CONTENTS
Advanced Store Replenishment Method
Other fields of importance to ASR on the Edit Product Option screen
Getting help with completing the required Product Option fields
An important note about Min/Max levels
Advanced Store Replenishment Schedule
Advanced Store Replenishment Job History
Advanced Store Replenishment Performance Report
Introduction
Advanced Store Replenishment is a more advanced version of the existing Stock Replenishment function. It allows users to schedule replenishments for store locations from the Warehouse at set dates and times. Also, you can write the formulae which the system uses to calculate the stores’ stock requirements, and so you can have the system do more complicated calculations that the standard function does.
It will likely be of interest to retailers
- who have a large number of stores,
- who replenish those stores’ stock from the warehouse on a regular basis, and/or
- for whom the “standard” methods of calculating the stores’ stock requirements (by ‘Min/Max levels’ or ‘sales/weeks cover’) are not quite right.
Note: This feature is controlled by the ‘Advanced Store Replenishment’ Licence. Please speak to your Account Manager for more information.
Location Settings
To use this feature, you must first specify which of your locations are warehouses, and then for each of your stores, set which warehouse they are replenished from.
To do this,
- Log into the Cybertill Back Office and click into the Admin menu.
- Scroll down to the Locations section and select Location Management.
- Click the Edit link on the right for the first of your warehouses.
On the Edit Location page, look for a field called Type.
This must be set to ‘Warehouse’ for all of your warehouse locations, if it isn’t already. (If you have to change it, don’t forget to click Save at the bottom afterwards.)
After setting that field for all your warehouses, you’ll need to go back and edit each of your stores too.
For your stores, the Type field must be set to ‘Retail’. (It should be by default.)
Also, for all ‘Retail’ locations, there are a couple more fields which you’ll need to complete. The first of them, called Warehouse deliveries received from, can be found further down the page. This is where you choose which of your warehouses that store is replenished from.
- Enter a number in the Replenishment priority field.
The number you enter here dictates what priority this store will have in the event of the warehouse not having enough stock to supply all the stores. The lower the number, the higher the priority. (So, you should enter a number 1 here for your most important store, then a 2 for the next most important store, then a 3 and so on.)
Example: If the warehouse only has enough stock of a certain product to replenish 8 of your 10 stores, then should you ask the system to ‘ration by priority’, the stores with priority 1 through to 8 will get the stock, and the stores with priority 9 and 10 will miss out.
There will be more information about rationing later in this manual.
Advanced Store Replenishment Method
Next, you’ll need to write all the mathematical formulae that you want the system to use to calculate your store’s requirements, and then set which formula is to be used for each item.
These formulae are called Advanced Store Replenishment Methods (ASR Methods for short).
Firstly, let’s look at how to create an ASR Method.
- Select the Merchandise menu from the Cybertill Back Office.
- Click on the Advanced Store Replenishment Method function under the Advanced Store Replenishment section.
The Advanced Store Replenishment Method List screen will display, listing all methods already created. If you are yet to create any, this page will be blank.
To create a new method,
- click New at the bottom of the page
In this page you can create a Method for replenishements from the warehouse to stores.
In the Method Name* field at the top,
- enter a name for the method you want to create (e.g. ‘by Min/Max levels’, ‘sales over last X days’, ‘Method 1’).
The Description field is a free-text box in which you can type in anything you like. It’s good practice to enter notes describing how this method is intended to work in as simple terms as you can. (That may be useful for your colleagues, or even for yourself as a memory aid.) It’s not a mandatory field, though, and it can be left blank.
If you want the system to use ‘average units sold over the last X days’ as one of the parameters in its calculations (i.e. the ‘ALXDS’ parameter),
- enter the number of days you want it to look at (i.e. the ‘X’) into the Average Days Sales field.
If you don’t plan to use the ‘ALXDS’ parameter, you can ignore this field.
If you want the system to use units sold across a specified date range as one of the parameters in its calculations (i.e. the ‘SADR’ parameter),
- set the Sales Date From and Sales Date To fields accordingly.
If you don’t plan to use that, you can ignore these fields.
Next,
- In the Formula* field, here is where you should type in the formula itself:
The syntax you should use here is exactly the same as with “IF” functions in Excel (although you don’t need to enter the ‘=’ character at the start). They follow this structure:
IF ([statement],[value if true],[value if false])
They instruct the system to check “is this statement true?” They then tell the system what to do if it is true. After that, they then give instructions on what to do if it is not true.
Example: IF(AS<MINS,MAXS-AS,0)
The yellow section represents the statement to be checked, which in this case is: “The available stock level is less than the Min stock level.” (“AS” is the parameter for “Available Stock”. The “<” character means “less than”. “MINS” is the parameter for Min stock levels.)
The green section tells the system how to calculate how many units of stock should be set out to the shops if the preceding statement is true. (So, in this case, if the available stock is less than the minimum stock level, the system would take the Max stock level – indicated by the “MAXS” parameter - then subtract the current available stock level from it, and the amount left over is the quantity it would transfer.)
The blue section tells the system how to calculate how many units of stock to send if the preceding statement was false.
(In this instance, there isn’t even anything to calculate; the answer is simply ‘0’.)
At the right of the screen you will see a list of all the parameters and operators which you can put into your method:
Let’s take a closer look at what each of the parameters mean:
| Parameter | Explanation |
| AS | The available stock quantity for the store(s) being replenished. |
| RF |
The Replenishment Frequency. This parameter refers to a field found in Admin > Location Management; if you go to edit a location there, you will find a field called Replenishment frequency (days). It is intended for recording how frequently that store is replenished (i.e. how many days there are between replenishments). Retailers could involve this parameter in their ASR method if they wish for the system to send more stock to locations which are replenished less frequently, for example. |
| RDF |
Replenishment Frequency Demand Forecast. This parameter refers to parts of the system which are still in development; it will be explained in future versions of this manual. |
| DTDF |
Delivery Time Demand Forecast. This parameter refers to parts of the system which are still in development; it will be explained in future versions of this manual. |
| ALXDS |
Average Last X Days Sales. This parameter represents the mean average units sold over the last X calendar days (X being the number entered into the Average Days Sales field at the left of the screen). Example: If Average Days Sales is set to ‘10’, and the item being considered for replenishment has sold 7 units in the store in question over the last 10 days, then this parameter would return a value of ‘0.7’. |
| SADR |
Sales in date range. At the left of ASR Method screen there are two fields for Sales Date From and Sales Date To. If you include the SADR parameter in your method, then it will return how many units of the item being considered for replenishment have been sold across that date range. |
| PROL |
PO Re-Order Level. In the system’s ‘Edit Product Option’ screen (the same screen where you can amend items’ prices, barcodes, Itemrefs etc), you will find a field there called PO Re-Order Level. This parameter simply returns whatever value is saved in that field. It is intended to be used in the context of Purchase Orders, rather than replenishments. i.e. “when the warehouse’s available stock falls below this figure, we need to buy in more from the supplier” – and so for most retailers, it wouldn’t be appropriate to use this parameter in an ASR Method. |
| PROQ |
PO Re-Order Quantity. In the system’s Edit Product Option screen, you will find a field there called PO Re-Order Quantity. This parameter simply returns whatever value is saved in that field. As with the previous parameter, it is intended to be used in the context of Purchase Orders, rather than replenishments. i.e. “when the warehouse’s available stock starts running low, we should buy in this many from the supplier” – and so for most retailers, it wouldn’t be appropriate to use this parameter in an ASR Method. |
| MAXS | The Max stock level for the store being considered for replenishment. |
| MINS | The Min stock level for the store being considered for replenishment. |
The Replenishment Always Rounded Up to Next Store Delivery Pack Size? field affects how the system handles instances where a store needs some stock but doesn’t need a full ‘pack’ of it.
On the Edit Product Option screen, there is a field called Store Delivery Pack Size.
- Here, you can enter in what multiples this item will be sent out to stores.
Example: Let’s say you sell cans of cola. Your supplier sells them to you in boxes of 24. You will need to consider; when I distribute them out from my warehouse to the stores, would I want to keep them in their boxes of 24? Or would I be happy to break open those boxes at the warehouse, and send out single cans to the stores? If the latter, you should enter ‘1’ in that field for that product. If the former, you should enter ‘24’.
Running with this example: Let’s say you enter ‘24’ into that field. Let’s then say that later, when you do an Advanced Store Replenishment, the system calculates that one of your stores only needs 1 single can.
In cases like this, would you like to simply send them a full pack of 24? If so,
- tick this Replenishment Always Rounded Up to Next Store Delivery Size box.
- If not, leave it unticked.
If that box is unticked, the next field down – labelled Round Down At Which Percentage of Store Delivery Pack Size?
will become active:
In there,
- enter at what percentage of a full pack you’d like the system to ‘round up or down’ at.
Continuing with the previous example, let’s say you’d entered ‘50’ in that field, thereby setting your ‘rounding’ percentage to be 50%.
In these circumstances, the store which only needed just 1 actually wouldn’t receive any stock. 1 is less than 50% of a full pack, and so the system wouldn’t send them any packs at all.
If a second store needed 17 cans, then because that store required over 50% of a full pack, the system would want to send them a full pack of 24.
If a third store needed 30 cans, then the system will want to send them just one full pack of 24. Because the remaining 6 units is less than 50% of a full pack, it wouldn’t want to send any more out.
Let’s say a fourth store needed 40 cans. The system would want to send them two full packs of 24 (48 in total). That desired amount of 40 would be comprised of one full pack of 24, plus another 16 – and because 16 is over 50% of a full pack, the system would round up accordingly.
Moving on, the last few fields are to do with ‘ring-fencing’ a portion of your stock in the warehouse for web orders.
These fields are still in Development and we therefore advise users to leave them blank.
When you have entered sufficient information in your Advanced Store Replenishment Method,
▪ click Save.
Examples of ASR Methods
Let’s consider a few other examples of ASR methods which you could use:
IF(AS<MINS,MAXS-AS,0)
This is the formula from the previous chapter. This would get products whose stock level had dropped below the Min level to be topped back up to the Max again.
ALXDS*7
Note that you don’t have to include an ‘IF’ test in your method. This formula would simply replenish the stores with all the units they’d sold over the last 7 days.
For this formula to work effectively, the Average Days Sales field would need to be set to “7”. This would cause the ALXDS parameter to be the mean average of sales in that store over the last 7 days. So, for example, if you sold 10 of an item over those 7 days, ALXDS = 10/7 = 1.43.
Consequently, if you multiply that parameter by 7, you’d get up with a result of 10.
(ALXDS*7)-AS
Similar to the above, here, the system would look at how many units had been sold over the last 7 days, then subtract the shop’s current available stock from that – and the result of that would be the amount it wants to replenish.
IF((AS<MINS)AND(RF>6),MAXS-AS,IF((AS<MINS)AND(RF<8),(MAXS-AS)/2,0))
Here’s a longer, more complicated example, which demonstrates both use of the AND operator (to test whether two different statements are true at once) as well as having two separate IF tests. (The colours have been added to clarify
which passages refer to which parts of the method.)
With this formula, the system will check firstly whether both
- the item’s available stock is less than the Min and
- whether the store’s “replenishment frequency” (the RF parameter) is greater than 6 (i.e. if it’s 7 or above).
If both propositions are true, it will subtract the “available stock” from the “Max stock”, then replenish the store by the resulting value.
If either of those two propositions were false, it then does another test. It will now check whether both
- the item’s available stock is less than the Min and
- whether the store’s “replenishment frequency” is less than 7 (i.e. if it’s 6 or less).
If both propositions are true, it will subtract the “available stock” from the “Max stock”, then divide that result by 2, and that will become the number of units it wants to replenish.
If either of those two propositions were false, it will replenish zero units.
Allocating Methods to Items
Once you have created as many ASR methods as you require, your next step is to specify which method applies to which items. This can be set manually against each product option, but for most users the best way to do this will be using the Product Option Manager Batch Update feature.
To do this via a batch update,
- Go to Admin > Product Option Manager
- Use the filters to bring up several products on screen (e.g. select a category).
- Click Search
After a moment’s pause, you should see a list of all the Products which match your filters on screen.
From the Bulk Options section at the bottom of the page,
- click the Adv store replen method dropdown and choose the method you wish to apply to these items.
- In the Choose an action box at the bottom left, choose Bulk Update then click on Go.
When the screen refreshes, you should see in the Replenishment method that all the items on screen have now been set to use your specified ASR method.
Should you ever wish to amend one particular item’s method, you can do that from the Edit Product Option screen (i.e. the same place where you set cost/retail prices, Itemref, Barcode etc.); look for a field on that page about half way down called Adv Store Replen Cal Method:
Other fields of importance to ASR on the Edit Product Option screen
When the ASR module has been enabled on your system, a handful of new fields will appear on the Edit Product Option screen (the screen from where you can edit your items’ prices, barcodes, item references etc). Some of them we’ve already mentioned to in previous chapters. Some of them must be completed for your products before ASR will work at all for them. Let’s look at each of them in turn:
| Field | Explanation |
| Store delivery pack size* | Enter here in what multiples this item will be sent out to stores. This does not have to be the same number as the Purchase Box Qty. Example: usually cans of soft drink can only be bought from Suppliers in boxes of 24. If you’d prefer to only ever send out whole boxes from warehouse to store, you’d need to enter ‘24’ in this field accordingly. On the other hand, if you’d have no problem breaking open a box at your warehouse so you can send single cans out to the stores, enter a ‘1’ here. Do not leave this field set to 0. The system requires a number of 1 or greater in this field in order for the ASR module to do its calculations. If you leave it at 0 for an item, ASR will not work for that item. |
| PO Re-order level | A field intended for use in the context of Purchase Orders; for specifying a value which, when the warehouse’s available stock falls below it, you wish to buy in more. Although this is a parameter which could be used in ASR calculations if you wished, it usually isn’t appropriate to do so; generally, retailers using ASR are advised to ignore it. |
| PO Re-order quantity |
Another field intended for use in the context of Purchase Orders; for specifying how many units of this item you’d like to buy in from Supplier at the warehouse when the warehouse is running low of stock. Although this is a parameter which could be used in ASR calculations if you wished, it usually isn’t appropriate to do so; generally, retailers using ASR are advised to ignore it. |
| Stores are replenished by* |
You must set here whether when stores are running low on stock of this item, they are
For ASR to work for this item, you must set this field to Warehouse. If set to either ‘Direct from Supplier’ or ‘N/A’, then ASR will not pick this item up. |
| Adv Store Replen Cal Method | Choose here which ASR Method will be used to calculate how much stock of this item should be sent out to stores. If left blank, then ASR will not work for this item. (As noted in the previous chapter, it’s usually most efficient for retailers to use Admin > Product Option Manager to complete this field; you can set it for many items at once there.) |
- Click Save at the bottom before moving on if you’ve made any changes to these fields.
| Field | Explanation |
| Store delivery pack size* | Enter here in what multiples this item will be sent out to stores. This does not have to be the same number as the Purchase Box Qty. Example: usually cans of soft drink can only be bought from Suppliers in boxes of 24. If you’d prefer to only ever send out whole boxes from warehouse to store, you’d need to enter ‘24’ in this field accordingly. On the other hand, if you’d have no problem breaking open a box at your warehouse so you can send single cans out to the stores, enter a ‘1’ here. Do not leave this field set to 0. The system requires a number of 1 or greater in this field in order for the ASR module to do its calculations. If you leave it at 0 for an item, ASR will not work for that item. |
| PO Re-order level | A field intended for use in the context of Purchase Orders; for specifying a value which, when the warehouse’s available stock falls below it, you wish to buy in more. Although this is a parameter which could be used in ASR calculations if you wished, it usually isn’t appropriate to do so; generally, retailers using ASR are advised to ignore it. |
| PO Re-order quantity |
Another field intended for use in the context of Purchase Orders; for specifying how many units of this item you’d like to buy in from Supplier at the warehouse when the warehouse is running low of stock. Although this is a parameter which could be used in ASR calculations if you wished, it usually isn’t appropriate to do so; generally, retailers using ASR are advised to ignore it. |
| Stores are replenished by* |
You must set here whether when stores are running low on stock of this item, they are
For ASR to work for this item, you must set this field to Warehouse. If set to either ‘Direct from Supplier’ or ‘N/A’, then ASR will not pick this item up. |
| Adv Store Replen Cal Method | Choose here which ASR Method will be used to calculate how much stock of this item should be sent out to stores. If left blank, then ASR will not work for this item. (As noted in the previous chapter, it’s usually most efficient for retailers to use Admin > Product Option Manager to complete this field; you can set it for many items at once there.) |
▪ Click Save at the bottom before moving on if you’ve made any changes to these fields.
Getting help with completing the required Product Option fields
Two of the fields mentioned in the previous chapter; Store Delivery Pack Size and Stores are replenished by – must be completed for every item which you intend to use ASR to distribute. However, at the time of writing this document, the only way for end users to complete those fields themselves is by clicking into the Edit Product Option screen and filling them in manually for each item, one at a time.
If this is not a realistic option for you (e.g. if you have thousands of product options to do), it’s advised that you contact your Cybertill Account Manager for help. We may be able to do a one-off data import to get those fields filled in for all the items currently on your system.
Product Assortment
Once you’ve created your ASR Methods, then specified which Products use them, your next step is to declare which products are eligible for replenishment to which Locations, and across which date ranges – and, if your ASR Methods refer to Min/Max levels, you will need to set what you want the Items’ Min/Max levels to be across those date ranges too.
Such records are referred to in Cybertill as Product Assortments.
Some forward planning is essential here. You must create your Product Assortments at least one day before you wish to do any actual replenishments. The system needs to run some automated processes overnight in order to properly activate a new assortment – and so, if you add a brand-new Product to the system today, you won’t be able to use ASR to distribute it to your stores until the following morning at the earliest.
Let’s start by looking at how to create an assortment for just a few products.
- Click into the Merchandise menu, and then select Product Assortments.
- Click the New link at the bottom.
You’ll be taken to this page:
Ignore the Product Group field for now. We’ll come back to that shortly.
- Click on the Add… link.
A search window will appear:
- Enter something to search for in any of these fields, and then click the Search button at the bottom right.
You’ll see a list of results:
- Click on the name or itemRef for each of the items here which you wish to create an assortment for.
(Don’t bother ticking the boxes at the left; those boxes don’t do anything here. You must click the name or itemRef for it to work.)
As you click on each item’s name or ref, it might not look as if anything is happening, but those items will be being added to the list in the background, behind this pop-up. Once you’ve clicked on all the items you want,
- click Close at the bottom right.
You’ll then clearly be able to see your chosen items listed:
Ignore the Store Profile field for now; we’ll come back to that later.
- Click into the Location field and tick all the locations which you want these products to be on an assortment for (i.e. to be replenished to).
- Click the View button to continue.
(Be careful not to click Save at the bottom left; we’re not quite ready for that yet.)
When the screen refreshes, you should see a table with all the items you selected down the left, and all the locations you selected along the top:
Do your ASR Methods use the MINS and MAXS parameters in their calculations? (Will they be referring to your items’ Min and Max levels to calculate the stores’ stock requirements?) If so, you’ll need to enter the desired Min/Max figures into the Min and Max fields of this table here.
To speed this up, notice that every box of the table has links for Copy to all options and Copy to all locations. The first of those will copy the Min and Max levels into every other row of the table (i.e. to all cells above and below). The second will copy them to every other column of the table (i.e. to all cells left and right). So, if all the items on screen are supposed to have the same Min/Max levels, you can fill it in for all of them with just a few clicks.
- After filling in Min/Max figures as desired, scroll down to the bottom and look for the Effective Date fields.
You must choose a date range which you want this assortment to be considered active for.
The earliest Start date you can specify is tomorrow. Should you try and choose today, you’ll get an error message when you click Save afterwards. (This is why you need to create your assortments at least 1 day before you want to do any replenishments.)
You will need to specify a To date, so if you want your products to be on an active assortment forever, you ought to choose the furthest date in the future which the system permits you to select.
- Click the Save button at the bottom left when you’re done.
When the screen refreshes, you’ll see all your specified Items, Locations, Dates and Min/Max values listed in a different format of table. It should look something like this:
You can repeat this process again.
- Click New at the bottom to create more until you’ve done it for all the required items and locations.
If you have many items and many stores, by this point you might be concerned that carrying out this process for every item and every store would be time consuming. Fortunately, there are a couple of shortcuts, and we’ll look at those next.
Product Groups
It’s common for retailers to want to replenish large groups of products in the same sort of way. (For example, perhaps you’d want everything in a certain category or categories to be active across all your stores – and maybe even for them all to have the same Min/Max levels.)
If that’s the case for you, then instead of selecting the products one by one (as described in the previous chapter), using the Product Groups feature would be best. If you take the time to create such a ‘group’, then whenever you go to create an assortment, you can just select the product group (instead of searching then clicking one-by-one on each item you want).
- Try clicking into Merchandise, then Product Groups.
- Select New at the bottom. You’ll be taken to this screen:
- Enter a Name for your product group.
It can be anything you like; it can just be the same as one of your Category names if you like.
Next, to specify what products this group is to contain, you have a few choices:
- Choose a Category or categories.
- In the Product row, click on the […] Search button, then search for and select the products you want to include.
- Prepare a .CSV spreadsheet file in which column A contains the ItemRefs of the items you wish to include in this group, then click the Browse… button at the far right and upload that file from your hard drive.
- In the Item row, click on the Add… link, then search for and select the items you want to include.
Do whichever of the above is most convenient,
- then click Save at the bottom.
You should see a yellow success message at the top of the screen confirming that your group saved successfully.
- Click Back to list at the bottom left, you should see a summary of how many products and items your product group contains:
It’s sometimes worth looking on this screen just to check that the number of products and items is what you expected. If the numbers are much larger or smaller than expected, that’s a possible red flag; it could mean you didn’t choose the right categories/ upload the right list of item codes etc.
Note: You can also click the ( i ) icon in the Info column to see a pop-up listing each of the items which this group currently contains.
After you have created a product group, the next time you go to create a product assortment, you’ll be able to simply select that product group instead of using the Search for items feature:
- Simply choose a product group, then go on to specify Locations, then click View etc. exactly as described in the previous chapter.
Store Profiles
Retailers with many stores may wish to create assortments and set Min/Max levels for multiple stores at once, rather than for each store individually.
The Store Profiles feature helps to make this easier.
- Click on Store Profiles under the Assortment Management section.
The Store Profiles List will open. In this section the stores can be grouped into profiles.
- Enter a Name for this Store Profile.
(Some suggestions: ‘Large stores’, ‘Small stores’, ‘Flagship stores’, ‘Northern stores’, ‘Rural stores’, ‘City centre stores’.)
In the Location box,
- tick all the stores which you want this store profile to include.
- Click Save at the bottom when you’re done.
You can click Back to list at the bottom to go back a step, then repeat the above process to create as many other store profiles as you like.
After you have done this, the next time you go to create a new product assortment, you’ll have the option of selecting a Store Profile, instead of having to tick each of the locations one by one like previously:
When you click View, it will bring up a similar table of fields as we saw before, but there will only be one column for each of the store profiles you selected (as opposed to a separate column for each individual location, like we had in the previous chapter):
- create an assortment for, and if necessary
- set the same Min/Max levels for all the locations in, this store profile.
(Don’t forget that you’ll still need to set an Effective Date range at the bottom and then click Save before all the above will be saved.)
An important note about Min/Max levels
If you want to use Advanced Store Replenishment, and if you want Min and Max levels to be used to calculate your shops’ stock requirements, you must use Product Assortments to set what those Min/Max levels will be.
Any other methods you may have used previously to set Min/Max levels (e.g. Bulk Stock Level Editor or importing them from a spreadsheet in Data Import Manager) will either;
- not work at all, or
- will only work temporarily (for the rest of that calendar day) at best.
The Min/Max levels set in Product Assortments will always take precedence.
Advanced Store Replenishment Schedule
Now all of the preparation has been done, let’s finally consider what’s involved in actually doing a replenishment.
- You will need to use the Advanced Store Replenishment Schedule feature in the Merchandise menu for this.
On this page, you’ll see a list of all the replenishments which are currently scheduled (if there are any).
- Click New at the bottom of the page to start scheduling a new replenishment.
It will open this screen:
- Enter a Name* for this replenishment job at the top. (It can be anything you like, e.g. ‘Weekly clothing replen’.)
- In the Warehouse* field, select the Warehouse which you want to send the stock out from. (You will only be able to select locations whose Type field is set to ‘Warehouse’ here.)
- Next, you’ll need to use at least one of the Categories, Seasons, Suppliers, Brands, Stock Ref and Product List filters to specify what range of products you want to be considered for replenishment as part of this job.
(You can choose from more than one of these filters if you wish.)
- Select the Location(s)* which you want to replenish.
- Complete the First Run Date & Time* fields; select the date and time at which you want this job to start.
In the Frequency* field, should you want this replenishment job to be run regularly on the same day or days every week,
- tick the appropriate days here.
- Alternatively, tick Once Only if it’s to be a one-off.
(You must either select a day or tick Once Only; don’t leave both blank, or you’ll get an error when you try to save.)
Re the Automatically Pass Replenishment To Picking Schedule box, if you tick it, then when this scheduled job runs, the system will automatically create IBT requests from warehouse to stores for all the items according to its calculations. If you don’t tick it, the system will still calculate how much stock it thinks your stores will need, but it won’t automatically create IBTs. You’ll be able to see all the figures it calculated and review them on another screen (which we’ll see shortly) - and it would only create IBT requests after you’ve reviewed and confirmed them. (It might be wise to leave this box unticked if you’ve never used ASR before and want to verify it’s doing the maths as you expect it to before any transfers get created.)
Lastly,
- select the Rationing Rule.
This Rationing Rule field is where you give the system direction on what it should do if you don’t have enough stock in your warehouse to fulfil your stores’ needs. There are four choices:
| Choice | Explanation |
|
Replenishment Priority Order |
Choose this if you want the system to prioritise fulfilling the requirements of stores which have a higher priority (as per the Replenishment Priority value set against each location in Admin > Location Management; see the first chapter of this user guide.) |
| Manual Rationing | Choose this option if you don’t want the system to do any automatic rationing at all, and you’d rather work out how to ration each item yourself on a case-by-case basis. (If you have ticked the Automatically Pass Replenishment… box above, it is not recommended that you choose this option, because you will end up with transfer requests being created for stock which you do not have.) |
| Ration Excess Requests Equally | If you choose this option, then for any items where you don’t have sufficient warehouse stock to fulfil all the stores’ needs, the system will simply; take all the available warehouse stock, divide it by the number of stores which require it, and then create a transfer for that many units out to each of those stores. (So, under this rationing method, for all ‘rationed’ items, each of the requesting stores will get exactly the same quantity; the stock will be spread equally across all stores. The system will not consider whether some stores need more stock than others.) |
| Ration Excess Requests Proportionally | If you choose this option, then for items where there isn’t sufficient warehouse stock to meet all the stores’ needs, the system will attempt to distribute what stock it has proportionately to all the requesting stores’ needs. (So, for example, if all the requesting stores combined need 1000 units but the warehouse only has 750, then each of the requesting stores would only receive three quarters of the amount they requested.) |
|
Ration Excess Requests Proportionally |
If you choose this option, then for items where there isn’t sufficient warehouse stock to meet all the stores’ needs, the system will attempt to distribute what stock it has proportionately to all the requesting stores’ needs. (So, for example, if all the requesting stores combined need 1000 units but the warehouse only has 750, then each of the requesting stores would only receive three quarters of the amount they requested.) |
- After completing all the above fields as desired, click the Save button at the bottom.
Once you’ve scheduled at least one replenishment job, you’ll be able to see it (and any others) listed if you click back into the Advanced Store Replenishment Schedule screen under the Merchandise tab at any point. Your ‘pending’ jobs will look something like this:
By default this screen only shows ‘pending’ scheduled jobs, but if you want to look back at old jobs which have already ran and aren’t scheduled to run again, you can do so by clicking the Filtered results link at the top of the screen, then changing all of the Next run day/month/year boxes to be blank.
Note: If at any point you want to stop a scheduled recurring job from running, you can click the Suspend link at the right.
Manually running ASR jobs
Although you can schedule jobs to run automatically on a set date and time, it’s also possible to run ASR jobs manually, provided it is a fairly small job. Jobs which will look across no more than 1000 combinations of item and location can be ran manually (so for example, if you wanted to replenish 100 items across 10 stores, or 200 items across 5 stores, or 20 items across 50 stores, those are all fine).
If you wish to replenish more than 1000 such combinations, you must schedule the job to run instead. (Scheduled ASR jobs can be ran successfully for tens of thousands of combinations.)
To manually run an ASR job,
- Locate to Merchandise > Advanced Store Replenishment Schedule
- Tick the job on the left.
- In the Choose an action box at the bottom left, select Run now and click on Go.
If it works, you’ll automatically be taken to the Advanced Store Replenishment Job History screen, from where you can view the outcome of the job.
Advanced Store Replenishment Job History
Once a job has ran (or even once it has started running), you will be able to see a record of it in Merchandise > Advanced Store Replenishment Job History.
This screen displays the history of all existing Advanced Store Replenishment jobs. It may look something like this:
Each row represents one instance of an ASR job being ran.
If you have been using ASR for a while, there could be hundreds of entries in this table. If that’s the case, you might find it useful to click on the Filter option at the top of the screen:
That will bring up options to filter for jobs created within a certain date range, or of a specific status:
That will make it easy to hide all the old jobs on the list and focus only on the ones created recently.
Let’s take a look at what each of the columns in this screen are for:
| Job Name |
The name of the ASR job. If the job’s status is ‘Confirmed’ or ‘Auto Confirmed’, clicking the job name this will take you to the Advanced Store Replenishment Job Result screen in ‘read’ mode (i.e. so you can see what items, quantities and locations this job created IBT requests for). If the job’s status is ‘Completed’, clicking the job name takes you to the Advanced Store Replenishment Job Result screen in ‘edit’ mode (i.e. so you can review the items, quantities and locations the job has calculated, and edit them as you see fit, before ‘confirming’ and actually creating the IBT requests). If the job’s status is ‘Running’ or ‘Failed’, you won’t be able to click the job name. |
| Run At | Displays the date and time when replenishment job started running. |
| Elapsed Time |
How long it took for this job to complete, in hours, minutes and seconds. If the job’s status is ‘Running’, this column will show how much time it has been running for so far. |
| Status |
Status of replenishment job at the current time.
confirmation.
|
| Warehouse | The name of the warehouse which this job is being ran from. |
| Items Rationed | How many different items there were for which the quantity of units which the stores need is greater than the quantity of units available in the warehouse (i.e. how many items for which demand was greater than supply). |
| Locations Rationed | How many of the stores being replenished will not / did not receive all the desired stock due to rationing (i.e. the warehouse did not have enough units of stock to meet every store’s demand). |
| Action | For jobs whose status is ‘Completed’, there will be a Confirm option in this column. You would click that link if you wish to go ahead and create IBT requests for all the items/quantities/locations saved in the job. (For jobs of any other status, this column will be blank.) |
The ASR Job Result Screen
If you click on the name of ‘confirmed’ or ‘auto-confirmed’ job, you’ll be taken to a Job Result page, which will look something like this:
At the top, there’ll be some general information about the job (when it was ran, how long it took etc). Beneath that, you will see the details about the items and locations on the job.
Let’s single out an example of one specific item and take a closer look at what is displayed here.
First, let’s go through what information is visible in the ‘sub header’ (the section highlighted in red above), from left to right:
| Field | Explanation |
| Item Ref and Name | The ref and name (and styles such as size and colour, if applicable) of the item in question. |
| Pickiang Stock | How many units of stock were available at the warehouse at the time the job was ran. |
| POP | How many units of stock were on order from supplier to the warehouse at the time the job was ran (i.e. how many units are outstanding on purchase orders). |
| Pack Size | The Store Delivery Pack Size for this item. |
| Insufficient Stock |
If there isn’t enough stock at the warehouse to meet the shops’ demand, it will show here by how many units short the warehouse is from the required amount. (So, in the example above, the stores need 12 in total, but there is only 5 units available at the warehouse, hence the ‘Insufficient Stock’ figure is 7.) |
Next, let’s go over the different columns in the main ‘header’ part at the top (the section highlighted in purple):
| Column | Explanation |
| Location | The name of the store being considered for replenishment. |
| Actual Sales – Last 4 Weeks | How many units of the item has sold in this store in the previous 4 calendar weeks. |
| Actual Sales – Current Week | How many units of the item has sold in this store in the current calendar week. |
| Forecasted Sales – This Week | This column will only appear for retailers who have the ‘Forecasts’ feature enabled (which at the time of writing this User Manual is not on general release, as Development is still ongoing). If enabled, it will show the forecasted sales for the current calendar week here. |
| Forecasted Sales – Next 4 Weeks | This column will only appear for retailers who have the ‘Forecasts’ Licence Feature enabled (which at the time of writing this User Manual is not on general release, as Development is still ongoing). If enabled, it will show the forecasted sales for the next four calendar weeks here. |
| Available Stock | How many units of stock are currently available in this store. |
| Allocated Stock | Details about this field will be added in a future revision of this manual. |
| ORQ |
Optimum Replenishment Quantity. This is how many units of stock the store should be replenished by, according to the ASR job’s calculations. |
| FRQ |
Final Replenishment Quantity. If this job’s status is ‘Confirmed’ or ‘Auto-confirmed’, then this shows how many units an IBT request was actually created for. If the job’s status is ‘Completed’, it shows how many units the system is currently set to create an IBT request for , should the job be ‘confirmed’. (See the next chapter for more details.) |
If you look at the bottom of the screen, there will be a link for Switching to Location View:
Clicking that will reverse the grouping of this page, so instead of having items along the top and locations down the side, it shows locations along the top and items down the side. This change is displayed in the image below:
Some retailers may find this layout easier to read than the previous one. All the same information is displayed, albeit in a slightly different way.
You can return to the previous viewing method by clicking the link to Switch to Product View which will have appeared at the bottom:
Confirming ASR Jobs
Whenever an ASR job finishes running for which the Automatically Pass Replenishment To Picking Schedule box was not ticked, that job will appear in the Job history screen with a status of ‘Completed’.
This indicates that the system has calculated how many units it thinks each store needs, but it hasn’t yet actually created any IBTs. It is waiting for you to Confirm that you’re happy with its calculations first.
If you were to click the Confirm link at the right, it would create those IBTs. But, you might wish to review its calculations before doing that. You can do that by clicking on the Job Name at the left of the screen instead. That will open the Job Result screen.
When on that screen, focus your attention on the FRQ column at the right:
In the cell there, it will show you how many units the system thinks each store should be replenished by of that particular item (‘Kopparberg Pear’ in the above example).
You can now change this figure, if you wished. You can override the system’s calculations and specify a quantity yourself, by either clicking on the [ - ] and [ + ] buttons to increase or decrease it (by 1 unit per click), or you can click straight into the cell and type in a number directly.
If you make any such changes,
- make sure to click the Save button at the bottom of the screen before leaving this page.
That should make the screen refresh and cause a success message to appear at the top.
Also note that if you scroll down to the bottom of the screen, you’ll find some Bulk Option fields there:
These might be helpful if you wish to make changes to many items/locations in one go. To use these features:
- Tick all the rows at the left of the screen you want to update (there will be a ‘select all’ box at the top left)
In Value Type,
- choose whether you want to amend your selected rows by a percentage (e.g. “increase all by 10%”) or a quantity
(e.g. “increase all by 3”)
In Increase or Decrease,
- choose whether you want to increase or decrease the selected rows
In Amount,
- type in the value you want to amend these rows by (e.g. ‘10’ or ‘3’, depending on the Value Type selected above)
- Click the Bulk Update button at the bottom.
The screen will refresh, and you should see that yellow success message at the top.
You can repeat that process more than once, if there are several different ‘bulk changes’ you wish to make.
There’s no need to click Save afterwards; it will automatically save whenever you do a bulk update.
Once all the FRQ values are set as desired.
- Click Back to list at the bottom left to return to the main Job History page.
- You can then go on to click Confirm at the right.
This will cause all the IBT requests to be created, and the status of your job will change from ‘Completed’ to ‘Confirmed’.
Advanced Store Replenishment Performance Report
This Report is used to analyse the results of Store Replenishment jobs already run. It may help you to identify opportunities to improve availability.
Once selected, use the filters to determine what results will be produced on the report.
When the relevent filters have been set,
▪ click Generate.
Here is a breakdown of what the columns tells you:
| Item Ref | The Item Ref of the item in question. |
| Item Name | The item’s name. |
| Sales Qty | Number of units of that item sold in that particular store, across your selected date range. |
| ORQ Total | Total of Optimum Replenishment Quantities – i.e. exactly how many units that particular store ideally should have been replenished by, according to the ASR job(s) ran over this date range. |
| RRQ Total | Total of Optimum Replenishment Quantities – i.e. how many units that particular store should have been replenished by, rounded up/down to the appropriate store delivery pack size, according to the ASR job(s) ran over this date range. |
| FRQ Total | Total oaf Final Replenishment Quantities - i.e. how many units that particular store was actually replenished by as a result of ASR job(s) ran over this date range. |
| Rounded Up | The number of ‘rounding up’ occurrences which took place (i.e. when the store only needed part of a pack, but the system ‘rounded up’ to a full pack; it replenished slightly more stock than the store actually needed). |
| Rounded Down | The number of ‘rounding down’ occurrences (i.e. when the store needed part of a full pack, but the system rounded down to replenish slightly less stock than the store actually needed). |
|
Rationing Occurrences |
How many times this particular item was ‘Rationed’ in this particular location over your chosen date range (i.e. how many instances occurred where the store didn’t quite get all the units they should have done because the warehouse didn’t have enough stock). |
| Unfulfilled Request | The number of times where the store ideally should have been replenished with this item, but they weren’t sent any of it (i.e. instances where the RRQ was 1 or greater, but the FRQ was 0). |
| Zero Request | The number of times when ORQ = 0 for this item in this location (i.e. when an ASR job calculated that this item did not need replenishing in this location). |
|
Out of Stock Occurrences |
Number of ‘out of stock’ occurrences in selected date range (i.e. how many times the item’s stock level dropped to zero in this store, across this period). |
Frequently Asked Questions
Here are some common questions users tend to ask when getting to grips with the ASR features, along with typical answers:
- I’ve ran ASR job, and it appears in Job History, but when I click into it, why can’t I see any items?
This might be because the items you tried to replenish aren’t on an active assortment (at least not in the locations you specified). ASR jobs will completely ignore items which aren’t on an active assortment.
Check that you’ve created an assortment for these items, in the appropriate stores, and that the assortment is ‘active’ right now (i.e. the current date is between the assortment’s ‘Start’ and ‘End’ times).
It might also be because the items’ Stores are replenished by field is set to something other than ‘Warehouse’.
- I’ve ran an ASR job, but when I click to view its details in Job History, it’s calculated an ‘FRQ’ of 0 for everything!
Some possible explanations:
- The items’ Store Delivery Pack Size field is set to ‘0’.
It must be set to 1 or greater for ASR to work properly.
- The items’ Stores are replenished by field is set to something other than ‘Warehouse’.
- There isn’t any stock available in the warehouse.
- For whatever reason, the ASR Method calculated that the stores didn’t need any stock. Check you’ve written the formula correctly.
- Can we create Product Assortments by doing a data import?
No, but you can specify what products belong to a ‘Product Group’ by importing a CSV, and after that you can go on to quickly create a Product Assortment for all the products in that Product Group.
Note: you can’t set the Min/Max levels for products in an assortment by doing a data import; they must be typed in.
- I’ve ran an ASR job and its status is ‘Completed’, but no IBTs have been created!
It sounds like you’ll need to ‘confirm’ it first. Find it on the Job History page, then click the Confirm link on the right.
If you don’t want to have to do this in future, go into the ASR Schedule screen > click to Edit your job > and tick the Automatically Pass Replenishment To Picking Schedule? box, followed by Save.
- I’ve just ran an ASR job and it’s created several IBTs, but the ASR method wasn’t quite right and so the quantities aren’t how I want. Can I ‘undo’ it all and try again from scratch.
There isn’t an ‘undo’ feature, but you can cancel all the IBTs. (Depending on how many stores you have, it might take you a little while.)
Go into Stock > Transfers, click into Filters at the top, and in the Request date section, set the From date to today. (Leave the To date blank.) Click Filter at the bottom right, and when the screen refreshes, it’ll be showing you just the IBT requests which were created today.
You can now select a store, tick all the IBTs at the left, then use the Batch Action of ‘Cancel’ at the bottom left to cancel them.
▪ Repeat for each store.
Note: take care to only cancel the transfers which were created through your ASR job.
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