Locations: class, transit, and what runs for you — transcript

Play this as a presentation — one slide per step, with the same narration. Every word of every step is on this page.

This lesson is about the record underneath the branch. A location decides where stock is counted, which pickers offer it, and which reports can group it — and one of your locations was created for you without anybody asking. It is also where this course answers the question every configuration course should: what happens without you watching, and how you would know. About thirteen minutes.

Step 1 — Choose a location class, and know who filters on it

After this step your consignee sites will appear where they are needed. A location is either basic or consignee class. Nothing in the posting engine branches on the choice; what it changes is which pickers show the location. The consignment applets treat consignee class as a consignee site and filter their location pickers on it, so a consignee site keyed as basic simply will not be offered where somebody needs it, with no message to explain the absence. Location Edit also shows a third option with a test-looking label whose value is the same consignee class — leftover markup, harmless, and not a third kind of location.

Reference: Organization — Company, branch and location settings that other applets and the backend read

Step 2 — Leave the stock-in-transit location alone

After this step you will stop wondering where a transfer’s stock goes. Every company gets a stock-in-transit location automatically when the company is created, named after the company code — an ordinary basic location nobody asked for. When one branch sends stock to another, finalising the outbound transfer takes the quantity out of the sending location and writes a mirrored line at that in-transit location, so the goods stay visible on Stock Balance while they are on the road. Finalising the inbound transfer puts them into the receiving location. Leave it out of your own processes entirely: the transfer applet already keeps it out of the destination picker.

Reference: Stock Transfer — Overview

Step 3 — Know what runs the moment a document goes final

After this step you can tell that the work happened without watching it happen. Finalising a stock-moving document does not write the balance itself. The document’s primary processor fans out to a stock job, which writes one signed ledger line per inventory item at whichever location the precedence chose. A second job then takes each ledger line into the location balance and the company balance, and updates the moving-average and weighted-average costs, the last purchase cost and the serial, batch and bin sub-balances on the way. You have two ways to see that both ran, and neither of them will come and find you. The location’s row on Stock Balance has moved, and the document’s own Posting tab shows Inventory Posting Status as POSTED. No page records any alert, e-mail or flag on this path, so checking is the routine.

Reference: Related Applets - Stock Balance — Background jobs

Step 4 — Let a location tell you it is running low

After this step a location can raise its hand instead of waiting to be asked. A scheduled job compares stock balances against the minimum and maximum levels held per location on each item, and e-mails a summary with a spreadsheet of everything below its minimum or above its maximum to the addresses configured for it. Three things must be true or the mail never comes: the job needs a list of locations, it needs a list of recipients, and only levels greater than zero are counted. With nothing to report it sends nothing at all, which looks exactly like a job that is not running.

Reference: Related Applets - Stock Balance — Background jobs

Step 5 — Set the reporting dimensions, and expect nothing from extensions

After this step your locations carry the groupings you meant to give them. Outlet type and outlet size are two small lists you define once under the applet’s settings and then pick on a location — a way to separate GadgetSphere’s shopping-centre units, high-street shops and fulfilment sites in a report without inventing a naming convention. The location’s Extension tab is a different matter: you may add any key you like there, and no key on a location extension is read by the backend at all. Use the outlet lists and the location labels for anything a report has to see.

Reference: Organization — Company, branch and location settings that other applets and the backend read

Step 6 — Know the limit of what you can check

After this step you will know which half of this you can answer yourself. Start on the document: its Posting tab shows Inventory Posting Status, and POSTED means the stock job ran and the problem is elsewhere. Blank on a FINAL document leaves three possibilities — the line’s item is not linked to an inventory item, the job is not subscribed for your tenant, or the job ran and failed — and a blank cannot tell them apart, because nothing ever writes FAILED there. Two things before you escalate. A failed job is not sitting in a queue waiting; claiming a job deletes its row, and a posting that fails afterwards is not retried. And some tenants have an inventory watchdog that re-queues a blank posting after twenty minutes, so on those it recovers by itself. Which of those apply to you is server configuration with no screen behind it, and that much is a question for BigLedger.

Reference: Related Applets - Stock Balance — How a FINAL reaches the balance

How the steps fit together

    flowchart TD
  s1["Step 1 — Choose a location class, and know who filters on it"]
  s2["Step 2 — Leave the stock-in-transit location alone"]
  s3["Step 3 — Know what runs the moment a document goes final"]
  s4["Step 4 — Let a location tell you it is running low"]
  s5["Step 5 — Set the reporting dimensions, and expect nothing from extensions"]
  s6["Step 6 — Know the limit of what you can check"]
  s1 --> s2
  s2 --> s3
  s3 --> s4
  s4 --> s5
  s5 --> s6
  

Check yourself

Three to five questions on what you just heard. Every correct answer links to the page that makes it correct, so you can check the source, not just the mark.

Next: The branch settings that change nothing, and the two that do · Back to the series · Play this as a presentation