This post shows how to use the Inventory Logistics Console which is a built-in control center for inventory transferring and ordering within e-automate. 

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Overview | Best Practice Steps | Other Helpful Info | Related Alerts

Overview

Overview

The Inventory Logistics Console (ILC) is used to help manage your inventory needs. The ILC will show you what needs to be ordered or transferred between warehouses based on min/max levels and inventory requests and will also create purchase orders and complete transfers all within the console. It is important that you assign parent warehouses on your active warehouses, so the ILC has a warehouse to look in for a possible transfer from warehouse to the warehouse that needs the item. It is also important that you have min and max quantities set on items per warehouse and that those warehouses have a stocking code on the items. The ILC not only helps to automate your processes, but it only allows restock for the same item linked to same document (sales order, service call, etc.) to be done by 1 user at a time which avoids double orders.

It is highly recommended that your inventory be validated prior to you beginning to use the ILC. Please be sure to audit all inventory in warehouses and car stock to ensure it matches the quantity counts in e-automate. If this is not accurate, then the suggestions the ILC makes will not be accurate. 

 

 

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Best Practice Steps

Best Practice Steps - start to finish

Setting Up Your Warehouse Records for the ILC:

Ensure your active warehouses have parent warehouses listed on them and warehouses that are dropship for vendor to customer are marked as such. This parent warehouse tells the ILC which warehouse to automatically look in for a possible transfer suggestion. The dropship type selection of a warehouse tells the ILC that anything needed for that warehouse is to always be ordered because it will never be in stock.

In e-automate go to inventory and click on warehouses

From the inventory warehouses list, highlight a warehouse line item and click Edit or double click on it to open the warehouse record

Parent warehouse needed for non-dropship warehouses: In the inventory warehouse record, view the parent warehouse field. If it is blank then select a parent warehouse and click OK to save. 

Dropship type and bin needed for vendor to customer dropship warehouses: In the inventory warehouse record, select the type of drop-ship and select a drop-ship bin and click OK to save.

Setting Up Your Item Records for the ILC:

Ensure your active items have warehouses listed on them and that the warehouses have min/max quantities set as well as stocking codes. This tells the ILC which warehouse to stock based on the min and max quantity levels. 

In e-automate go to inventory and click on warehouses

From the items list, highlight an item and click Edit or double click on it to open the item record

In the item record, go to the warehouses tab. Using the warehouse field in the lower-left select a warehouse to link to this item.

Complete these fields and click Quickadd:

Warehouse - the warehouse you want to link to the item

Stocking code - select stock for the ILC to base ordering or transfer needs based on the min/max levels. Select drop-ship if this will never be in stock. Select special order if this item quantity on hand should always be zero unless ordered for a 1-time special order. 

Stock minimum and maximum - enter the quantity min and max amounts you want to require for this item in this specific warehouse

Auto update - select this box if you want the system to update min/max quantities based on recent order history as time goes on otherwise leave blank to manage manually

Click quickadd to add this warehouse and it's selections. Continue until all warehouses are added.

Click OK to save the item record. 

 

Using the ILC:

In e-automate go to inventory and click on inventory logistics console

While in the Analyze Stock tab click on add to queue. This will open the add to queue window where you'll select what to query.

The add to queue box gives you options on what you would like to bring into the ILC to review for stock needs. Below explains the different selection options. Note that if there is already a purchase order linked to any of these, it will not bring it in to be queued.

Query sales orders – comes from needed items linked to sales orders

Query service calls – comes from needed items linked to service calls

Query inventory requests – one-off requests, for example these could come from mobile tech requests

Query warehouse restock levels – comes from the min/max levels on items per warehouse

General filters - allows for you to narrow down your search by item, warehouse, bin and branch

Auto assign preferred vendor - check mark this if you want the ILC to automatically assign the preferred vendor to the ordering suggestion. This is the preferred vendor listed on the item itself. This is recommended, otherwise you will need to manually select the vendor on each item to be ordered. You are able to change the vendor in the ILC even if it was auto assigned. 

Once you've made your selection and click ok it will show you the queue results indicating how many records were added to the queue and how many were not added because they're in another users ILC at the moment. (Note the screen shot below shows 1,632 records added, but in the screen shots thereafter the list was narrowed down for ease of learning)

The analyze stock tab will now show all line items brought into the queue. The action column shows what the ILC suggests. See below for examples on how to read the action column. 

Purchase : (?? to Barb Number 63) = ILC recommends you purchase the item but there is no preferred vendor assigned on the item record so it shows "??" for the vendor. It will go to Barb Number 63 warehouse once received.

Purchase : (TG05 to Warehouse #1) = ILC recommends you purchase the item from TG05 and it will go to the Warehouse #1 warehouse once received.

Transfer : (Bob Number 42 to Bob Number 53) = ILC recommends you transfer the item from warehouse Bob Number 45 to warehouse Bob Number 53.

Note that the action column is making suggestions based on:

1. what item is needed and for what warehouse

2. what is the parent warehouse for the warehouse needing the item and is there an item in stock in that warehouse. If yes, then suggest transfer.

3. If no, then suggest purchase.

 

To update the preferred vendor:

1. Right click on the item to be assigned a vendor and select assign vendor

2. Choose to either select a specific vendor using the first radio button, or have the ILC choose a vendor for you based on preferred status, lowest cost or shortest lead time. click OK when done.

 

To update an item to be transferred from a different warehouse than the one suggested or the suggested purchase:

1. Click on a line item and in the lower portion of the screen it will show this warehouse needing the item as well as other warehouses that contain the item. In the example below we see that Warehouse #1 has 3 available in addition to other warehouses with 1 available. We've decided we're going to move an item from warehouse #1 to Barb Number 63 rather than purchase.

 

2. Double click on the warehouse you want to transfer from that's listed in the lower portion of the screen and it will update the line item above to a transfer from that warehouse instead of a purchase.

 

Once all line items have been reviewed and are ready to be processed, click select all from the top toolbar, or select specific line items only using ctrl+select. Then click Process.

If you properly assigned vendors to each line item you just tried to process, then the assign vendors tab will be empty. If you forgot any they will show up in this tab.

Go to create orders tab. From here, you'll be able to view the items using the radio buttons of detail items, purchase orders queue and transfer orders queue. 

The detail items view will show you all items to either be transferred or purchased

To process the purchase orders to be created:

1. click on the purchase orders queue radio button. This will show you all purchase orders to be created. Note that there will be 1 purchase order created per vendor rather than 1 purchase order per item. 

2. Click select all from the top toolbar or select specific line items only using ctrl+select.

3. Click purchase orders to create the purchase orders

4. The purchase orders queue will now be empty

5. You can locate the PO's created in the purchase orders console by going to purchasing at the top of the screen and selecting purchase orders

 

To process the transfers to be done:

1. click on the transferorders queue radio button. This will show you all transfers to be created. 

2. Click select all from the top toolbar or select specific line items only using ctrl+select.

3. Click transfer orders to create the transfers.

4. The create transfers order window will pop up asking what you'd like to create. Make you selections and click OK.

Print picking list = this will create a picking list for you

Print packing list = this will create a packing list for you which has a signature line on it should you require technicians to sign for transfers

Transfer now = this will complete the transfer right now rather than creating the transfer order that's left in open status for you to process manually in the order transfer console

5. The transfer orders queue will now be empty

6. You can locate the transfers created in the transfer orders console by going to inventory at the top of the screen and selecting transfers and then transfer orders

 

 

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Other Helpful Info

Other Helpful Info

Delete items from ILC when done: It is important that when you are done processing items in the ILC that you delete all of your items out of the analyze stock tab. If you do not delete them, then no other user in e-automate can process those items. This is a safety measure to ensure only one user can process an item order or transfer at a time for the same item but if you are no longer processing it, you should delete it from your queue. To delete it, select the line items to delete and click Delete from the options at the top of the ILC. 

To create one PO per vendor per day from ILC: If you'd like to process the ILC throughout the day but not create multiple PO's throughout the day, you can keep your orders in the create orders tab of the ILC and add to it throughout the day. The items added throughout the day will be added to the line item on the create orders tab for same vendor. 

 

 

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Related Alerts

Related Alerts

ID84 - New Inventory Item Created Overview & Sample

ID198 - Inventory Qty in Warehouse/Bin Is Negative - Overview and Sample

ID759 - Inventory Items with Conflicting Accounts Overview & Sample

ID359 - Inventory Requests Still Open > W Days (Not Canceled/Transferred/On PO) - Overview and Sample

 

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