How do I setup my Item Library?

You create item groups, departments, and then you can start creating items.

First off, in order to manage the item library, you need a few user permissions:

• Use BlueTrace on Web
• Manage Items
• Manage Departments

To get started, we recommend working with our team to plan your item catalog so you get a birds-eye view of the data requirements for all your items.

Create Departments

Within Settings a user with permission to administer Departments can create parent and child departments. These departments are then associated with Items during the item creation process.

The departments can be used to filter or sort the Item library. Ex: Shellfish, Finfish, Frozen later when interacting with items across the system.

If you carry a lot of items in a given department, you may want to create child departments so it is easy to filter items as you work in the system.

Ex: Parent = Shellfish

Ex: Children = Mussels, Clams, Oysters, Scallops.

How to Create Departments:

Settings > Departments > Add a Department > Fill in Form > Save

Create Item Groups

An Item Group defines all the Item Properties that are relevant to a bunch of items you buy or sell. This will reduce the noise of extra fields that aren't important for harvesting, receiving or shipping a given item.

Examples of Item Properties are "Size/Cull" or "Grade" or "Brand."

• The "Size/Cull" property may be really important to an Oyster or Scallop item, but not important to Mussels.
• The "Grade" property may be important to Tuna/Sword, but not to other Fin Fish. 
• The "Brand" property may be important to Oysters, but not to Clams or Fin Fish.

How to Create an Item Group:

Settings > Item Groups > Add Item Group > Disable any fields you don't need > Make any fields you don't want to miss when creating an item Required. 

Suggestion: Make species and department required. 

Define Item Group Naming Convention

The Item Name can be manually set by the user (static) or it can be dynamically generated by setting which item properties are to be used to create a name. Options:

1. Manual Naming: write the name out for everything
2. Auto Naming using a combination of item properties: Combine item properties to make a consistent name.
   1. Example Auto Name Convention: Brand : Size/Cull : Species : Quantity Description
   2. Example Name using the above: Wellfleet : Petite : Eastern Oysters : 100 Count Bag
3. Auto Name Creation using SKU or Internal Item Code property only: if your team wants to refer to items as codes, this is the tool you'd want to use.

How to setup an automatic naming convention for the Oyster Item Group we created above:

Item Creation

Start by navigating to Inventory (or Items if you don't have the inventory feature), then:

1. Tap "Add Item"
2. Choose which item group to use 
3. Fill in the item properties which always define the item

Here's an example of Item Creation using the Automatic Naming approach. If you used a manual naming approach, the only difference is you'd have to manually enter an Item name.

Items & Item Groups Come Together During Item Creation

Conceptually an item is a unique thing you buy or sell that has a quantity and price attached to it. 

Tuna Examples:

• MSC Certified Tuna : Whole : Headed & Gutted : Bought Per Lb.
• MSC Certified Tuna : Loin: Sold Per Lb.

Maybe in your organization, you need to capture the Country of Origin of the Tuna, but it doesn't impact the price. This means you'd make sure Country of Origin is a part of the Item Group, but you won't put USA or whatever country into the definition of these items, you can capture it upon receiving.

Here's an example: