Inventory Template Manager

Overview

The purpose of the Inventory Template Manager is to create, edit, copy or delete inventory templates. This tool provides the ability to set up different templates in any item sequence (shelf order) for any type of inventory you want to take. Inventory templates may be used in digital form in the FOOD-TRAK System or from the FOOD-TRAK Mobile Partner. Optionally, they can be printed and used for manual input. .

To use this function, browse Data Entry, click on Inventories and then click on Inventory Template Manager.

System and user-defined inventory templates are immediately displayed upon accessing this function. The page displays the first 100 templates and if you have more the page navigation controls at the bottom of the page allow you to move to the next page. You may also use the Quick Search feature at the top of the page to find a specific template. For a more advanced search you may click on the Filter button to look for templates by Template Name, Profit Center, Created By, Created date, Modified By or Modified date. Each field allows you to select the criteria to use for filtering.  

Create a  New Inventory Template

To create a new template click the New button on the main screen.

You are presented with a screen that allows you to enter a template name, description, Profit Center and type.

The following type of  inventory templates can be created based on your requirements:

• Site-wite Full Inventory templates
  This type of inventory template is used when all locations for all Profit Centers in a Site (database) are to be counted. Items in the locations that are not counted are assumed to be zero.
• Profit Center Full Inventory Templates
  This type of inventory template is used when all location in a selected Profit Center are intended to be counted. Items in the locations that are not counted are assumed to be zero.
• Profit Center Partial Inventory Templates
  This type of inventory template is used when all location in a selected Profit Center are intended to be counted. Items in the locations that are not counted will not be assumed to be zero.  
• Misc. Full Inventory Templates
  This type of inventory template is used when you want to count specific locations in one or many profit centers. Items in the locations that are not counted will not be assumed to be zero.
• Misc. Partial Inventory Templates
  This type of inventory form is used when you want to count specific locations in one or many profit centers. Items in the locations that are not counted are assumed to be zero.

Templates can be populated with a selected list of items by choosing the View by Profit Center, View by Location Group or Blank option. You may start your template with several pages of items or none at all depending on the selections you make here.

Pressing the Next button displays the list of item in a particular location. The name of the location is displayed at the top of the screen. You can move to another location by selecting it from the list of locations available from this field.

You can customize the order in which the items in a location appear by selecting from one of three options in the Sort Order field:

• Alphabetical – this order puts all the items associated with the location on the template in alphabetical order. When new items are added to the database and subsequently the template they will fall into the correct spot alphabetically. Select the check box if you would like to include inactive items on your template. Tip: The list may start in alphabetical order and change to Shelf Order if an item is moved up or down on the list.
• Shelf Order – this order allows you to customize the order of the items listed in the location, referred to as shelf order. You may start with an alphabetical list and move the items (up or down) to be in the required order. This can be done by selecting the item on the list and pressing either the Move Up or Move Down buttons on the right hand side of your screen.   Check boxes are available allowing you to include inactive items in this location on your templates or to add new items to the bottom of your template. Check either to activate.  
• Alphabetical by Report Group – this order places all items in the selected location in alphabetical order by your defined report groups. Again, inactive items can be included if desired.  Note:  This will place the items in the first report group name in the alphabet first, then the next report group in the alphabet will have its items displayed. For example, if there are only report groups named Dairy and Groceries, the items in the Dairy report group will be displayed first in alphabetical order, then the items in the Groceries group in alphabetical order.

Items that you have access to in the database can be added to the list. This can be done by pressing the Search button from the item list. An Insert feature is displayed on the left hand side of the screen from which you may search for items to add to the item list.

Use the search criteria text box at the top of that search screen  to display a filtered list of items you would like to add to the template. Place a check mark beside all items to be added to the form. Click the Add Selected button at the bottom of the item search screen. The items will be added below the currently selected item on the form.

To complete and save your template, press the Finish button.  

A template may also be created by copying the items from an existing template and mapping them to new locations within the site. All template types excluding Site-wide templates can be used as source documents. Complete the following steps to copy an inventory template:

1. From Selection, place a mark in box next to the template you want to copy.
2. From Selection, press the Copy button located beneath the Selection list. The system will present a new template form with pre-populated fields derived from the source template.  
3. Enter necessary header information on new template form. The Source Profit Center and Type fields will be pre-populated with information from the source template. The template name will be displayed as COPY [Name of source template]. The Description field will be empty.
4. Update the template name with a unique name and enter a description, if necessary.
5. Place a mark in the box if you want to retail the sort order of the source template.
6. Advance to the next step of the copy process by pressing the Next button. The system displays a page with a mapping tool where the locations from the source template will be mapped to the locations in the new template.
7. Map the source locations to the destination location.
   1. Find and selects source location.
   2. Select the destination location.
   3. Select the Profit Center from the drop-down list on the right hand side of screen. This action updates the Destination Location drop-down list to display only the locations in the selected Profit Center. Then select the destination location by opening the list and clicking on the location name.
   4. Proceed to “map” the source location to the destination location.
   5. Click the arrow button to move the selected source locations to the right pane. This action will copy the name of the selected source location and display it on the right. Further, the source location name that is now “mapped” will be appended with graphical indicator and the name of the “mapped” destination location.   
8. Repeat these steps until all the necessary locations have been mapped.
9. Finish and create the new template..
   Review the list of source locations to ensure that the ones that need to be copied have a corresponding destination. Once done, the new template is created by pressing the Finish button. This will save the new template and place you back on the initial Selection screen. From there you may select the new template and make edits as needed.
   

Rules and Other Considerations for Copy:

• You may  choose to not map a source location. Only items in source locations that have a destination location will be copied to the new template. Items in source locations that are not mapped to a destination location will not be copied to the new template.

• Locations designated as inventory locations in the destination profit center will always be included in the scope of a Profit Center full or Profit Center partial inventory template, regardless if items were copied into them or not. For example, a source profit center has 10 inventory locations and the destination profit center has 12 inventory locations, 10 are mapped and 2 are not. The two locations in the destination profit center will still be included in the scope of the new template, however, will be empty of any items.

• Items on the source template that are not assigned for use in the destination Profit Center will not be copied to the new template. When this occurs a system message will be placed on the Alerts list. Each item that did not get copied will be mentioned. For example,

“Apples Granny Smith is not assigned for use in profit center [name of profit center]”  

• Mapping the locations from the source document to the new template must be done in one session. Once the Finish button is pressed the mapping utility is closed and the new template is created.

Edit an Inventory Template
A list of existing templates is displayed when you first access the Inventory Template Manager. To edit, select the template from the list and proceed to make any necessary changes and press the Finish button to save.   

Print

To print an Inventory Input Form mark one or more templates on the template list and press the Print button. The report will be available to retrieve from the Task List.

Delete

To permanently delete an existing template from the template list  mark the box next to the template name and press the Delete button.

Best Practice Tips:

1. Do not click back on your browser while in the process of creating or editing a template.

2. If  you must leave your computer for a period exceeding the time-out set for your configuration make sure to save (Finish button) your template before your session times out.

3. If your inventory template fails to completely load,sometimes evident by missing details or empty date fields, do not save the template in this state. This may result in the missing components being permanently lost. Instead, close the template and attempt to open it again. t