Outbound shipment page by page - Edit
Before describing the page itself, it's important to highlight the differences between Quantity on Hand and Quantity Available. This concept is very important for this stage of the outbound stock movement workflow.
- Quantity On Hand represents the total quantity in inventory at a given location. It encompasses all product including lots or quantities that may be on hold, allocated to requisitions, or committed in some other fashion.
- Quantity Available represents the uncommitted portion of the inventory. To determine this number, we take the Quantity on Hand and subtract any product that is on hold, already picked for other stock movements/stock transfers, or that is otherwise committed and can’t be acted upon. In the stock movement workflow, Quantity Available is very important. It will determine whether you have enough uncommitted inventory available to transact your stock movement.
Getting Started
On the edit page, it’s possible to revise a quantity or substitute an item. Users can edit any item, but they must edit any item where the quantity available is less than the quantity requested. These items are highlighted in red in our example below.
We can see the first item in our stock movement has plenty of inventory available and will not need to be changed. The second item has limited quantity available (less than our requested amount) and must be revised to reflect the lower amount. The third item does not have any inventory available to ship. It must be removed from the order or substituted with another product.
Revising Quantities
I’ve revised the second item (10030) to reflect the quantity available. The user is required to enter a reason code when revisions are made. This reason code serves to document why we are not filling the quantity requested. There are multiple codes to choose from and more information is provided below. In this case, I will select Low Stock.
In this example, we revised the item because the full quantity was not available. However, OpenBoxes allows users to edit quantities on this page even if the full quantity is available.
It’s important for users to choose the reason code that most accurately reflects the situation associated with a quantity revision. Here is a brief overview of the codes and how they might impact demand.
Stock Out - There is no product available for requisitions.
Low Stock - There is limited product is available (not enough to meet the full requisition quantity).
Package Size Contains Different Quantity - This quantity was adjusted in order to issue a full pack (for example to 1000 vs. 1001)
Approved Change - Any other change made based on the judgment of the requisition approver or pharmacist. Do not use this if the revision is due to stock out or low stock, because “approved change” indicates that the new, revised value should be taken as the demand.
Earlier Expiration Date - Editing in order to consume a product or lot that is set to expire earlier.
Supplied By Government - Product does not need to be provided as it will be supplied elsewhere.
Could Not Locate - There is an inventory issue where product could not be physically located and therefore could not be included on the stock movement.
Request Error - Used when the request was made in error, such as an incorrect quantity or item that is not part of the formulary for a site.
Not Needed Based on Consumption - The requisition approver has determined that the reported consumption by the requesting facility does not justify the size of the request, and they are revising the qty downwards.
Backorder - Can be used to indicate a stock out or low stock situation caused by the backorder of a product. Functionally the same as stock out or low stock, but with more specific information provided.
Duplicate Request - This item was previously requested by the requester during the normal replenishment period. This should be used if requester submits additional requests for a stocked out item before the next request cycle.
Full Substitution
Instead of revising the quantity, it’s also possible to substitute an item for another, similar item. If a substitute is available, the substitution button for the line will have a green “Yes” button. For more information on how to link substitutions so that they appear on this screen, see the substitutions guide.
On the page below, Lisinopril 20 mg tablet has a substitution available in stock. To see the substitute, click on the "Yes" button. This will open a pop-up menu. From there, I’m able to enter a desired quantity (500) of the substitute item (Enalapril Maleate 10 mg tablet). You will also see a dropdown menu to select a reason code for the substitution. After entering the substitution information, select “Save” to continue.
Once you return to the edit page, will see that the original item is now crossed out and replaced by the new, substitute item. OpenBoxes will also show you the quantity on hand and quantity available, similar to the other items originally included in this stock movement.
Partial Substitution
In the example above, since there was zero quantity available, we made a full substitution. Partial substitutions are also available in OpenBoxes. This functionality is useful if some quantity of the original product is available and will be shipped, however the user also wants to substituting for the missing quantity.
Let’s suppose that 500 of item 10053 are requested but we only have 250 available. Similar to the full substitution workflow above, I would select the green “Yes” button to make the partial substitution.
Once in the substitution modal, we would enter that we still want the 250 that are available of item 10053 (shown on the first line) while also adding 250 of the substitute Enalapril.
After hitting “Save,” we are brought back to the edit page where we can see that the original request is crossed out, and the updated lines are now listed below it.
Custom Substitution
OpenBoxes also gives users the ability to make a custom substitution, in which case the user directly selects an appropriate substitute. The workflow is quite similar to the full and partial substitution examples above. Let’s assume we once again need to substitute for item 10053. We click the green “Yes” button to enter the substitution modal. We once again see the list with our original item, as well as the predesignated substitute. However in this case, to add a different substitute, we will select the green button in the center that is labeled “Add Custom Substitution.”
This will bring up another line where we can directly input a product code or product name. For this example let’s assume we can use item 12691 Losartan Potassium as a custom substitute. We will type that into the box and select the item. After doing so, the quantity available for our substitute item will appear and we are able to enter our desired quantity. Let’s use 500 as the quantity for this custom substitution. Then select “Save” to continue.
This brings us back to the edit page, where our original line item is crossed out and the new custom substitute line has now been entered below it.
Key Buttons
Undo - The undo button can be used to cancel changes that were made in this workflow. If you revised the quantity and want to revert to the original quantity, or if you made a substitution and would like to cancel it, use this button.
Reload - The reload button will refresh the quantity on hand and quantity available, if they have changed. This is particularly useful if it has taken an extended amount of time to create the outbound movement, and if the user wants to see if the inventory levels for their selected items have changed in a meaningful way.
Save / Save and Exit - These buttons are used to save your work and exit the workflow, if necessary. They will not advance the user to the next stage of the workflow. Users must select “Next” to move forward. It’s also important to note that saving at this stage of the process does not commit inventory to this stock movement. Therefore the inventory is still able to be used elsewhere. Inventory will not be committed to this movement until we arrive on the pick page.
Next
We’ve now completed the edit stage of the workflow. Our items were added and we revised some quantities to reflect the quantity available. We also substituted a different item for one that was out of stock (In the screenshot below, I’ve reverted back to the full substitution example). Once you have made all of the required edits and have confirmed that the information is correct, press "Next" to continue to the pick page.
