Understanding inventory variables

Inventory variables can be found under My Warehouse -> Inventory and provides a granular way of configuring Prime Penguin globally or down to a single SKU.

Overview

A variable has a set “purpose” or “type” which is provided by Prime Penguin. It can have different values, and the “scope” and “scope key” will determine which products the variable will be applied too. There are currently three different scopes in Prime Penguin:

• Global – Applies to all products
• Tag – Uses the inventory tag to select a group of products
• Single – Identifies a single product by SKU

Prime Penguin will select a variable value on “the most” relevant match for a product. For example, if “VeryCritical” (see below for explanation) is set twice, to “200” on the global scope, but “10” for the SKU 666, when Prime Penguin determines the inventory status, it first looks for exact SKU matches, which will match on SKU 666 and nothing else, then for a tag match and then finally on the global variable.

Scopes

The scope of a variable selects which products the variable should be applied to.

• Global – This scope selects all products. It is used primarily for variables that are mandatory, and such variables cannot be deleted for that same reason.
• Tag – A tagged scope selects all products with a single, specific tag. Inventory tags can be configured on the main inventory page and are a way of informally grouping products together.
• Single – This scope matches a single product by its SKU.

Variable Types

Critical / VeryCritical

These two variables correspond to the inventory “status” on the main inventory page. They accept a numerical value which will be used to determine the product variant status. There is a corresponding alert for low stock, so by setting these variables you can configure Prime Penguin to notify you on different stock levels across your entire inventory.

LeadTime

This variable accepts “days” or “hour” and should be an estimation of what the average lead time is for Purchase Orders. This will later be used to calculate inventory re-order points. Not currently used.

HoldingCost

This variable accepts a current and a value. It represents an approximation of the monthly cost of purchase order processing and storage in your warehouse for the selected products. Not currently used.

Examples

How do I change the “low stock” alert for a group of products to 200?

1. Go to My Warehouse -> Inventory -> Overview and set an inventory tag on all products you want to change the alert for. For example “lowStockCritical”.
2. Go to My Warehouse -> Inventory -> Variables and click “Add Variable”, then:
   
   1. Select “VeryCritical”
   2. Select “Tag”
   3. Supply tag name “lowStockCritical”
   4. Set tag value to 200.
3. Done!

Next steps

• Inventory Tags
• Inventory forecasting