I want to share what I’d like to achieve with Manager’s Inventory Items. I don’t think it’s currently possible. I’ve tried many things and searched forum but haven’t found a solution.
So the idea is to be able to select multiple items of inventory in the advanced queries and show the chosen columns for those items and to be able to get the printable page for it. Please have a look at the example screenshot below to see a use-case.
As of now, this advanced query will not show any results.
Maybe this can even be implemented by adding a new filter where we can directly choose the item itself from a dropdown instead of typing the item name after “contains”. Either way, it is currently not possible to achieve this in any way.
I also tried to go another route by just choosing “Batch Update” under the Batch Operations menu and then select the items I want which would then allow me to use the “Copy to clipboard” option and paste it in a spreadsheet, then delete the unwanted columns. This comes with the obvious downside which is the fact that you still have to use a spreadsheet and edit it etc… and then print it. But even if we don’t consider that an issue, this is not really an option when the business has thousands of items in the inventory, it’s really a mess trying to scroll through your list, find the items and click the checkbox to select them 1 by 1. The other issue is that we can’t even use the search function to quickly filter to an item and select it , then search another item and select that one and then proceed with the Batch Update with all the items that were searched and selected. This is not possible because the selection does not stay between each search. It gets reset every time.
@Lubos provided the solution. The reason why you did not get any results is because the “Where…” fields involve a so called “AND” operator. So in essence it would be searching where ITEM 1# AND ITEM 2# AND ITEM 3# together are found as item name. So you must have a single “Where…” field that represents these three and will list them.
But unless I’m misunderstanding, this is not the solution. On any day, I might need to select a random combination of items to view in this way. And there are more than 5k items. Your solution assumes that I already know which items I want “grouped” together when creating them?
There should be a simple way to select multiple items. Either in the advanced queries (Which would be ideal and best) or in the batch operations (without the need to scroll through the list and click the checkboxes, but by searching the item and clicking the checkbox)
This would not work because it would look for the whole item name which would not exist, hence my reference that you can follow @Lubos advice to create a custom field and assign each of these items to that and make the custom field the single “Where…” option.
I believe you are looking for an “or” operator. Manager has only supported “and” between multiple search terms.
However you are not the only user who has requested Manager support the “or” function.
Thanks Patch for your contribution. And yes the “or” operator I believe would help this situation.
I’m trying to understand your suggestion using the Batch Recode function but can’t seem to figure it out. My custom fields don’t show up in the dropdown menu of Batch Recode.
But even if they did, how is this solving the issue of me having to scroll through my 5k+ list of items to find each item and select them one by one? I need to be able to quickly search an item, select it and then quickly search another one and select that one as well and have them both be selected when I get out of my search prompt. So that I can do a batch operation and copy to clipboard.
I guess the “or” functionality has to be added. because as of now I still can’t see how Batch Recode can solve this issue even when it implements usage of customs fields.
Anyways. I hope a more simple way to do this within advanced queries gets added in future updates.
