Confused about Inventory Items

[Andrew-199]

I'm apparently missing something about the way inventory works, but hey I'm still learning.

I have set up a product (Gearbox) with a few selectable features. (Make,  model, quality, year)
Or rather created some Feature Groups which are then attached to my Category of "used parts".
and Gearbox is product of that category.

Now if I go my facility and receive inventory of 1 Gearbox there is no way to select what the values features are .
eg make= honda, model=civic, quality=damaged, year=1990.
I would have thought an inventory item (Which I now have) would have to have those features set.

On I suspect a similar note I never have anything in Physical Inventory and in general have no idea what that tab is for.

I expect there is just some user documentation on Facilities I haven't found that would explain all this.

Thanks for any pointers.
Andrew




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[Vikrant.Rathore]

Dear Andrew,

Please remember there are 2 different ID's when you are doing inventory:
1. Product ID
2. Inventory ID

Normally product ID is not equal to Inventory ID as you would like to associate a same Product ID received by different PO's to be traceable. So you have inventory ID.

Every time you receive a product it would be a different inventory ID since you have received this lot different. I think its very good. In some other system the same inventory id is called Inventory Journal ID (since they track Inventory journal).

Now in general case when you check Physical Inventory it can be by Product ID or Inventory ID. You can customize ofbiz for either way they way you want the report to be.

I was initially also confused with inventory id's but now its clear each inventory id is in fact a inventory journal id which tracks if there is a reserved inventory which sales order it is reserved for. In case of Purchase order you know which inventory item is received by which purchase order.

There is no clear documentation on it. But may be you can find something at opentaps http://www.opentaps.org/ site.

Thanks
With best regards,
Vikrant


-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: 2007年12月14日 12:52
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Confused about Inventory Items

I'm apparently missing something about the way inventory works, but hey I'm still learning.

I have set up a product (Gearbox) with a few selectable features. (Make,  model, quality, year)
Or rather created some Feature Groups which are then attached to my Category of "used parts".
and Gearbox is product of that category.

Now if I go my facility and receive inventory of 1 Gearbox there is no way to select what the values features are .
eg make= honda, model=civic, quality=damaged, year=1990.
I would have thought an inventory item (Which I now have) would have to have those features set.

On I suspect a similar note I never have anything in Physical Inventory and in general have no idea what that tab is for.

I expect there is just some user documentation on Facilities I haven't found that would explain all this.

Thanks for any pointers.
Andrew




      ____________________________________________________________________________________
Be a better friend, newshound, and
know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile.  Try it now.  http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ 


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[BJ Freeman]

Product is what you sell
Inventory is what you buy to sell.
the Product ID may have no resemblance to the Inventory ID. You may
receive the inventory from may sources and each one my call it something
a little different.

so to take your example.
https://demo.hotwaxmedia.com/catalog/control/EditProductFeatures?productId=WG-9943
are the features
now look at the inventory
https://demo.hotwaxmedia.com/catalog/control/EditProductInventoryItems?productId=WG-9943&showAllFacilities=Y
you will see a feature code for each feature.
this become the actual product code for each item. and is how there are
tracked in inventory.
when you drill down to the item
https://demo.hotwaxmedia.com/catalog/control/EditProductInventoryItems?productId=WG-9943-B3
and now the confusing part
https://demo.hotwaxmedia.com/facility/control/EditInventoryItem?productId=WG-9943-B3
lets you created a seperate inventory Item ID for that product with that
  feature.
as you can see you can have many Inventory ID Or Inventory Items for a
Product.
Under that Iventory ID that is linked back to the product you can
recieve and issue Items
https://demo.hotwaxmedia.com/facility/control/ViewInventoryItemDetail?inventoryItemId=9010&facilityId=WebStoreWarehouse




Andrew sent the following on 12/13/2007 8:52 PM:

> I'm apparently missing something about the way inventory works, but hey I'm still learning.
>
> I have set up a product (Gearbox) with a few selectable features. (Make,  model, quality, year)
> Or rather created some Feature Groups which are then attached to my Category of "used parts".
> and Gearbox is product of that category.
>
> Now if I go my facility and receive inventory of 1 Gearbox there is no way to select what the values features are .
> eg make= honda, model=civic, quality=damaged, year=1990.
> I would have thought an inventory item (Which I now have) would have to have those features set.
>
> On I suspect a similar note I never have anything in Physical Inventory and in general have no idea what that tab is for.
>
> I expect there is just some user documentation on Facilities I haven't found that would explain all this.
>
> Thanks for any pointers.
> Andrew
>
>
>
>
>       ____________________________________________________________________________________
> Be a better friend, newshound, and
> know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile.  Try it now.  http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ 
>
>
>
>

[Scott Gray]

Hi Andrew

An Inventory Item is just a physical representation of a Product, it doesn't
have it's own features.  You would need to create a Product for each gearbox
type rather than one to cover them all.

Regards
Scott

On 14/12/2007, Andrew <[hidden email]> wrote:

>
> I'm apparently missing something about the way inventory works, but hey
> I'm still learning.
>
> I have set up a product (Gearbox) with a few selectable features.
> (Make,  model, quality, year)
> Or rather created some Feature Groups which are then attached to my
> Category of "used parts".
> and Gearbox is product of that category.
>
> Now if I go my facility and receive inventory of 1 Gearbox there is no way
> to select what the values features are .
> eg make= honda, model=civic, quality=damaged, year=1990.
> I would have thought an inventory item (Which I now have) would have to
> have those features set.
>
> On I suspect a similar note I never have anything in Physical Inventory
> and in general have no idea what that tab is for.
>
> I expect there is just some user documentation on Facilities I haven't
> found that would explain all this.
>
> Thanks for any pointers.
> Andrew
>
>
>
>
>
>       ____________________________________________________________________________________
> Be a better friend, newshound, and
> know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile.  Try it now.
> http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ
>
>

[Jacques Le Roux]

You may be interested to read the Data Model Resource Book  p.84  http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBADMIN/OFBiz+Related+Books

Without this book you may lose time...

Jacques

De : "Andrew" <[hidden email]>

> I'm apparently missing something about the way inventory works, but hey I'm still learning.
>
> I have set up a product (Gearbox) with a few selectable features. (Make,  model, quality, year)
> Or rather created some Feature Groups which are then attached to my Category of "used parts".
> and Gearbox is product of that category.
>
> Now if I go my facility and receive inventory of 1 Gearbox there is no way to select what the values features are .
> eg make= honda, model=civic, quality=damaged, year=1990.
> I would have thought an inventory item (Which I now have) would have to have those features set.
>
> On I suspect a similar note I never have anything in Physical Inventory and in general have no idea what that tab is for.
>
> I expect there is just some user documentation on Facilities I haven't found that would explain all this.
>
> Thanks for any pointers.
> Andrew

[Mridul Pathak-2]

Hi Andrew,
    Have you created a single product for the Gearbox, i.e. only one entry
in the Product entity for the product Gearbox, and trying to apply all the
selectable features to this particular product?  If yes, than your data is
still not complete. :)
    Here is something that I know about creating a Product with more than
one selectable features.
1) The first thing to note down is, a product with selectable features means
a product with variations, that means this product can have different
variations depending upon its selectable features.  Each set of selectable
features defines one variation of that product.  So we can say, suppose for
buying purpose, that a customer won't buy the product itself, but its
varients.
2) Above explaination leads to the point that for a product with selectable
features, you need to create:
    a) A Virtual Parent Product (for which no physical inventory exists and
hence can't be purchased)
    b) One Varient Product for each set of selectable features, so this
gives a whole bunch of products to you. (Physical Inventory will exist and
will be the actual purchasable products).
3) Create ProductAssoc(s) for Virtual Parent Product and its Varient
Products.
4) You need to define a ProductFeatureCategory for your Product.
5) Prepare seed data for ProductFeatureType for make, model, quality etc. if
not present in OFBiz seed data.
6) Create ProductFeature records for the selectable features of each type.
7) Associate ProductFeature(s) to the Virtual Parent Product as
"SELECTABLE_FEATURES" in ProductFeatureAppl.
8) Associate each Varient Product to the set of ProductFeature it
corresponds to as "STANDARD_FEATURES" in ProductFeatureAppl.

    I think that is all we need to do to create a product with selectable
features.
    For an example of creating such products in OFBiz, you can refer to
ofbiz-trunk>applications>ecommerce>data>DemoProduct.xml.
    And finally I think this should answer your question about inventory.
The Inventory you receive will be for the varient products, which are the
actual physical products, each varient reqresenting a set of selectable
features and not for the Virtual Parent Product.
    Actually you are not supposed to select features while receiving
Inventory, instead you will receive the required varient for the set of
required selectable features.

On Dec 14, 2007 10:22 AM, Andrew <[hidden email]> wrote:

> I'm apparently missing something about the way inventory works, but hey
> I'm still learning.
>
> I have set up a product (Gearbox) with a few selectable features. (Make,
>  model, quality, year)
> Or rather created some Feature Groups which are then attached to my
> Category of "used parts".
> and Gearbox is product of that category.
>
> Now if I go my facility and receive inventory of 1 Gearbox there is no way
> to select what the values features are .
> eg make= honda, model=civic, quality=damaged, year=1990.
> I would have thought an inventory item (Which I now have) would have to
> have those features set.
>
> On I suspect a similar note I never have anything in Physical Inventory
> and in general have no idea what that tab is for.
>
> I expect there is just some user documentation on Facilities I haven't
> found that would explain all this.
>
> Thanks for any pointers.
> Andrew
>
>
>
>
>
>  ____________________________________________________________________________________
> Be a better friend, newshound, and
> know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile.  Try it now.
> http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ
>
>

--
Thanks & Regards
Mridul Pathak
Hotwax Media
http://www.hotwaxmedia.com
[hidden email]
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