The Pre Allocate Status in TBS

We have introduced a new third status for each bookings line item within TBS - called PreAllocate Status

As its name implies it is a status which can be used to distinguish items prior to their allocation within the warehouse. Consider it as a way of determining - for example - items which are going to be bought for this job - items which will need to be grabbed off another returning job immediately... - items which need a repair to be completed for - and so on

The PreAllocate Status will only display itself whilst the item (or allocation) remains unallocated - as soon as the item has been allocated then nothing will display in this field - its job is done ! For TBS3 / browser users, this means that when editing a bookings item, the PreAllocate status will not display as an available editable field once the item has become Specified.... It is worth noting that this new status - as with its 2 companion status fields - is applied at the Bookings Item level and not at the individual allocation level.

The choice of content of the PreAllocate Status is determined by entering a set of choices in to the Refs table within the Administration section, in the Bookings Group under the Subgroup name : PreAllocationStatus - so any user with rights to the Refs table - or any administrator - can add or change the contents of the available PreAllocate Status list

The Pre Allocate Status itself is displayed in the Bookings Items list of a booking as well as in the Allocations list :

For TBS3 browser users - the same changes have been made to reflect the new status in the same lists :

You may notice that the browser allocations list actually includes more detail as well - and this forms a core part of the benefit of the new PreAllocate Status. If there is no direct pre allocate status set from the Refs dropdown choices, then if your stock description contains a default stock location for that item, the 'area' component of that location is now displayed in the pre allocate status field

Why is this useful ? So that a larger list of stock required for a booking can then be viewed according to the generic 'area' around the warehouse in which the stock is typically stored.....

When dealing with larger sets of stock, this can make prep far easier to know what other items are generically in the same area of your storage.....as you will see later on, this becomes even more efficient once we start looking at the Warehouse Management System views of a booking.....

Stock Locations

To sidetrack for a moment into the make up of the Stock Locations - each Stock Location contains a default 'Area' field :

As with the PreAllocate Status above, the content of the Area values is again governed by a Refs set of lookup entries - in this case where the Group is Stock and the SubGroup is Location Area :

This gives you a location list like so - with a Special menu option entitled : Update Selected Area - to allow you to set the area in one go for multiple stock locations....

Each individual Stock Description can edit its home default location within its standard edit screen :

Also in the Stock Description list there is a Special Menu option entitled : Set Selected Default Home Location to allow easy setting of the home default location for multiple stock descriptions in one go

The Pre Allocate Status in WMS

Where the PreAllocate Status really comes in to its own is seen best in the WMS lists.

To aid workflow, you can now pre-set specific warehouse personnel to prep specific bookings by use of the WMS Job Allocations list (available in both desktop and browser by setting the Security to allow access to this window for specific groups) :

As can be seen, you can set for a specific date, a specific user against a specific booking (and if required to a specific folder only).

Thus you can pre-plan the prep schedule to distribute the workload amongst the relevant prep staff.

As a user then logs in to WMS, as they go to the Goods Out page, they are then shown by default their workload for the current day:

Clicking anywhere in the line will open a new page to display the job in question :

There are various points to note about this new style screen -
Firstly there is a 'filter' line designed to allow you very easily to re-arrange your view of the booking -
As you change the ordering field, the colours will also change according to the selected order, i.e. when ordered by folder, the colours change by folder, when set to order by case, the colours change by case number etc
The remaining column header options allow to filter your view by case, by whether you wish to see only serialised items or non-serialised, by status, by preallocate status and area, or by folder (or combination of these) :

After making your filter choices, click on the Filter / Refresh button :

So whether your choice here is for an area or a preallocate status, you get a list within the booking of all matching elements, which makes it easy to then deal with the allocations section by section

note : there is a Refs entry preference to allow or disallow manual 'casing' here - when set to disallow manual casing, then casing can only be done by first scanning the barcode of the actual case and then scanning the items within that case (this will work whichever way the preference is set but is the only way if manual casing is disallowed, when the Change Case button becomes hidden)

As each item is allocated, the preallocate status will be cleared for that allocation but will remain for any others within the bookings item parent :

Note : for the time being the 'old style' list will remain as the displayed list when searching for any booking within WMS if the job is NOT allocated to the user - although it is likely that the new style will be adopted throughout WMS in time