HaloITSM

HaloITSM Guides

Documentation to assist with the setup and configuration of the HaloITSM platform

Guides > Adding and Returning Stock Overview

Adding and Returning Stock Overview

In this lesson we will cover:

- How to bring products into stock and create assets

- Consigning items

- Returning assets (that are linked to item) to stock

- Returning assets (not linked to an item) to stock



Associated Administrator Guide: 


This lesson will cover how to bring/return items into stock and create/return assets to stock based on the out-of-the-box functionality, items and stock may behave differently in your instance depending on your configuration as there are various settings impacting how stock behaves. The lesson here covers some of the configuration settings impacting stock behaviour. 


To understand the relationship between products and assets we recommend reading this lesson: Items vs Assets


Note: In this lesson the terms 'product' and 'item' will be used interchangeably. 


Bringing Products into stock and creating Assets

Products can be brought into stock either from a purchase order (PO) or by using the 'Receive stock' action against the product (manually). 

Fig 1. Bringing in stock using a PO

Fig 2. Receive stock against product


When bringing an item into stock you must choose which stock location to store this item under.

Fig 3. Select stock location when receiving stock 


Stock locations are simply sites that have been marked as stock locations. See the section 'stock control configuration' of the lesson here for more information on creating stock locations (and bins). 


If the item you are bringing into stock has a linked asset type (for serialized assets) an asset will be created for each item that is brought into stock. You will be prompted to enter the asset tag and the asset serialization field for the asset at this stage to ensure the new asset has unique identifiers. The asset serialization field is determined by the setting 'Asset Serialization Field' under configuration > Items and stock control. (If an item does not have a linked asset type, an asset will not be created when stock is received for this item.)

Fig 4. Creating a serialised asset when stock received 

Fig 5. Linked asset type for item 


Fig 6. Asset serialisation field


The asset that has been created will now be linked to this item. This means this asset will be associated with the stock quantity of the linked item, that is, each asset will count towards the stock count for the item. If all assets for an item are assigned to users/sites there will be no 'free stock' of the item to assign to new users. You can see if an asset is linked to an item under the 'Stock information' section of the 'Supplier and Maintenance' tab against the asset. 

Fig 7. Product/item linked to asset


Note: By default assets will be created when stock is received, however this can be changed using the setting 'Create Serialised Assets' under configuration > items and stock control. If this is set to be 'When Items are consigned' assets will be created at consignment rather than when stock is received. 

Fig 8. Setting to change when assets are created


Consigning items 

Consigning an item in Halo moves the item from a stock location to a user's site, essentially marking the item as being 'delivered' to a site. This is done to take the item out of available stock so you can monitor how much 'free stock' and 'restricted stock' you have. 


Items can be consigned from a purchase order, sales order or from a ticket. Items are consigned from a ticket when products have been issued as part of the ticket. When consigning an item on a ticket you will need to choose which stock location to take the item from, this stock will then be moved to the end user's (of the ticket) site. 

Fig 9. Consign item from ticket

Fig 10. Choose stock location to consign item from


When consigning products that are linked to an asset type (serialised products) you will also need to choose which asset you are consigning to this site. You will only be able to choose from existing assets to consign here. 


To consign items from a sales order use the 'consign items' action against the sales order.

Fig 11. Consign item from sales order


This will move the items from a chosen stock location to the site of the sales order.


Note: If you consign an item incorrectly you can delete the consignment note and you will be able to re-consign the item. 


Items can be consigned from a purchase order, but only when the purchase order is set to be delivered to the user. You will not need to select which site the item is consigned from as the item is coming straight from the supplier to the user. This item will then be added into stock (and asset created) at the site assigned to the purchase order.

Fig 12. Consign item from PO


For a worked example on receiving and delivering stock see our lesson here. 


Returning Assets to stock (when asset has linked item)

If an asset has been consigned to a site it can be returned back to stock using the 'Return Asset' action against the asset profile. This is useful when users are returning assets back to you, perhaps due to the user leaving, or as a result of a hardware upgrade. 

Fig 13. Return asset to stock


Note: This action will only be available if the asset has been consigned and is linked to an item.


When returning an asset back to stock you will need to select the stock location it will be returned back to. The stock level of the item linked to the asset will not change, but rather there will now be more 'available stock'. This means this asset will now be available to be consigned to another site when needed. 


Returning Assets to stock (when asset not linked to an item)

If you have imported assets from an integration or imported them using a csv file you may not have an item linked to your asset. If this is the case you will need to complete some additional configuration to be able to return your assets to stock. 


Head to configuration > items and stock control, enable 'Allow Assets without stock records to be returned to stock'. 

Fig 14. Setting to allow assets without a linked item to be returned to stock 


Once this is enabled the action 'Return asset' will be available against consigned assets that do not have a linked item. 


Before using the action you will need to ensure there is only one item linked to the asset type of the asset you are returning to stock. This is because this will determine the item that the asset is returned into stock as. If there are multiple items linked to the same asset type, the asset will be liked to the item with the lowest system ID. 


When an asset without a linked item is returned to stock it will increase the stock quantity of the linked item as there is no stock yet recorded for the asset. 


In the below example the item 'Laptop' is linked to the asset type 'Laptop'. 

Fig 15. Field to link asset type to item  


If I return the asset in figure 16 to stock it will increase the stock quantity of the item 'Laptop' as this asset has the asset type 'laptop' and the item Laptop is linked to the laptop asset type. 

Fig 16. Asset to be returned to stock


Once this asset is returned to stock it will be available to consign. 




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