Material Codes

Material Codes and van stocks

Under Configuration > Master data is the main Materials screen. The first step when implementing any sort of materials use is to import the full parts catalogue onto this screen. A standard template exists for this purpose, as with all imports always test a single row before kicking off a large data run.

The parts are full defined using this part of the system, it is important to implement well thought through categorisation to make parts easy to find on the mobile device.

Having created the master list you can then import van by van lists. The details are not re-loaded so the van stock import just loads the part ID and stock related quantities

If you are using Van stocks, it is not necessary to release master data for changes to materials, the App downloads the parts list from the stock location screen and the parts list is released van by van - there is no link between the central master data release and the van stock location release

If you are just recording material use against visits and have not implemented Van Stocks, then materials are completely managed by the Core Master Data process in exactly the same way as job codes.

Importing Materials

Materials can be imported using this format:

Materialcodeimportformat - new.csv

Material Parts Substitution

At the moment the way you have to go about changing material parts is as follows.

Step 1 - Add the new materials to the system

This is done either by manually adding the codes or by creating a standard Material Code import file and then loading the data. Contact Totalmobile if you are not sure about uploading materials from a CSV file.

When you do this you need to think about the Category and Sub category as these are used on the mobile device to help find materials.

Step 2 - Make the old codes Inactive on each relevant stock location

At the moment there isn’t a way of making a code Inactive on every stock location. So if there are only a few codes you need to do this manually for each stock location or you can extract the materials for the stock location and then make them Inactive when you upload the CSV file (see below).

Step 3 - Add the new codes to the stock location

Again if there are only a few codes this can be done manually otherwise you can use the van stock CSV import option.

When you do this as a default set the current qty = 1, the minimum qty = 1 and the reorder qty = 1. You need to decide whether the item is replenishment (re-order as you use it), order (you have to order it) or special (you have to order it but it needs special approval).

Step 4 - Release to mobile device

Until you Release to mobile device for the stock location none of the changes will impact the resource.