Catalog/Portfolio/Price List Workspace?

[Anonymous]

Hello Helpfuls.  I have a revision-controlled workspace for a master item list and I would like to create a separate workspace for cataloging those items.  My thought was that each item in the new workspace would represent a different customer portfolio, catalog, price list, etc.  Then for each "item" of the new workspace I could add a list of items from the master item workspace.

It seems I can add items just fine using the BOM, Linked, Relationships, or Grid tabs, but what I really want is to also show other attributes of those items (description, status, dimensions) plus some new values like price (which may change from catalog to catalog).

I thought derived fields in the Grid tab would do the trick, but apparently this can only derive based on fields in the Item Details tab.  Then I tried the Relationships, Managed Items, and BOM tabs, but either same problem there or they were more limited in which fields could be added.

I would also like to be able to go into the Item Master WS and see what catalogs/portfolios an item is linked to.  Would this even be possible if I used the Grid tab in the new workspace?

Any thoughts on how to do this?

Thanks!

[jpiggee]

Hi Joe,

You may have to do some retooling of your tenant, but your best direction for this would be to research some on “sourcing”. This would give you the ability to have supplier’s items and descriptions with multiple prices based on different options but still have them under the same categories.

[dvirh]

In addition to what Joe said, sounds to me like you are trying to catalog items by adding them to set lists in another workspace. Have you considered the opposite approach? You can use tags on the items themselves (either a text field, pick list, or even a filtered pick list) to classify an item in the original workspace, and then use workspace views or reports to dynamically see all the items associated to certain categories. You may even make the category selection a run time parameter of the report.

[Anonymous]

Joe, sounds interesting. I just took a quick look and am not quite understanding what you're suggesting (including what you mean by "tenant" - I've seen this term used elsewhere, but don't know what it's refering to.) Are you thinking I'd still have a separate workspace for the catalogs but use the Sourcing tab to add the items? Or something where I stick to the master item workspace and setup the catalogs as suppliers and assign pricing that way?

Really appreciate the help just getting the general strategy setup.

[Anonymous]

Hagay, I like this approach the best except that the master item list is a revision-controlled workspace. I don't want a new revision of each item just because it's been assigned a new "category". Any chance the Grid tab or any of the other tabs are not subject to the revision-control? That would be great.

Also, I would need a new field for each new catalog/price list, which could add up quickly as we revise the price list quarterly and I'd like to have historical data on what the lists were in any given quarter.

I'm interested in the idea of not needing a dedicated workspace and using reports instead, but the revision-control seems to be a sticking point. What do you think?

Thanks for the suggestions!

[dvirh]

After thinking about it a bit more, I think my solution is not necessary. If you are OK with showing the properties of the Parts only in a report, you can achieve that by using the relationship tab for linking (bi-directional), and then create a report that filters out items based on specific relationships.

But since I started suggesting a different solution, let me detail that out as well a bit.

Data in the Item Details page of a revision controlled workspace may either be 'Controlled' or 'Uncontrolled'. You control this in the same way that you control workflow locking.

That takes care of the first issue.

As long as all the 'Collectors' you are talking about are in one workspace (with some sort of tagging to classify them as 'price list', 'customer portfolio', etc.), you can use a Multi-Select picklist to collect all the relationships to those objects into a single Multi-Select field in an Uncontrolled section of the Item Details page. Then, you can create a report that will filter out based on specific relationships as suggested above.

Note, however, that in both of these cases the different revisions of the original item may have differnt relationships associated to them. You can think of each revision as its own item. 

[Anonymous]

Joe, Hagay, great suggestions, and I think I've tested them each out pretty well.  Still not finding a great solution though.  I've included my findings below and I'll need to take these to my team shortly but I was hoping to have a cleaner solution.  If anyone has any more ideas, please send them my way, I'm open to anything.

Option 1: Using a Supplier workspace and setting up each price list/portfolio as a supplier.  I associate the appropriate supplier/price list/portfolio with the items I want and either through an "MSRP" field in the Sourcing tab or using the provided min/max/lead time/cost section of the Sourcing tab, I can list an associated price.  I then use a report to list all items associated with a particular supplier, along with attributes from the Item Details and Sourcing tabs.

Advantages: Strong connection between the item and the portfolio with clear visibility in both workspaces to how they're connected.  Easy to see for a price list/portfolio item on the Supplied Items tab the full list of items associated to it.  Possible benefit to using provided min/max/lead time/cost section to capture price break information.

Shortcomings: 1. Listing these price lists/portfolios as "suppliers" isn't really appropriate and is a bit of a hack (although I could make the case that it is simply defining our relationship as supplier to our customers).  2. No easy way to mass import changes to the price lists/portfolio, including making or cloning new ones.  3. No way to add/change items from the price list/portfolio workspace, can only do so from the master item workspace, one item at a time.  4. No way to easily see the attributes of a particular item/supplier connection from the price list/portfolio workspace.

Option 2: Multi-select pick list field in the item master workspace using a price list/portfolio workspace as the source of the pick list.

Advantages: Easy to add a connection to a price list/portfolio, either manually on the Item Details tab or through an import.

Shortcomings: 1. No indication on the price list/portfolio workspace of what items are associated with it.  2. No way to associate a particular value (like an MSRP field) to each of the pick list choices.

Option 3: Using a Grid in the item master workspace with a pick list pointing to the price list/portfolio workspace.

Advantages: Can easily add any number of attributes to each grid line.  Can do mass additions and changes to the grid lines (I think).

Shortcomings: 1. No indication on the price list/portfolio workspace of what items are associated with it.  2. No way to manage price list/portfolio listing from one location, can only do so from the individual item detail tabs (or through import).

Option 4: Using the Managed/Linked Items tab in the price list/portfolio workspace.

Advantages: Can easily see all items associated with a particular price list/portfolio and have attributes associated with each association.  Can see and manage list in one place.

Shortcomings: 1. No mass import available to Managed/Linked Items tab.  2. No indication in the master item workspace of the association.  3. No easy way (that I know of) to show attributes from the linked item on the Managed/Linked Items tab, so no way to create report of items plus other item attributes for items associated with a particular price list/portfolio.

Option 5: Using the Relationships tab to relate items in the master item workspace with price list/portfolio "items" in the another workspace.

Advantages: Clearly shows relationship in both workspaces.  Can see list of items associated with a particular price list/portfolio in that workspace and can add/change from there.

Shortcomings: 1. No mass import available to Relationships tab.  2. No way to add attributes/fields to Relationships tab, such as MSRP or product application comments.

Some of these are so close.  For instance if Managed/Linked Items allowed imports and could be bi-directional.  Or if Relationships allowed imports and could have fields defined in it.

My next thought is to consider using scripting, although I was hoping to avoid that if there was a simpler solution.  Maybe some way to automatically update a grid in one workspace based on information in the other, or create relationships automatically based on a grid or details?

There must be a solution here somewhere!  Any and all help appreciated.  Thanks.

[Anonymous]

It's that time again when I need to make changes for our quarterly price list release.  I thought I'd give this topic a bump in case anyone has an example of how they manage price lists in PLM 360.  I've gone the route of a separate portfolio workspace with records representing individual price lists, but it's clunky and doesn't work great, especially now that I've got revision-control working and items can have multiple revisions.

Any suggestions?

[gasevsm]

seems plausible to further explore option 3 and option 4 with custom fields and scripting. Have you considered employing scripting via
- either the revisioning workspace as triggers to update pricing in grid or linked tab to those rev-controlled items on specific WF transitions:
- or onSave events when update the item to update the grid / linked tab elements?

Another possibility is the new workspace having WF capability to drive own pricing updates, again via WF action scripts.

Hope this help spark new ideas. Let us know, we can connect direct to explore this closer and help you create a solution you are comfortable with. As you see, there are several options available; with little creativity and joined thinking, I'm sure we'd come to something you'd be very happy with.

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Martin Gasevski | Product Manager | Autodesk PLM 360





Hope this help explore new ideas,
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MG