To start managing your inventory, you should go through the following steps:
- Create inventory locations in the Locations & Provider Assignments section.
- Create your parts catalog by importing parts via template.
- Upload parts (stock records) to inventory locations.
Who can access and take action on your inventory depends on inventory roles and permissions assigned in the Inventory Permissions section of the Admin module.
Configuring Inventory Roles and Permissions
As an admin, you can assign inventory roles and permissions to employees within your organization as well as to your providers who use Inventory Manager in ServiceChannel Provider.
Subscriber Roles and Permissions
There are four roles in Service Automation that give employees access to Inventory Manager.
- Inventory Administrator: Grants full access to Inventory Manager with the right to set inventory permissions for other employees.
- Inventory User: Provides full access to Inventory Manager but without the right to manage inventory permissions for other users.
- Manage Part Catalog: Allows employees to view, create, update as well as upload and download parts.
- Manage Stock: Permits employees to view, create, import, and export stock records. A stock record is the information on a part that is on hand at your inventory location, including the part name, number, type, available quantity, etc.
In addition to roles, you also set inventory permissions that identify which actions employees can perform within Inventory Manager.
- Permission Management: Activates the ability to manage inventory roles and permissions for employees.
- View Parts & Stock: Allows employees to view parts in your catalog and view parts on hand at each location.
- Create Parts: Permits employees to add new items to the parts catalog.
- Update Parts: Empowers employees to edit part details.
- Import/Export Parts: Grants the ability to upload and download the inventory parts list via templates.
- Create Stock: Allows employees to add stock records to locations.
- Modify Stock Properties: Makes it possible to edit stock records except for the part on-hand quantity.
- Stock Adjustment Audit: Permits employees to change the part quantity available at a location.
- Import/Export Stock: Grants the ability to upload and download inventory location stock records via templates.
- Click the hamburger menu in the upper-left corner, and select Admin > Inventory Permissions > Subscribers. The list of employees opens.
- Search for the desired employee by using filters and the search box at the top of the list.
Select the required inventory role in the Apply Inventory Roles column. Based on the inventory role you pick, the corresponding set of permissions gets automatically selected in the Inventory Permissions column.
In the Inventory Permissions column, you can select additional or remove unnecessary permissions if needed.
- Click Save in the Actions column. The employee is successfully assigned the inventory role and permissions.
Provider Permissions
You have the ability to grant inventory permissions to your FTM internal providers who deal with your inventory in the ServiceChannel Provider mobile app. This allows you to control who can update inventory data.
Here are the permissions you can set:
View Stock: Allows providers to view stock records. This permission is enabled by default for all of your providers.
The stock record is the information on a part that is on hand at your inventory location, including the part name, number, type, available quantity, etc.
Create Stock: Empowers providers to add new stock records to inventory locations.
- Modify Stock Properties: Permits providers to update existing stock records except for the part quantity on hand.
- Stock Adjustments Audit: Grants the ability to edit the part quantity that is on hand at a location.
- Click the hamburger menu in the upper-left corner, and select Admin > Inventory Permissions > Providers. The list of all your providers opens.
- Find the desired provider on the list using the available filters. You can find providers either by their company name or ID.
- To the right of the provider name, select the checkbox from the desired columns with permissions:
- View Stock
- Create Stock
- Modify Stock Properties
- Stock Adjustments Audit
The provider is assigned inventory permissions. When they access the Inventory module in ServiceChannel Provider, they can perform actions based on the permissions given to them.