Experts,
Is there a way to export serial numbers directly into the item tracking lines? The reason is we receive shipments of large quantities and it is very time consuming to enter each one on the item tracking line of the Purchase Order. Any help will be appreciated.
How do you enter them in excel? Doesn’t somebody need to type them in excel? Most users hide all the fields on tracking form. and only show serial no, then use a scanner to start scanning. They don’t even look at monitor, just hear the beep and keep scanning.
I have a client that is emailed an excel spread sheet from the vendor with all the srrial numbers for the next shipment. So I can see where this would be a usefull thing to have.
This is pain in the a… I have done this one time but would not reccomend go this way. I think much easie if you assign your own Serial Numbers. System will create Serial No. Information table on Receipt. You can create new field - Vendor Serial number and import into this field. This has 2 major pluses - you do not need to wait for file to receive and you will not have problem if vendor repeats serial number.
One more point… If you receive big shipments i think it is irrelevant what serial number sits on inventory - you cant tell warehouse employee pick specific Serial Number. Maybe it is better to enter serial number only at shipping (or Consumption) time when item alredy picked.
Serial numbers can be tracked in the WMS if you turn on “SN Warehouse Tracking”. As to when you assign serial numbers and what you use, that will depend on the business’s use of these numbers.
Just to complete my earlier comments. I was indicating that there are cases where it would be usefull to import serial number in a batch, but as bbrown points out:
and in the particular case above, once actually sitting with the client on site and reviewing their needs, it was clear that volume of serial numbers (maximum 10 per SKU) just was not worth the effort of tracking. In the end it was just easier to keep the excel spread sheets and when a customer returned an item, go back to the original sheet to find out the date warranty started. So in the end this client does not track serial numebrs in Navision at all. BUT there are valid business cases where it makes sense to import an excel sheet, and without actually going on site with Robert, we can’t say that there is no case for importing from Excel.
In the end though, as Val says:
In my experience the vast majority of Serial number implementations work exactly like this (at consumption point not receipt point), because the companies that enter serial number at purchase time end out having a mess when the warehouse staff pull the wrong Serialized Item.