Overview
Access this functionality by going into the Navigation Bar and clicking More > Connected Items.
With Connected Items, you can link items with little or no sales history to an existing item with a sales history. This enables the item without a sales history to inherit the sales history from the existing item, allowing for more accurate forecasting of the newer item.
The newer item will display a Connected Sale data series (green dot), where you will be able to see which item(s) it is connected to:
The older item will only show its own sales history, through the Sale data series.
Stock on connected items can also be linked where one item takes the place of another item, and you don't want the order process to calculate order proposals on both items.
Connected Items can be particularly useful where:
The new item is similar to the existing item. By linking the items, you can take advantage of the existing item's sales history to more accurately predict future demand patterns despite a short or no sales history.
The new item is replacing the older item. In this scenario, the new item may have a different item number than the older item, but it is essentially the same product. Connecting the stock and sales can help to manage the two items as if they were one and ensure that you have the right amount of inventory on hand for the combined item numbers.
Connected Items columns
There are a series of columns associated with Connected Items. These help you manage your connected items.
Column Name | Description |
Id | A unique identifier for the connection. |
New Item No | Item number that will inherit the sales history from the existing item. |
Old Item No | Item number with the sales history which to pass on to the item without a sales history. |
Connect Stock and Undelivered | Select if you want the new item number to inherit the stock and undelivered orders from the old item number. Recommended when a new item is replacing the old item. |
Stock with connection | When stock is connected, this is the combined stock of both items. |
Stock without connection | The stock level of the new item only, as read from the ERP. |
Connect Sales From | Sales histories will be connected to the new item starting from this date. Effective only if Connection Duration is 'To Date'. |
Connect Sales To | Sales histories will be connected to the new item up until this date. Effective only if Connection Duration is 'To Date'. |
Connection Duration | Determines the period when sales are inherited from the old item to the new item:
|
Sale overlap | Determines how the sales of the two items will be connected:
|
Scale | Sales history from the older item will be scaled by this factor. For example, if the scale is 1.5, the inherited sales on the new item will be 1.5x the sales of the old item. |
Connecting items
To create a connected pair of items, click on the + sign on the right of the toolbar. This creates a new row. Select the item from which to connect the sales (Old Item No) and enter the item number to which to connect the sales (New Item No).
Connect Stock and Undelivered should only be selected when the connection is for a new item that replaces the old item. Connection Duration, Sale Overlap, and Scale values can be set for either type of connection.
When all boxes have been populated, click on the green box with the tick to the left of the row. This will create the connection.
After the connection is created, click Actions > Calculate New History and Forecasts to update the information accordingly. Otherwise, it will happen during the next overnight job run.
Note:
Each new item can only be connected to one old item
Each old item can be connected to multiple new items.
Global settings
AGR allows you to set several values for connected items globally. To do that,
navigate to the settings area in AGR.
select settings from the dropdown menu.
General settings open automatically. The default settings for connected items are the first set of settings in the list.
