Great start, a lot of options missing yet though.

Hi ajamm,

Thank you very much for your post and for giving ATUM a chance.

I am glad you users like yourself gives us the push. However, you have to agree with me that features we have made part of this plugins are fantastic value already.

I will try and reply in a list view”

– more than one supplier per product will be possible of course, it is on the list. No so simple to add as you have to take into the count the different prices etc. The way WooCommerce works is a complex thing to bring in and we dont know if we add it to the free version.
– dropdown list could be a good thing or bad thing though. If you have many suppliers dropdown is very bad UX. We may give people option in the future the same way we do it in Stock Central.
– I need more info what you’d like re-ordering to do in a free version. We have full Purchase Orders Pro add-on coming next year.
– This will be possible in the free version for sure, however, we will not have time to add it this year. January or February for sure.

The end of your post is fantastic and I love it. Yes, ATUM will be the real thing and I hope we get users like yourself to help us grow quicker.

Best Regards,

Pavel

Hello Pavel,

For reordering, I mean ordering products. To convince me to buy the pro version (and I can see it being worthwhile) the basic version would need to do what it does well.
We would expect 2 method of reordering.
1) When entering a supplier in a PO, it should pull up a list of products for that supplier. A search would be good too, but a full list of products and stock quantities would be great, then a box to enter the amount to order next to it. This would work great for under 200 products per supplier… save at end of page if they have over 200. An option to add minimum/maximum quantities would also be great for starters when there is no sales history – or to override this when maybe there are shop slaes that are not shown.
2) When reviewing stock central – there is useful numbers for stock (stock will last for x number of days etc) – from here it would be great to just be able to enter a proposed order figure (and select preferred supplier). These should create a draft order in the background.

For multiple suppliers – two options for best functionality
– Allow saving prices from each supplier, then when products are purchase from multiple suppliers the average price is calculated and adjusted.
– Or – hold two price lines and reduce the oldest stock first.

For your pro plugin… an extension that could be very powerful is one that handle dated products – specially for food. We would enter the use-by or Best before date of the arriving stock when receiving in a PO, then these would be recorded in multiple lines in the product itself and sold oldest first. This would enable expiry date management – huge in the industry!

By the way, does completing a PO enter the product into stock? I could not get that working?
When POs arrive, we should be able to click ‘arrived’ – quickly review the PO for any adjustments – add notes if required… then confirm – this would complete the PO and add products to stock.

Re: Speed of stock management.

By speed, I mean again the number of clicks and keystrokes required.
In the bulk stock management plugin the action is this.

View stocklist
Either scroll or search for products
Click into the stock figure box
Type new number
TAB to next product (or scroll/search)
Type new number
Until finished, then just press ENTER after last one and all save.

In yours…
Scroll or search for product.
Click on stick figure
Backspace to remove existing figure
Type in new figure (or mouse click 5 times to add 5)
Click Set
Scroll or search for next product
Click on stick figure
Backspace to remove existing figure
Type in new figure (or mouse click 5 times to add 5)
Click Set
When finished… scroll right to the top to click save or else your work is all gone.

At minimum there is one more click and one more keystroke to do each product.
At worst, the saving is risky.

Also to note, for bulk management, there is a lot of detail there that is great to see, but clutters the view a lot… and I could see someone drifting left and editing the price accidentally instead of the stock.

Hope this analysis is of help ??

Hi ajamm,

Thank you very much for your post.

I am glad you have written it as there could be others that wonder the same. However, most of the stuff you described already exists in ATUM, is on the way or will be added to paid add-ons.

First of all, there is one thing I need to clear before I start commenting on these excellent points. We are all working in WooCommerce, so an existing software that has its mind and way of working. The code is not so easy to develop, and some features you described are challenging to do.

Please, do watch the videos on our youtube channel. I try to tutorial every feature and explain how they work. Most of the questions or suggestions you have given here are mentioned or already exist.

I will start working on your analysis:
1. Purchase Orders work the same way you described – there is an automated search field (we don’t like to make a dropdown of suppliers by default as it is not best for UX of large stores). After you select the searched supplier, only products that belong to that supplier can be added to the PO. Once again, there is an automated search field when adding products. After adding the product, you can type the number of products you want to order. The way this works is the way WooCommerce orders work. We tried to keep the same interface, so it feels familiar and straightforward for WC users.
The minimum and Maximum order will be added to a premium add-on next year.

2. At the moment there is a default number of days to re-order for all products that you can change in settings. Developing that for each product will happen in a paid add-on. The preferred supplier is at this stage impossible, unfortunately. WooCommerce has not been structured for such features, and this will take us lot of resources to do. However, there is a plan to do this too.

To continue with your comments, as I mentioned, multiple suppliers for one product is a complex development. We have to pretty much create another new part and system within the WC infrastructure. But, yes, we are writing blueprints for this already.

– Dated products – I can assure you that this is one of the priorities. I am in food industry myself, and FIFO will be in.

– yes, completing PO can add all products to stock. Please, select products in the PO you want to add and press ‘add to stock.’ You have a note section on the right in every PO, and the Note is visible on the PO list as well.

= I would like to point to this last two analysis =

-Speed – as much as Id like to agree with you, the way ATUM Stock Central edits values is the best for UX we believe. Stock Central allows you to filter or search for product several ways.
Backspacing to edit figures is very popular, and we believe best for UX. In the past 15 years, we learned that many people, mostly busy people forget what the original figure was. I am not saying it can happen to you, but this is the best way it can be right now.
-You click set to confirm your edit. Once again, this action is significant for many users as they know they are now finished with the edit and they confined the figure.
-Pressing Enter is not a good idea for this kind of environment – this is a browser application, and mouse clicks the most used functions.

-I can confirm that we are thinking of adding Save Data button to the bottom of the page; however, you will not lose your editing because as soon as you try leaving the page without pressing that button, you get a notification of unsaved work. This is as well a default behavior of WP.
-We have tried autoscrolling in the past, so the top header stayed sticky; however, it caused problems in some browsers. We may introduce something new in the future of course.

To finish up, you mention a lot of detail and clutter. Please, go to the top screen menu and unselect whatever you don’t want to see ??

Keep firing away; I like it.

Hope the above helps.

Best Regards,

Pavel