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Using the Inventory Management Task

The Inventory Management Task is a scheduled task in e-agent that automates the same processes performed by the Inventory Logistics Console. It analyzes inventory needs in the system, makes purchase or transfer decisions, and carries out the appropriate transactions. The Inventory Management Task has the same functionality as the Inventory Logistics Console, except it goes one step further and automatically creates the purchase orders and/or performs the inventory transfers for you.

The Inventory Logistics Console simply provides you with the information you need to manually perform inventory transactions. It allows you to collect inventory needs throughout the day and repeatedly analyze and add to pending purchase orders before you create all purchase orders or transfer orders needed at the end of the day. The Inventory Management Task, however, takes the same data collected by the Inventory Logistics Console, creates the purchase orders and inventory transfer orders, and/or performs the inventory transfer at the time(s) you’ve scheduled the task to run in e-agent.

The task begins with analyzing your inventory needs. The task examines the following four areas:

Sales Orders: Looks for items on sales orders that are drop-ship items, special order items, or backordered items.

Service Calls: Searches for service calls containing materials that are needed (backordered) to complete calls.

Restock Levels: Examines your warehouse stocking levels and determines what items are needed to reach your configured stocking levels.

Inventory Requests: Queries any requests for inventory items.

You can also configure a filter or filters that will restrict items that can be drawn from sales, service, stocking, and inventory requests. You can configure one filter or apply multiple filters to meet your inventory needs. For example, you can restrict the Inventory Management Task so that it can only order supply and part items and leave the equipment and accessories up to you. You can set basic filters or advanced filters by:

Inventory items

Warehouses

Bins

Branches

You can set the task only to create transfer orders, or to both create the transfer orders and perform the transfers based on your existing stock. You can indicate if the system should automatically print a picking list, packing list, or both, and you can specify how many copies to print and what printer to use for printing. You can also specify the e-mail address(es) you want the system to send notification to each time task processing completes.

Task Operation ProcessTask Operation Process

The transactional items are addressed first, before the stock levels. When e-automate adds an item to a transaction, it associates a warehouse and bin for that item with the transaction. Once transactional needs are addressed, e-automate can replenish the inventory stock levels for child warehouses. Before placing items on purchase orders, e-automate will attempt to transfer from the parent warehouse to replenish child warehouses. Once child warehouses are replenished, e-automate can then replenish parent warehouses. You can determine if the e-agent task performs replenishment or not.

For transactional inventory, the Inventory Management Task first looks to see if any items are drop-shipped, special ordered, or back ordered. The task then identifies the warehouse and bin associated with that transaction. For restocking levels, the system evaluates the restock quantity. After identifying the warehouse and bin or evaluating the restock quantity, the task checks to see if the warehouse has a parent warehouse. If it does have a parent, it then checks to see if the parent warehouse has the item in stock. If the parent warehouse does have the item in stock and you’ve set the task to perform transfers, the task automatically creates the transfer order and performs the transfer. The task then automatically prints the picking list, packing list, or both if you’ve defined the task to do so. If the parent warehouse does have the item in stock and you’ve set the task to create transfer orders only, the task automatically creates the transfer order and prints the picking list, packing list, or both if you’ve defined the task to do so. You must then manually perform the transfer.

If there is not a warehouse parent or the warehouse parent does not have the item in stock, the Inventory Management Task checks to see if there is an un-received PO with that item on it. If there is, it links the needed item to the available item on the PO. For example, if a customer orders 20 of an item on a sales order and there is an un-received PO with 30 of the item, the task will reserve 20 of that item for the backordered sales order. When the PO with 30 items is received, the items will be allotted to the appropriate sales order transaction.

If the transaction is for a drop-ship item, special order item, or backordered item on a sales order, the task automatically changes the sales order status from Backordered to Open. If the transaction is for items needed on a service call the task automatically changes the service call status from On Hold (Waiting for Parts) to On Hold (Parts Available).

If there are no un-received POs with the item on them, the task checks to see if the item has a default vendor. If it does not have a default vendor, then you must manually create a PO for the item and the Inventory Management Task stops for that item. If the item does have a default vendor, the task checks for any unlocked POs (POs that have not been printed or emailed to the vendor). If there are no unlocked POs associated with the default vendor, it creates the PO, adds the line item, and links the item to the original transaction. If there is an unlocked PO associated with the default vendor, the task then checks to see if the needed item is on the PO. If it is not, the task automatically adds a new line item to the PO for the needed item and links the item to the original transaction. If the needed item is on the PO to the default vendor, the task automatically adds the needed quantity to the line item on the PO and links the item to the original transaction.

Creating, Scheduling, and Manually Running Inventory Management TasksCreating, Scheduling, and Manually Running Inventory Management Tasks

To create, schedule, and/or manually run an e-agent task in the On Premise environment, see the Inventory Management (On Premise) topic.