Pallets on Transfer Orders - Lose tie to Asset record

[bbrown513]

We are using Pallets to transfer multiple Assets within a Transfer Order (TO), sometimes hundreds of Assets on a Pallet.  Processing the Pallet through the TO is much quicker than creating hundreds of Transfer Order Lines to add hundreds of Assets individually.

So, the TO process is more efficient with Pallets, however, we lose some historical traceability and reporting capabilities.  Once the TO is complete and an Asset is removed from the Pallet, we lose any systematic tie between the TO and the Asset.  The TO only has a history of transferring the Pallet asset, not the individual Assets that were on the Pallet.

We need to be able to create reports to show how many assets were transferred on TO's to and from different Stockrooms/Locations.  Without Pallets, this can be done easily by reporting on Transfer Order Lines, but with Pallets, there is only one Transfer Order Line (the Pallet) which could represent 1 or 1,000 individual assets.

Anybody have any recommendations for how we can keep using Pallets in Transfer Order but also keep the reporting on Transfer Order volumes at the individual asset level?

[Joshua Berger]

My approach would be to create a database view, join asset and asset children to the transfer order line table. That way you can use it as a source to pull reports, set up indicators to see trends etc. 

Personally I also like when children "inherit" activities or worknotes from their parent. You might consider an async business rule to copy updates on a pallet asset to its children. It's nice and clear when I look at the child asset I can see that it was part of a pallet, and what happened to the pallet all in the same activities formatter. 

[bbrown513]

Thanks for your response.  This approach works as long as the Assets remain on the Pallet, but after the TO completes and the assets are removed from the Pallet, the Pallet is no longer the Parent and the individual Assets would not be returned in the query.

[bbrown513]

Also, to your second suggestion of copying Activities and Work notes from the Parent (pallet) to the child (Assets), we actually did start doing that and it's proved helpful for investigating individual assets.  It doesn't support larger scale reporting and metrics like we're after, but it does at least give you some bread crumbs to investigate individual cases.  Thanks for responding!

[lauri457 · Accepted solution]

Could add a m2m relationship between transfer order line and asset. Then create the relationships between the child assets of the pallet and the TOL once it's been received or some other point in the process. 

It feels minimally intrusive and easy to exit out of if anything official gets implemented while still allowing detailed reporting.