Toolio Product Updates: September 13, 2024

Data Alerts

We’re excited to announce Data Alerts which are designed to improve data reliability and transparency for our users. This update ensures you are informed about potential data issues and concerns before they impact your planning or reporting workflows. This feature also points you to the next step of investigating different types of common data issues, giving you the tools to resolve problems quickly and independently.

If there are any new data alerts, you’ll be flagged by a notification badge in the top right hand corner (next to the task manager). Upon clicking into the Data Alerts, you’ll find 2 sections:

• Active Alerts: These indicate ongoing issues, such as failed imports or missing data, that require attention. Active alerts are shown in the notification menu and new alerts trigger a beacon/highlight to notify users immediately.
• Resolved Alerts: Once an issue is addressed, such as when a new import is successfully received after a failure, the alert is marked as resolved by the system automatically. You are also able to manually mark an Active issue as Resolved by marking them as such. Resolved alerts remain visible in the notification menu within the Resolved tab, indicating the issue has been addressed.

At its core, Data Alerts focuses on flagging the following key issues:

• Failed Imports: Alerts you when an import file was received by Toolio but not imported successfully, allowing you to quickly identify and troubleshoot issues with specific files.
• Failed Integrations: Notifies you when automated data integrations with an external system encounter errors, ensuring you're aware of disruptions in your data feeds from external sources and able to retrigger the integration from Settings > Integrations.
• Missing Imports: Triggers an alert when expected data imports haven’t been received within a defined time frame (e.g., 1 day), helping you catch gaps in your data before they affect your reporting or planning decisions. You can configure the threshold for Missing Import Alerts directly in Organization Settings > Notifications.

Please read more about Data Alerts, and how to configure and use them here.

Presentation Profile in Assortment Planning

The introduction of the presentation profile into assortment planning adds another layer of accuracy to the receipt calculation, allowing planners to specify the exact number of units to ensure for fringe sizes to cover the chosen clusters of locations the product should be available in. Users can specify presentation quantities all the way down to the location/size level or generically at the size level (multiplied by the number planned locations in the assortment). Note that presentation profile will supersede the Minimum Presentation quantity which is spread across the size curve.

Assortment Group & Inventory Group

Assortment Group

Toolio introduces a new feature called Assortment Groups, which proves invaluable for organizations with complex, channel-specific planning structures. This functionality allows for the creation of distinct assortments based on specific Assortment Groups, effectively preventing cross-channel interference in planning processes. For example, this feature enables you to maintain a clear separation between your eCommerce assortment and your brick-and-mortar store assortment, ensuring each channel's unique requirements are met without compromise.

The versatility of Assortment Groups extends beyond simple channel separation. For instance, you might choose to combine your Web and Stores assortments into a single Retail group, while keeping your Wholesale assortment separate.

If your strategy involves planning across all channels, you don't need to configure Assortment Groups.

By providing these varied options, Toolio empowers businesses to adapt their planning processes to their unique organizational structures and strategic goals.

Inventory Group

An inventory group specifies which locations or clusters can share inventory. Since we operate at a cluster level, we need the ability to share inventory between clusters when determining supply chain needs. However, if you maintain separate inventories for your eCommerce, store, and wholesale channels, we must inform the system not to share inventory between these channels when calculating additional stock requirements.

For example, all store clusters might be allowed to share inventory, while the web cluster cannot share inventory with store clusters. Consequently, the web cluster must have its own inventory group.

The relationship between Inventory Group and Assortment Group is that your inventory group must exist within your Assortment group. However, if you have a shared Assortment group, your inventory groups can be separated within it.

Based on your assortment and inventory group configurations, the system calculates receipts for each inventory group. This calculation shows how much stock is needed specifically for that inventory group's clusters, considering the existing inventory. For instance, there will be a receipt calculated for the Stores inventory group and another for eCommerce. These calculations determine the specific needs for each channel. In your reporting, you can generate reports for individual groups or at the total level to see a comprehensive picture of your purchases.

Read more here for instructions to start using Inventory Groups

Store Openings

Toolio now supports Store Openings in the next generation Assortment Plan! When you define store open and close dates in Locations under Settings, Assortment Plan will use these dates to calculate accurate dates and metrics for your assortments.

You'll notice improvements in the following areas:

1. If store open and close dates fall outside your assortment dates—meaning a store won't be selling during that period but is still in your clusters—the system will decrease the location count accordingly.
2. For stores with open and close dates that partially overlap with your assortment dates (opening late or closing early within the assortment timeframe), the system will adjust the choice launch and end dates.
3. The system will recalculate planned weeks based on each store's availability (Weighted Planned Weeks). This ensures your sales plan forecasts and purchase quantities accurately reflect the time stores are open for business.

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Be sure to check out our Roadmap for other planned features and updates to Toolio. Is there a feature you think would be a great addition? Let us know here!