Managing the Inventory Catalog in the Customer Portal: Implementation Activity

In the following implementation activity, you will set up the Customer Portal for your customers to order online. You will also learn how to manage your online catalog in MYOB Advanced.

Story

Suppose that you are Kimberly Gibbs, a system administrator at the SweetLife Fruits & Jams company. You need to configure the Customer Portal to provide your customers with access to the products that SweetLife sells. In your MYOB Advanced instance, you need to create new sales categories, add new items to these categories, which gives customers the ability to order these items in the Customer Portal.

Configuration Overview

For the purposes of this activity, the following tasks have been performed:

  • The MYOB Advanced application instance with the U100 dataset preloaded and the Customer Portal application instance have been deployed in the same database.
    Tip: These instances must be deployed in the same database. This deployment is outside of the scope of this training.
  • In the U100 dataset, on the User Roles (SM201005) form of MYOB Advanced, the Portal Admin role has been assigned to the gibbs user account. The role provides full administrative privileges in the Customer Portal. The user account is associated with Kimberly Gibbs, the system administrator in the SweetLife Fruits & Jams company.
  • On the Item Classes (IN201000) form, the FOOD and JCRCFGPRT (parts of configurable juicers) item classes have been defined.
  • On the Item Sales Categories (IN204060) form, a few sales categories have been created, and the Certificates category among them.
  • On the Stock Items (IN202500) form, the inventory items of the FOOD and JCRCFGPRT (parts of configurable juicers) item classes have been created.

Process Overview

In this activity, you will do the following:

  1. In MYOB Advanced, on the Enable/Disable Features (CS100000) form, you will enable the features needed for order management and inventory catalog.
  2. In the Customer Portal, on the Portal Preferences (SP800000) form, you will specify the settings for order management and inventory catalog.
  3. In MYOB Advanced, you will do the following:
    1. On the Stock Items (IN202500) form, you will add a description and an image to an inventory item.
    2. On the Item Sales Categories (IN204060) form, you will create and manage sales categories for inventory items, add items to sales categories, and remove an item from a sales category.
  4. You will sign in to the Customer Portal as the user tonya@storehut.example.com, and on the Catalog (SP700000) form, you will verify that the catalog contains the newly added items; you will also verify that inventory catalog in the Customer Portal has been correctly configured.

System Preparation

Before you start configuring the order management and inventory catalog in the Customer Portal, do the following:

  1. Launch the MYOB Advanced website with the U100 dataset preloaded, and sign in to the system as a system administrator by using the following credentials:
    • Username: gibbs
    • Password: 123
  2. In MYOB Advanced, for the STOREHUT business account on the Business Accounts (CR303000) form, select the STORE business account class in the Class box and save your changes.
  3. Make sure that you have performed the following prerequisite activities:
    1. Configuring the Customer Portal: To License the Customer Portal Instance
    2. Configuring the Customer Portal: To Specify the General Settings of the Customer Portal
    3. Managing Access to the Customer Portal: To Create Roles for Employees of a Customer
    4. Managing Access to the Customer Portal: To Create User Types for the Customer Portal
    5. Managing Access to the Customer Portal: To Create a User Account for a Contact
  4. Download the red_delicious.jpg and sweetlife.jpg files.
Attention:
Synchronization of the MYOB Advanced and Customer Portal instances may take some time. To be sure that the needed workspaces, forms, reports, and dashboards will be available in the Customer Portal, before completing the activity, add the following key to the web.config file located in the folders of the MYOB Advanced and Customer Portal websites.
<add key="IsMultiSiteMode" value="true" />

Step 1: Enabling the Needed Features

To enable the features needed for order management and inventory catalog, do the following:

  1. Open the Enable/Disable Features (CS100000) form.
  2. On the form toolbar, click Modify.
  3. Under the Customer Portal group of features, select the following check boxes:
    • B2B Ordering
    • Financials on Portal
  4. On the form toolbar, click Enable to enable the features.

Step 2: Specifying the Settings for Order Management in the Customer Portal

To specify the settings for online order management in the Customer Portal, do the following:

  1. Launch the Customer Portal website with the U100 dataset preloaded, and sign in to the system as a system administrator by using the following credentials:
    • Username: gibbs
    • Password: 123
  2. Open the Portal Preferences (SP800000) form.
  3. In the General Settings section of the B2B Ordering Settings tab, do the following:
    1. In the Default Branch for New Orders box, select HEADOFFICE.
    2. In the Sales Order Type box, select SO. This value determines the type of a sales order to be generated when a customer creates a sales order in the Customer Portal.
    3. In the table, in the Include in Warehouses List column, select the check box in the row that has WHOLESALE in the Warehouse ID column.
    4. On the form toolbar, click Save.
    5. In the Default Stock Item Warehouse box, select WHOLESALE, which is the warehouse to be used by default for ordering stock items.
    6. In the Default Non-Stock Item Warehouse box, select WHOLESALE. This warehouse will be used by default for ordering non-stock items.
    7. Clear the Show Available Quantities check box. This setting causes the quantities of items available in the warehouses to be displayed in the catalog on the Catalog (SP700000) form. You do not need the customers to see these quantities.
    8. Make sure that the Allow Only Sales Unit for Purchase check box is selected. With this setting, items can be added to the purchase orders in only the unit of measure (UOM) that has been specified as the sales unit in the item's settings on the Stock Items (IN202500) or Non-Stock Items (IN202000) form.
  4. In the Default Image Settings section, upload the image to be used as the default image when an inventory item does not have any images attached. Do the following:
    1. Click Browse.
    2. Select the sweetlife.jpg file, which you have downloaded while preparing the system.
    3. Click Upload.
  5. On the form toolbar, click Save.
  6. Sign out of the Customer Portal.

Step 3: Adding the Description and the Image for an Inventory Item

If descriptions and images have been added for the inventory items in MYOB Advanced, customers can view these descriptions and images in the online catalog on the Catalog (SP700000) form of the Customer Portal.

To add the description and the image for the APPLES inventory item, do the following:

  1. In the MYOB Advanced instance you have prepared, sign in to the system as system administrator by using the gibbs username and the 123 password.
  2. On the Stock Items (IN202500) form, open the APPLES record.
  3. In the Description box, update the description by typing Fresh Red Delicious apples 1 lb.
  4. Add the image to the stock item by doing the following:
    1. On the Attributes tab, right of the Image box, click Browse.
    2. Select the red_delicious.jpg file, which you have downloaded earlier.
    3. Click Upload to add the image to the stock item record.
      Note: The images that you upload on the Attributes tab of the Stock Items form are displayed in the Item Details dialog box in the online catalog on the Catalog (SP700000) form of the Customer Portal, which a user can open by clicking the link in the Inventory ID column.
  5. On the form toolbar, click Save.

Step 4: Creating New Sales Categories and Subcategories for Inventory Items

To add new sales categories and subcategories to be used for inventory items in the catalog, do the following:

  1. While you are still signed in to MYOB Advanced, open the Item Sales Categories (IN204060) form.
  2. Create the Fruits sales category as follows:
    1. In the Categories pane, click the tenant name.
    2. On the Categories pane toolbar, click Add Category.
    3. At the top of the right pane, in the Description box, type Fruits (the name of the new category).
    4. On the form toolbar, click Save.
  3. Create the Spares sales category as follows:
    1. In the Categories pane, click the tenant name.
    2. On the Categories pane toolbar, click Add Category.
    3. At the top of the right pane, in the Description box, type Spares.
    4. On the form toolbar, click Save.
  4. Create the subcategories of the Fruits category as follows:
    1. In the Categories pane, click Fruits.
    2. On the pane toolbar, click Add Category.
    3. At the top of the right pane, in the Description box, type Exotic Fruits.
    4. On the form toolbar, click Save.
    5. In the Categories pane, click Fruits.
    6. On the pane toolbar, click Add Category.
    7. At the top of the right pane, in the Description box, type Seasonal Fruits.
    8. On the form toolbar, click Save.

Step 5: Renaming a Sales Category

You can rename sales categories for inventory items by changing their descriptions.

While you are still viewing the Item Sales Categories (IN204060) form, to rename the Spares category (which you created in the previous step), do the following:

  1. In the Categories pane, click the Spares category.
  2. In the right pane, in the Description box, type Spare Parts.
  3. On the form toolbar, click Save.

Step 6: Rearranging Sales Categories

You can rearrange sales categories for inventory items by changing their order in the list of categories. Suppose that you need to place the sales categories for inventory items in alphabetical order.

To rearrange the categories to be in alphabetical order, do the following:

  1. While you are still viewing the Item Sales Categories (IN204060) form, in the Categories pane, click the Certificates category (which has been predefined in the U100 dataset).
  2. On the pane toolbar, click Move Node Up to change the position of the category in the list. Click Move Node Up until the Certificates category is the first listed category.
  3. Click the Fruits category.
  4. Click Move Node Up until the Fruits category immediately follows Certificates in the list of categories.
  5. On the form toolbar, click Save.

Step 7: Adding Inventory Items to the Sales Categories

Your customers can view and add to their cart items from the online catalog on the Catalog (SP700000) form of the Customer Portal if these inventory items have been added to sales categories in MYOB Advanced.

To add inventory items to sales categories, do the following:

  1. While you are still viewing the Item Sales Categories (IN204060) form, in the Categories pane, click the Fruits category, to which you will add inventory items.
  2. Add an inventory item to the Fruits category as follows:
    1. In the right pane, on the table toolbar of the Category Members table, click Add Row.
    2. In the Inventory ID column, select the GINGER item.
  3. Add all inventory items of the FOOD item class to the Fruits category as follows:
    1. In the right pane, on the table toolbar of the Category Members table, click Add Items.
    2. In the Add Items dialog box, which opens, do the following:
      1. In the Add Items box, select By Class.
      2. In the Item Class box, select FOOD.
      3. Click Add to add the items to the category and close the dialog box.
  4. Add all inventory items of the JCRCFGPRT (parts of configurable juicers) item class to the Spare Parts category as follows:
    1. In the left pane, click the Spare Parts category, to which you will add inventory items.
    2. In the right pane, on the table toolbar of the Category Members table, click Add Items.
    3. In the Add Items dialog box, which opens, do the following:
      1. In the Add Items box, select By Class.
      2. In the Item Class box, select JCRCFGPRT.
      3. Click Add to add the items to the category and close the dialog box. The system saves your changes.
      Tip: You can add an inventory item to multiple categories, if needed.

Step 8: Removing an Inventory Item from the Catalog

If you remove an item from a particular sales category, it will no longer be shown under that category in the Customer Portal. To remove an item from a category, do the following:

  1. While you are still viewing the Item Sales Categories (IN204060) form, in the Categories pane, select the Fruits category, from which you want to remove the GINGER item.
  2. In the right pane, in the Category Members table, select the unlabeled check box in the row with the GINGER item.
  3. On the table toolbar, click Delete Row.
  4. On the form toolbar, click Save.

    You can see the modified list of sales categories for inventory items in the following screenshot.

    Figure 1. The sales categories for inventory items


  5. Sign out of the system.

Step 9: Reviewing the Inventory Catalog in the Customer Portal

To verify that the changes you have made to the sales categories are reflected in the catalog in the Customer Portal, do the following:

  1. Sign in to the Customer Portal as Tonya Lawrence by using the tonya@storehut.example.com username and the 123 password.
  2. In the Orders workspace, click Catalog. The Catalog (SP700000) form opens.
  3. In the Category box of the Selection area, click the magnifier button to open the list of sales categories for inventory items.
  4. Make sure that you can see the Fruits and Spare Parts categories, which you have added in this activity. In the Fruits category, make sure that you can see the Exotic Fruits and Seasonal Fruits subcategories, which you have also created.
  5. Double-click Fruits. The system inserts the value in the Category box and closes the list of sales categories.
  6. In the table, make sure that you can see the inventory items that you have added in this activity (except GINGER, which you have deleted).
  7. In the Inventory ID column, click the APPLES link. In the Item Details dialog box, which opens, view the image that you have uploaded in this activity. Close the dialog box.
  8. In the row that has APPLES in the Inventory ID column and Fresh Red Delicious apples 1 lb in the Description column, do the following:
    • In the Qty. column, type 5.
    • Select the Add to Cart check box.

    Notice that the description is the updated one you specified earlier in the activity.

  9. On the table toolbar, click Add to Cart. Under the form toolbar, notice that a message about the item in the cart is shown. (See the following screenshot.)
    Figure 2. The items and the message about the items in the cart on the Catalog form


You have reviewed the catalog of inventory items in the Customer Portal.