Par Levels

with the par levels feature enabled for your organization, stratosphere will continuously compare the existing stock of products at all locations against your specified minimum and maximum stocking levels and report the status in an easy to use dashboard widget and report now you can prevent and identify overstocks or stock outs at a glance specifically, when the par levels feature is enabled, the following will occur in your stratosphere organization the par levels page will become available in the main menu on the left sidebar users docid\ oe8vd 0cdzxszxeukg19h with the device and location management role will be able to add, edit, and delete par level groups users without the device and location management role will be able to see all par level groups that are tied to their assigned locations they will be able to view their location's par level groups, but they will not be able to add, edit, or delete par level groupss users who have either the device and location management role or are assigned to a location that has par levels set will now have access to the product par levels widget on the dashboard (see viewing the par levels report section of this page below for a description of each status) the par levels report, which can be accessed via the dashboard or from the reports menu, will become available the location details page will now have a "par level assigned to this location" field, which will link to the par level record, if one is assigned par level group record changes will be captured in the audit log report par levels includes an optional sub feature called 1 1 par levels, which replaces the minimum and maximum par level for each product with a single par level for more information, see the 1 1 par levels docid\ jfvfbzyzziruokqy9ggvy page viewing par levels in stratosphere if the par level feature is enabled at the organization level, par levels will appear in the menu for all users with the device and location management role this page will contain a table of all the par levels for the organization details to view a par level's details, click the name of the par level in the details page you will see all the available information for that par level, including par level name the unique name of the par level assigned locations the stratosphere locations that will use this par level to evaluate their restock quantities product the product name and product # for which you are setting the mn and max stocking level min the minimum quantity of this product that should ever be stocked at a single assigned location if current stock is at or below the min value, the product will be marked "below min" if the min value = max value, the product will only show as "below min" when current quantity goes below min max the maximum quantity of this product that should ever be stocked at a single assigned location if current stock is above max, the product will show as "overstocked" if current stock = the max value, the product will show as "fully stocked " for more detailed description of each status, see the "par levels dashboard widget and report" section below = required how do i know what to set as min and max? setting an appropriate min and max value is an art and a science it is a science because a quick google search will yield dozens of formulas for calculating appropriate min and max levels it is an art because no min and max value will ever perfectly prevent stockouts or overstocking, since usage can depend on the time of year, the economy, and many other factors that are even more difficult to quantify it is up to you to decide whether you are more willing to risk a stockout or high levels of inventory, depending on your business model if you are looking for a quick and dirty formula here it is (weekly inventory use + safety stock) / deliveries per week = your minimum par level "safety stock" should be at least 10% of weekly inventory use, but higher percentages will increase your service level and reduce the risk of stockouts be warned that aiming to achieve a 0% chance of stockouts is a statistically impossible goal, so it is up to your organization to determine what percentage risk of a stock out is acceptable and carry the appropriate corresponding safety stock examples you want to use ground shipping to save money, so you plan to only send a single shipment every week in the average week, an account typically uses 10 of a particularly product by adding 30% to 10, you determine you should keep 13 units in stock at any given time even with that number in hand, there are still decisions you need to make regarding how lean you want to run your supply chain lean you could set your min and max for that product to 13, so as soon as it falls below, you are warned to restock 1 item to get back up to 13 this practice is often called one to one restocking, and keeps inventory lean, but may result in higher processing and shipping costs due to higher frequency of resupply resilient alternatively, you could set your min to 13 but set your max to 23 that way when your current inventory is 13 units, stratosphere will list this product as "below min" but recommend resupplying 10 units, to get back to the max of 23, rather than just 1 this results in a greater volume of inventory at the location, but potentially lower processing and shipping costs, along with a lower risk of stockouts in periods of unusual demand, or supply disruption viewing the par levels report the par levels report defaults to displaying rows with a status of "out of stock", "below min, and "in stock", although any combination of status filters can be selected like all reports the columns are searchable, sortable, and exportable the par levels report will display a row for each unique product at each location that has a par level assigned if a location has no par level assigned, none of the products at that location will display on this report if a location has a par level set, all products, even those that do not have min or max set in the par level, will display on this report so for example, if "product a" enters a locations inventory, and that location's par level does not include the product, the product will display on this report as "overstocked" in this case, we recommend either adding the product to the location's par level with appropriate min and max values, or finding and physically removing the product from that location's inventory the par levels report contains the following columns location name the name of the location where the par level controlled product is stocked product # the # or code of the product product name the name of the product min the minimum quantity of the product that should be stocked at this location max the maximum quantity of the product that should be stocked at this location current the current quantity of the product that is in inventory at this location restock quantity the quantity of product that should be restocked in order to make the current inventory reach max par status a quick visual and conversational indicator of the current state of product inventory at the location, relative to par out of stock there are currently 0 of this product at this location restock asap avoid this status by restocking while status is "below min" below min there are currently 1 or more products at this location, but the current inventory is below min restock soon, but not urgently in stock the current stock of product at this location is somewhere between min and max use your best judgment to determine whether to restock now, or wait until levels are at or below min fully stocked the current stock of product matches max exactly consider implementing the slow moving inventory docid\ j3iltpr4zh6wbpxcofvem report to verify that the reason your products are fully stocked is thanks to timely resupply, not due to a persistent lack of demand overstocked the current stock of product is above the max set for that product at that location consider moving this inventory to a different location, or if this high level is justified, increase the max par level for that product at that location when the product catalog additional fields docid\ qoufnsd9 ig 8c68uyiip feature is enabled, the par levels report will update to include the product system and product category columns adding par level groups adding par level groups requires the "device and location management" role to be granted in your user record contact your system administrator to add this capability par level groups can be added to stratosphere manually via the web interface and through csv imports adding par level groups manually select "add par level group" in the top left of the par levels page enter a par level group name the name must be unique from other par level group names select assigned locations from a list of all stratosphere locations any location listed will have their current inventory evaluated against the min and max values in this par level, and the results will be visible on the dashboard widget and report for all users assigned to those locations select at least one product, from a searchable, browsable list of all products once a product is selected, another row will appear for selection of additional products there is no limit to the number of products you can assign min and max values to for each product, set a min and max quantity the max value must be greater than or equal to the min value both min and mix must be greater than 0 stratosphere will continuously evaluate current inventory levels at all assigned locations against this min and max, and calculate suggested restock quantities click save to finish adding the par level group the par level group will now appear in the par levels table importing par level groups there is no way to undo a csv import, other than to edit or remove par level groups from stratosphere individually when bulk importing, verify the accuracy of the import double check to ensure that the data in the uploaded file is accurate after importing the file, but before saving the imported records, open the "ready to import" section and verify that the columns are mapped appropriately and the data is exactly as you want it select "import par level groups" at the top of the par levels page enter a name for your par level group in the par level group name field this name must be unique from outher par level group names this field is required select one or more assigned locations for the par level group this field is optional "choose file" and select your import file the file must meet the following requirements csv file format less than 1 mb file size contain columns titled "product name", "product #", "min", and "max" product name the name of the product from your product catalog this field is required product # the code of the product from your product catalog this field is required min the minimum stocking level for this product in the selected location(s) this field is required min must be less than or equal to max max the maximum stocking level for this product in the selected location(s) this field is required max must be greater than or equal to min once a file is chosen, select "import par level group" if your list of rows is large, it may take a minute to import before saving the import, validate that the import was completed as expected by reviewing the following lists ready to import these rows were successfully read from the file errors these rows were not successfully read from the file where possible, the reason for the error will be explained in this list potential reasons include duplicate rows invalid product name, product #, min, or max invalid columns included in the import file missing required fields if you are happy with your import preview, click "import par level group" one last time to create a par level group using the "ready to import" rows the import must be validated within 20 minutes, otherwise you will need to restart the import process again you can review the last 10 par level group imports, including the list of rows that had errors, by clicking "import par level groups" from the top of the par levels page at any time here is an example csv used for a par level group import in stratosphere https //archbee doc uploads s3 amazonaws com/ ugidhuftimlpunh0oumr/s4koqhkmkyw 1fi0ec6sg sample par level group import csv setting a default par level group for new locations often, the majority of your locations are bound to follow a baseline stocking plan you can simplify the assignment of par levels as you add new locations bys electing a particular par level to assign to all new locations you create in stratosphere you can always change the par level group for a particular location at any time select the dropdown at the top of the par levels page select which of your par level groups you would like all new locations to follow as their default your selection will be automatically saved editing par levels editing par level groups requires the "device and location management" role to be granted in your users docid\ oe8vd 0cdzxszxeukg19h record contact your system administrator to add this capability there are two options for editing an par level option 1 on the par levels page, open the quick action menu for the par level group you wish to edit and select "edit" in the edit par level group window that opens, make any desired changes click "save changes" to save the edited record clicking "cancel" or the x in the top right of the window will remove any edits you just made but had not yet saved option 2 on the par levels page, click the par level group name link in the par level group details page, make any desired changes click "save changes" to save the edited record to cancel your edits, simply leave the device details page without saving deleting par levels deleting par level groups requires the "device and location management" role to be granted in your users docid\ oe8vd 0cdzxszxeukg19h record contact your system administrator to add this capability deleting a par level group will immediately remove the par level from stratosphere and from the par level widget and report there are two options for deleting a par level option 1 on the par levels page, open the quick action menu for the par level group you wish to delete and select "delete" in the "delete par level group" confirmation window that appears, click "delete" to confirm the deletion of the par level group this cannot be undone clicking "cancel" or the x in the top right of the window will not delete the par level group option 2 on the par levels page, click the par level group name link for the device you wish to delete on the par level group details page that opens, scroll to the bottom of the page and click "delete" in the "delete par level" confirmation window that appears, click "delete" to confirm the deletion of the par level group this cannot be undone clicking "cancel" or the x in the top right of the window will not delete the par level group enabling par levels enabling par levels requires the "organization management" role to be granted in your users docid\ oe8vd 0cdzxszxeukg19h record contact your system administrator to add this capability to enable par levels for your organization go to the organization page select the "add/remove features" tab toggle the "par levels" feature on press "save changes" disabling par levels disabling par levels requires the "organization management" role to be granted in your users docid\ oe8vd 0cdzxszxeukg19h record contact your system administrator to add this capability disabling par levels will instantly hide all par level screens and data to disable the par levels feature go to the organization page select the "add/remove features" tab toggle the "par levels" feature off press "save changes" confirm your intention to disable by pressing "save changes" in the resulting popup