stock items from one project and reserve them for another.
Check out this article for more details.
Q: How do I check in the initial on-hand quantity for stock items?
A: Once you have marked a product as a stock item, you can click the stock item on the “Inventory” page and set the initial on-hand quantity and the inventory location in the item's side panel.
Check out this article for more details.
Stock item procurement
Q: Does Cloud automatically update the on-hand quantity of stock items by tracking the purchase order status?
A: Yes. Once you mark a purchase order as “Received” or “Partially Received” and check in the received quantity into one or more inventory locations, Cloud will show the updated on-hand quantity of the stock items in the Inventory view.
Check out this article for more details.
Q: What is the integration between the Ready-To-Order and Inventory Management functionality?
A: Cloud will factor in the quantity of stock items marked as Ready-To-Order into the quantity required for projects and show the quantity as “Needed” in the Inventory view of the stock items.
Q: Can I check in stock items into the warehouse by scanning a barcode such as UPC, EAN, or ITF?
A: Yes, you can check in stock items to the warehouse by scanning one of the UPC, EAN, or ITF barcodes.
Stock item management
Q: How do I emulate my existing Inventory Management setup on Cloud?
A: Go to “Settings > Inventory,” and you can add your Inventory Management and Delivery options as “Inventory Locations.”
By default, you will see a "Warehouse" as the inventory location. You can add zones, aisles, and more, and emulate your physical warehouse.
You can add the sites you use as pickup points and vehicles to dispatch products to the work site as additional locations.
Check out this article for more details.
Q: What hierarchy can I create for a Warehouse on Cloud?
A: There are 5 levels in the Warehouse hierarchy: Zone, Aisle, Rack, Shelf, and Bin.
Q: How do I move stock items across inventory locations?
A: On the “Inventory” page, click a stock item, and you will see the options to move it across the inventory locations.
Check out this article for more details.
Q: What kind of stock level indicators does Cloud provide?
A: Cloud has 5 stock level indicators:
On-Hand – this refers to the total quantity of the stock item available across all inventory locations.
Allocated – this refers to the quantity of the stock item that has already been reserved for projects.
Available – this refers to the quantity of the stock item you can reserve for projects when needed.
Ordered – this refers to the quantity of the stock item in one or more purchase orders. It includes stock items required in projects and stock items you may have ordered to stock them.
Needed – this refers to the quantity of the stock item needed across all projects.
Check out this article for more details.
Q: Does Cloud monitor and report shortfalls in available stock?
A: Yes. Cloud provides options to set a minimum stock threshold for every stock item and generates notifications when the available stock quantity falls below the threshold.
Check out this article for more details.
Q: Does Cloud record the inventory history of a stock item?
A: Yes. On the “Inventory” page, click a stock item, and you will see its inventory history in the "Inventory history" section.
Cloud records check-ins into inventory locations, stock movement across inventory locations, and allocation for projects.
Check out this article for more details.
Q: Where can I sort stock items by their stock level indicators?
A: Go to "Inventory" in the left navigation menu. You will see a table with all stock items. Each of the columns here can be sorted alphabetically, in increasing order, or in decreasing order.
Stock item allocation
Q: How do I reserve stock items for projects?
A: You have two options to reserve stock items for projects.
Automated allocation
You can automate the process of reserving stock items in projects by setting the "Marking items as <Install Status> automatically reserves if sufficient stock is available and checks out when the item exists in a single warehouse location" to ON. Now, stock items will be automatically reserved for a project when their Install status is changed, and a sufficient quantity is available.
Check out this article for more details.
Manual allocation
You can manually reserve stock items for projects. You can reserve multiple stock items for a project in the project’s Details view or reserve a stock item for multiple projects in the Inventory view of the stock item.
Check out this article for more details.
Q: Can I unreserve stock items from a project and reserve them for another project?
A: Yes. Go to “Inventory,” click a stock item, hover over the “Allocated” indicator, and click “Unreserve from projects.” In the modal, you can unreserve the stock item from one or more projects. You can now reserve them for other projects.
Check out this article for more details.