This page provides Business administrators with a user guide for the Inventory microservice for the Infosys Equinox platform.

Getting Started

Overview

Accessing the Rules Manager Admin Console

Infosys Equinox’s Inventory Admin console enables a business admin user or inventory admin user to manage and monitor stocks by location or store. Inventory transactions can be performed, which impacts ATP, pre-order, and/or back-ordered quantity for a SKU.

The Inventory contains a collection of bins where each bin can have multiple child bins or bin items for a store. A bin is a container of bin items where each item is a SKU.

For each bin item, you need to specify:

  • the quantity of a SKU available to buy
  • the quantity of a pre-order
  • threshold limit for a low stock
  • threshold limit for out-of-stock

When a user places an order via the storefront, the stock will be reduced in the given bin.

This document provides detailed information on how to:

For a detailed overview of the Inventory microservice, see the Inventory Microservice Overview.

Service Glossary

  • ATP – Available-to-Promise, which means the quantity of a specific stock-keeping unit (SKU) in the specific bin actually available for sale.
  • Business – the parent of a store or set of stores. The basic use of a business is to manage common sets of users, catalogs, and other services for the stores associated with the business.
  • Business Admin – a role that manages business settings, creates and manages stores, and enables microservice(s) for a business.
  • Bin – Containers for bin-items or stock-keeping units (SKUs).
  • Bin Items – Product stock-keeping units (SKUs) added to Inventory bins.
  • Back-Order – The ability to take an order for items that are not currently in stock and process it when the stock gets replenished.
  • Collection – provides a set of properties that control the behavior of the microservice when launched. Allows Business Admins to set up different information for each store so that a Business can have multiple stores, each with its own configuration for a specific microservice.
  • Inventory Transactions – Actions performed on bin items, which impact the Available-to-Promise (ATP) and/or backorder quantity.
  • SKU – Stock keeping unit (SKU) refers to a particular variant of a Product that is purchased by a consumer.
  • Store – represents a specific physical location or online store of a business.
  • Storefront – a consumer-facing website that presents products, content, and promotions across multiple channels such as desktop, tablet, and mobile.
  • Threshold Limit – A limit (number) in the inventory count at which either out-of-stock or low inventory alerts can be triggered.

Accessing Inventory Admin Console

To access the Inventory Admin console,

  1. Log in to the Foundation service for your business (URL provided by Infosys Equinox).
  2. Click Inventory on the StoreOps page.

    The Inventory landing page appears showing a list of inventory bins:

    Note: On the Inventory Bins page, you can view the list of inventory bins, activate or deactivate a particular bin, or create a new bin.

Inventory Home Page

In the left navigation panel of the Inventory home page,

Click any of these tabs To
Bins
  • Create one or more bins
  • Create one or more bin items within a bin with SKU and inventory details
  • Filter and view based on selected attributes.
  • Rearrange, select, or deselect to view columns in the Bin Items section.
  • Export all the bin items to the local computer
  • View the bin item details such as ATP, pre-order, and back-order quantities
  • View bin item transactions
  • Add, transfer, reconcile, or remove quantities to update ATP quantity, pre-order quantity, and/or backorder quantity details.
Import
  • Download the template to fill in the inventory data
  • Bulk update the bin items
  • View the imported status and other details and download the uploaded copy

Managing Inventory

This section explains how to manage bins, manage bin items, and manage inventory transactions.

Managing Bins

A bin is the container of the SKUs and is always mapped to a store. It is identified using the bin ID. The INVENTORY BINS is the landing page when you log in to the Inventory Admin console.

In the INVENTORY BINS page, you can:

  • Search for a particular bin
  • View the list of bins
  • Create a new bin
  • Click a bin and navigate to the bin item

Creating a New Bin

You can create a new bin for a given channel such as an online or offline store. While creating a new bin, you can also associate it with a particular parent bin; however, this is optional.

To create a new bin,

  1. In the INVENTORY BINS page, click .
    The CREATE A BIN pop-up appears:
  2. Enter a bin ID.
  3. Enter a description that describes the new bin.
  4. Select the required channel type for the bin such as Online or Offline.
  5. Select the required bin type such as Primary or Secondary from the dropdown list. By default, the Primary is selected.
    Note: The Bin Type is displayed as per the configuration set in the collection property BinTypes.
  6. Enable or disable to activate or deactivate the status of the bin:
    • Enable – Only in the active bin, you will be able to add items to the bin and perform transactions to the item for a given SKU.
    • Disable – You will not be able to add SKUs or add transactions to the bin.
  7. Enable or disable the leaf bin:
    • Enable – to create multiple bin items within the bin. The leaf bin is enabled by default. Note that a leaf bin cannot be a parent bin.
    • Disable – to create multiple bins within a bin; however, you will not be able to create a bin item.
  8. To associate the current bin to a parent bin, select the identifier from the drop-down list.
    The bin is created and appears in the list of inventory bins. For example,

Editing a Bin

You can edit a bin to modify the bin description, channel, type, status, and parent ID.

  1. In the INVENTORY BINS page, click on a particular bin, for example,

    The following page appears:
  2. In the bin’s overview section, click .
    The following EDIT A BIN page appears:
  3. Enter a bin ID.
  4. Enter a description that describes the new bin.
  5. Select the required channel type for the bin such as Online or Offline.
  6. Select the required bin type such as Primary or Secondary from the dropdown list. By default, the Primary is selected.
    Note: The Bin Type is displayed as per the configuration set in the collection property BinTypes.
  7. Enable or disable to activate or deactivate the status of the bin:
    • Enable – Only in the active bin, you will be able to add items to the bin and perform transactions to the item for a given SKU.
    • Disable – You will not be able to add SKUs or add transactions to the bin.
  8. Enable or disable the leaf bin:
    • Enable – to create multiple bin items within the bin. The leaf bin is enabled by default. Note that a leaf bin cannot be a parent bin.
    • Disable – to create multiple bins within a bin; however, you will not be able to create a bin item.
  9. To associate the current bin to a parent bin, select the identifier from the drop-down list.
    The bin is updated and navigated to the INVENTORY BINS page.
  10. Click .

Managing Bin Items

The contents (primarily the SKUs) of a bin are referred to as bin items. Once you create a bin, you need to assign items to it. There are two ways to add bin items:

In the Bin Items tab, you can:

  • View the overview of the bin
  • Edit the bin details if required
  • Search for SKU(s) within the bin item by using a filter based on SKU ID, status, ATP quantity, out-of-stock threshold, low-stock threshold, and/or backorder quantity
  • Select or deselect the columns that need to appear under the Bin Items section.
  • Rearrange the columns
  • View details of the associated SKUs to the current bin items.
  • Navigate to a particular SKU to perform transactions such as add, transfer, reconcile, or remove.
  • Export the bin item details to your local computer.
  • Add more bin items manually or bulk update to the current bin when the bin status is active.

Search for Bin Items Using Filters

In the BIN ITEMS section, you can filter to search for specific records that match a set of criteria. These filters are used in the BIN ITEMS and BIN ITEMS TRANSACTIONS sections.

To search for bin items using filters,

  1. Click  (filter icon) to set the search criteria.
    The Filter tab appears.
  2. In the Filter tab, select any one of the following attributes, and then enter the attribute value.
    • SKU ID
    • Status
    • ATP Qty
    • Out Of Stock Threshold
    • Low Stock Threshold
    • Backorder Threshold
  1. Select any one of the following operators:
    • Equals
    • Lesser than
    • Greater than
  1. Click to add another condition if required. For example,
  2. Go to the View tab:
  3. Select or deselect to appear accordingly in the column view of the table in the BIN ITEMS and BIN ITEMS TRANSACTIONS sections.
  4. Drag  to rearrange the columns.
  5. In the Sort tab, select the required value to sort the data in ascending or descending order in the search result.
  6. Click  to apply the criterion in the filter; for example,

Adding a Bin Item Manually

To add an item to the current bin,

  1. Navigate to the required bin from the INVENTORY BINS page.
    The Bin Items tab appears:
  2. Click . You can see the bin identifier to which you will be adding an item.
  3. Enter the SKU ID to associate the SKU to the bin. This field is mandatory.
  4. Enter the quantity of a SKU that needs to be added to the bin item.
  5. Enter the pre-order quantity.
  6. Enter the back order quantity when the item is low-stock or out of stock.
  7. Enter the threshold limit for low stock and the threshold limit for the out of stock.
  8. Enable or disable the inventory status of the SKU.
    Note: When the SKU inventory status is inactive, it will not be considered.
  9. Click  to associate the SKU with the inventory details of the bin item.
    The SKU and its inventory details appear under the list of bin items.
    Note: To cancel adding inventory details to the bin item, click the Cancel button.

Exporting the Bin Items with Inventory Details

The Inventory Admin console allows you to export all the bin items with inventory details in an Excel sheet format.

To export the bin items with inventory details,

  1. Navigate to the required bin from the INVENTORY BINS page.
    The Bin Items tab appears:
  2. In the Bin Items tab, click .
    The list of bin items is downloaded in a .xlsx file format to your local computer.

Working with Inventory Transactions

About Inventory Transactions

The Inventory Admin console allows you to perform the following transactions, which impact ATP and/or back-ordered quantity for a bin item:

  • adding quantities to the bin item
  • removing quantities from the bin item
  • transferring quantities from one bin item to another bin item
  • reconciling quantities if there is any discrepancy

Note: For more information, refer to the next section below.

Managing Inventory Transactions

To add, remove, transfer, or reconcile the differences in quantity,

  1. Navigate to the required bin from the INVENTORY BINS page.
    The Bin Items tab appears.
  2. In the Bin Items tab, click on the required SKU to perform the required transactions:
  3. Click .The ADD TRANSACTION screen appears:
  4. Select any one of the following types:
    • Add – to add the quantities as specified in the ATP quantity, pre-order quantity, and/or back-order quantity to the current SKU.
    • Transfer – to transfer the quantities as specified in the ATP and/or back ordered quantity from one bin to another bin.
    • Reconcile – to reconcile the quantities if there is a discrepancy between the actual and physical inventory count. The quantity entered here overrides the available quantities.
    • Remove – to remove the quantities as specified in ATP and/or back ordered quantity from the current bin.

Note: This field is mandatory.

  1. Enter the ATP quantity. This field is mandatory.
  2. Enter the pre-order quantity. This field is mandatory.
  3. Enter the back-order quantity when the item is low-stock or out of stock.
  4. If the transaction type is Transfer, the To Bin is enabled where you need to add quantity details to the target bin.
  5. Click . Once the transaction is performed, the details can be viewed in the BIN ITEMS TRANSACTIONS section.

About Importing Inventory Details

The Feed option enables you to upload bulk inventory data (.xls or .xlsx format) such as Bins and Bin Items into the Inventory microservice.

Sample Import Spreadsheet

A sample sheet (File: INVENTORY_IMPORT_FEED.xlsx) is available where you can download and add the required bin and bin items details, and then upload it to your Inventory microservice.

The downloaded sample sheet contains two sheets, namely, bin and bin item sheets. The following columns are available in the bin sheet:

Column Name Description
name A name that describes the bin.
description A description of the specified bin.
channel The channel name for the bin.
storied The store ID for the bin.
parentbinid A parent bin identifier in which the bin identifier is associated.
status Signifies if a bin is Active or Inactive:

  • 0 is Inactive
  • 1 is Active

The following columns are available in the binitem sheet:

Column Name Description
binid Refers to bin identifier.
skuid Refers to SKU identifier.
status The status of a bin item where:

  • 0 indicates the bin item is inactive
  • 1 indicates the bin item is active
type Refers to the inventory transaction type where:

  • 1 indicates adding quantities as specified in the ATP and/or back ordered quantity to the current bin item
  • 2 indicates removing quantities as specified in ATP and/or back ordered quantity from the current bin item
  • 3 indicates transfer quantities as specified in the ATP and/or back ordered quantity from one bin item to another bin item
  • 4 indicates reconciling quantities if there is any discrepancy. The quantity entered here overrides the available quantities.
atpqty Specify the ATP quantity.
backorderedqty Specify the backorder quantity.
lowstockthreshold Specify the threshold limit for a low stock.
outofstockthreshold Specify the threshold limit for the out-of-stock. The out-of-stock threshold should be less than the low stock threshold.
binidfrom The source bin identifier for transferring the quantities as specified in the ATP and/or back ordered quantity.
binidto The target bin identifier for transferring the quantities as specified in the ATP and/or back ordered quantity.
notes The description of the transaction.
consignmentcost The consignment cost of the transaction.
displaystatus Signifies the display status such as IN STOCK, OUT OF STOCK, LOW STOCK, or BACKORDERED.

Note: This is applicable only for exporting inventory details to your local computer.

Uploading Inventory Details

Download Template

Before you import a document, you need to download the sample template, fill in all the required details, and then import the document. The downloaded Excel sheet contains the “binitem” sheet with the bin names and associated SKUs, the status of the SKU, and inventory details.

To download the template to fill in the inventory details,

  1. In the INVENTORY BINS page, click IMPORT in the left navigation panel.
  2. Click the IMPORT tab, and then click :

    The template is downloaded in an Excel sheet file format to fill in all the required inventory details for importing the data onto the Inventory Admin console.

Bulk Update Inventory Data

To bulk upload the inventory data,

  1. In the INVENTORY BINS page, click IMPORT in the left navigation panel.
  2. Click the IMPORT tab.
  3. Drag and drop the updated Excel sheet file (.xlsx) from your local computer onto the Import Document section.
    (OR)
    Click  to browse and upload the file from your local computer.
    On successful, the import is completed message appears.
  1. In the imported history section, you can view the list of imported files and other details related to the import. You can  click in the last column to download the uploaded inventory data.

 

 

Revision History

Configuring Events | top

Date (YYYY-MM-DD) Description Created By Peer-Reviewed By Approved By
2023-10-26 Page created and content added for 8.15.4 JP — SR