Catalog Manager
The Catalog Manager program is primarily used to create, view and edit the records in the Product Catalog File. The Catalog Manager also allows you to perform the following other Product Setup and Maintenance tasks.
• Creating Inventory Items (warehouse records) from Catalog records. System Configuration options allow you to automatically create items in pre-selected locations each time you save a new Catalog record.
• Viewing and editing the Inventory Items associated with each Catalog record. Your ability to edit each inventory record is based on the security that has been set up in the system and on the Inventory Normalization logic that is being used in the system.
• Creating, viewing and editing the comment information that can be associated with each Product Catalog record. The system supports both free form or user comments, and standard comments that are automatically displayed or printed by the system during transaction processing.
• Viewing and editing other information associated with the Catalog record. This other information includes the bills of material that have been set up for the item, cross reference information for the item, purchasing history for the item, the safety stock detail for the item, the related item or sell with information that has been defined for each item and other information.
The Product Catalog file is the top level file in the StreamV product structure and it contains a record for each of the item or products that are available in your system. The Items in the Catalog file may or may not also exist as inventory items in specific warehouse locations in your system. The Catalog file is used to provide a complete list of the items available for sale, and catalog records are used during order entry, when creating inventory items (creating items in specific warehouse locations), and for other purposes. You may not process transactions for an item until the item has been set up in the Product Catalog file and one or more Inventory or Warehouse records have been created for the item.
Creating a new Catalog record
When the Catalog Manager is selected from the menu, the system automatically loads the program with the default information that has been defined for each Catalog record. This default information – which is based on a control record in the Textdata file, is used to speed up data entry, and to automatically load fields that are required by the program. The information which is loaded by the program is default information. This default information can be changed if required (based on your field security settings) when you are creating a new Catalog record.
As each new Catalog record is saved, the system uses a control record in the Texdata file to determine the Inventory locations where Inventory Items should be created for the new Catalog record. The system then uses this information along with the inventory normalization control information, and the default information that has been set up for each inventory record to create Inventory items for the new Catalog record.
Editing an existing Catalog record
If you are using the Catalog Manager to select an existing Catalog record and edit it, the information in the existing Catalog record is loaded into the program, and your ability to edit the information in the program is based on the combination of your field security settings, and the normalization logic that has been set up on your system (the system automatically blocks edit of fields that are maintained at the Inventory Level, or fields that you are not allowed to access based on your field security setup – or fields that should not be changed after the item is created (such as the STK flag).
As you make changes to an existing Catalog record and save it, the system uses the information in system control records to determine which fields in the Inventory Items for each Catalog record should be “normalized” or synchronized with the Catalog record. The system then updates the Inventory items for the Catalog record based on this information.
Viewing or Editing related information
Once you have saved a Product Catalog record, you may access additional information about the record (or create this information), by loading the record into the Catalog Manager program and by using the options available in the program. These options are accessed using the Buttons, Tab Pages, and Menus (the Context or right mouse button menu and the More Menu), that are available in the program and that are described in the following sections.
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