Overview
In 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.
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.
Id: A unique identifier for the connection
New Item No: Item number which 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
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.
Sale overlap: Determines how the sales of the two items will be connected.
Sale points added: The connected sales on the new item will be the sum of the sales of the old item and the new item. Recommended when new item is replacing the older item.
Old item sale overwrites: The connected sales on the new item will be the inherited sales from the old item during the period selected in the connection duration. Any sales of the new item will not be included in the sales history of the new item. Recommended when new item is similar to the old item.
Old item sale only when new is null: On days where there is no sale of the new item, it will inherit the sales of the old item. Otherwise, the connected sales will be the sales of the new item.
Connection Duration: Determines the period when sales are inherited from the old item to the new item.
No end: Sales histories of both items will be connected in the new item indefinitely. Recommended when new item is replacing the older item.
First Sale: Sales histories of both items are connected in the new item up until the first sale date of the new item. Recommended when new item is similar to the older item.
To Date: Sales histories will be connected in the new item up until the Connect Sales To date. Recommended for when you want to control the exact period to be connected.
Connect Sales From: Sales histories will be connected in the new item from this date. Effective only if Connection Duration is 'To Date'
Connect Sales To: Sales histories will be connected in the new item up until this date. Effective only if Connection Duration is 'To Date'
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 the 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. However, the new sales information will not be connected until 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 opens automatically. The default settings for connected items is the first set of settings in the list.
