Why did the item descriptions get removed form the inventory items tab?
They did not. Please illustrate what you mean with screen shots.
The design intent is that item names be recognizable. But you have given every item the same name. The intent for the description field is to include content that is displayed to customers or suppliers.
You are also likely to get into future trouble because of your inclusion of the made in USA annotation in the unit field. It would be unusual to see something like “6 Made in USA” on a sales invoice for quantity sold. Notes like that should go into custom fields.
It was fine the entire time but now makes this programming useless for me. Item name to me is my product category with the description field offering more options. Thus the item codes per Item name.
Thanks for the heads up but that happened after one of your other updates and it wasn’t an issue so I left it alone. Now where’s the description or how do I get them back?
@dreinemann99, I think you are caught up in the standardization of display layouts that is underway. This was discussed in the last newsletter. There is a similar topic concerning non-inventory items that may be informative for you.
Your situation illustrates what can happen when you adopt an unconventional workflow, then expect the program to match it as changes occur. You may or may not see an option to display descriptions in the Inventory Items tab listing. But, in the long run, you will be safer to use the program as intended. The developer is simply not able to envision every unusual workflow. And as features proliferate and screen and document space becomes more precious, information that could be displayed when it had no competition may be sacrificed.
Your Norseman product category would also be handled better with a custom field set to show as a column. Then you could give the inventory items more recognizable names. (Surely no one can commit all your numerical codes to memory.)
The short answer is that you cannot change tab listing layouts at the present time, except by adding custom fields set to show as columns. Whether that might become feasible in the future only the developer can say. (And judging from the other topic, any such change might be temporary.) But the closer you adhere to the developer’s vision of the program, the safer you will be against workflow breakages.
That makes no sense, why have a description field at all then? I read those scenerios before I reached out and to REMOVE descriptions for inventory items is senseless and as I stated makes this software uselss for me as I sell hardware and industrial supplies. To memorize every item code is ridiculous and not what I signed up for. I guess it may be time to move on after 6 years of using the cloud version of manager. That’s not a great thought as I have 6 years of growing inventories to now re-enter into new software. WHEN DID THIS CHANGE HAPPEN?
Descriptions for inventory items were not removed. They are simply not being displayed in the Inventory Items tab listing. But when an inventory item is selected for a transaction, its description is displayed.
That is why item names are displayed and also why they are intended to be unique enough to identify the item when searching a dropdown menu as you enter a transaction. It was your use of the item name for a category (Norseman) that deprived you of this utility. The point of having descriptions is for situations where an item name alone is not enough information for a customer to know what they are buying or a supplier what they are selling.
Within the past few days as part of the layout standardization I mentioned above. It doesn’t look like you visited the link to the other topic I sent. But if you had, you would see that things are not yet final.
I have to agree…
@lubos why on earth have you removed the description on inventory items tab listing?
I am currently running an (much) older version of Manager and am extremely nervous about updating with all the changes that are happening. I want to update but have a feeling the mess it will cause will take a long time to sort out, which I don’t have.
Will you be removing the sales price column next??
Doesn’t make sense to me.
SO your initial answer that the descriptions did not get removed was incorrect. This really messes me up. I expected updates to be improvements but it seems just the opposite with Manager. Emails were moved and can no longer be searched by where sent etc… now this disastrious change which definitelyt pushes me to change software, Not what I was expecting to have to do mid year. I guess I spoke to proudly about Manager recently and will have to back track all my referrals before they change. I will make my correction via my social media avenues so the word gets out. It was good while it lasted and I guess all good things must come to an end.
No, it was correct for the information you had provided. You said descriptions had been removed from the Inventory Items tab. They are still there, definable and fully functional for every inventory item.
Your actual complaint turned out in later posts to be that descriptions are no longer displayed in the main tab listing. Even when you shared that fact, your illustration was not definitive, because if you don’t use descriptions, that column would not have appeared in the tab listing, in current or prior versions of the program. (Unused fields and columns are suppressed throughout Manager.) Not until post #5 did you definitely indicate you are using the description field.
@lubos
This has totally screwed things up for me. Let me give you an example of how I have had to spend almost an hour trying to find one item
The manufacturer has over forty cord rewinds to choose from for different models. I particularly want one for a S6000 pet.
The manufacturer uses the part number (my Item Code) V450-A . They also use part description (my Item Name) of CordRewinder, the same description they use on almost all their rewinds.
I use Cord Rewind S6000 pet in my Item Description to quickly and easily identify it.
I now have to refer back to breakdown diagrams to try and find the particular Item Code to find out which item to order. This can be a lengthy process as some have to be accessed via the internet or longer still, by a phone call to technical support…
Then, depending on whether I invoice the customer or sell the item to them via a receipt the customer either gets the Item Code on the Invoice or the Item Code Item Name on the Receipt.
This needs to be fixed immediately, time is money!
PLEASE standardise ALL forms to include the option of all three fields as required, give us the option of what to include in forms and tab columns and get this back to a user-friendly program.
See also Item name default setting
In the latest version (22.7.12), I’ve added Description column back to Inventory Items screen.
What I want in future is for screens to have ability for users to select which columns should be shown. This would give everybody what they want.
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If this could be done with all invoice/receipts forms and purchase/purchase invoice forms, order forms, quotes etc it would be ideal.
Yeah, what I have in mind, it is meant to be generic across all screens.
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We hope it will be as soon as possible. For most businesses, item code are distinct from item item names. So the idea of putting them together on purpose print screen is a big problem for most of us. We use item codes internally and item names for our suppliers. Right now we are confused on what to do. Management has to make a decision on this software.