Local management of inventory settings
As far as data management is concerned, Lokad’s philosophy is to keep data centralized in the original business app whenever this is possible. We do not want to be an ABC management software (replace ABC by commerce, warehouse, store or entreprise), because our clients already have this software in place. Yet, it is not always possible - or practical - to stick to this principle; so we need to adjust.
More specifically, in order to generate an inventory forecasting report, Lokad needs domain-specific settings such as the desired service level and the applicable lead time, which are typically not built-in within most business apps. Certain apps like Brightpearl or Linnworks already support the notion of custom properties to enrich existing data with domain-specific settings, but many other apps do not support such a feature.
So far, companies using TradeGecko, Unleashed Software or Vend could only rely on the Salescast default inventory settings, which are rather crude as they apply to all of the data if no alternative settings are provided.
Yesterday, we have released an updated version of Salescast which now offers the possibility to manage the inventory settings within your Lokad account by uploading a specific Excel sheet acting as the repository of your settings. It is now possible to manage fine-grained inventory settings for all of our supported apps.
