What's New?
Supersede SKUs
Retailer users will now have the possibility to Supersede an existing SKU.
This functionality is aimed to help retailers keep track of their product’s packaging lifecycle by understanding if a Bill of Materials was specifically replaced by a new Bill of Materials for a product.
Common reasons to supersede a SKU would be
- Redesign / new packaging for existing product
- Structural packaging change to one or more components. Examples include:
- New label size for artwork / copy
- Change to component specification for manufacturing reasons
- Change to component specification for sustainability metrics (lightweighting, EPR fee mitigation, removal of problematic attributes)
- Seasonal variant of a SKU with different packaging
For example, you have a product, ‘Pepperoni Pizza’:
- ‘Pepperoni Pizza’ is currently sold using the packaging described in the Bill of Materials ‘BOM 1’.
- The Product – Bill of Materials relationship is a SKU, ‘SKU 1’
- ‘SKU 1’ currently has a status of ‘on sale’, as it can be found in store.
- The packaging for ‘Pepperoni Pizza’ has been re-designed to be more in line with the brand and this redesign will result on the label being 30% bigger. There are no changes to any other components in the BOM.
- Because the packaging will change, the product ‘Pepperoni Pizza’ now needs to be linked to a new Bill of Materials, the Bill of Materials with the bigger label.
- The ‘supersede’ functionality will allow the retailer or brand owner to create a new Bill of Materials for the same Product (this will result in a new SKU, ‘SKU 2’) and ensure there is a link between ‘SKU 1’ and ‘SKU 2’, so the retailer knows that ‘SKU 1’ was replaced by ‘SKU 2’
- On sale and off sale dates can be used to manage the new SKU ‘SKU 2’ replacing the old SKU ‘SKU 1’
Without the supersede functionality, there would be no links between the SKU and it would be impossible to know if a SKU replaced another one, or if the product simply has multiple SKUs / packaging BOMs.
A SKU can be superseded when:
- It’s currently ‘on sale’ or ‘off sale’ (it has been previously ‘on sale’)
A SKU can be superseded by another SKU that:
- Is assigned to the same product supplier assigned to the ‘previous’ SKU.
- Is linked to the same product linked to the ‘previous’ SKU.
To supersede a SKU:
A SKU can only be superseded by retailers. Retailer users can create a new ‘supersede SKU’ brief by clicking on the ‘Supersede SKU’ button that can be found on the context menu of a SKU or the ‘New Brief’ button
In the ‘Create brief’ page retailers will select the SKU that is being superseded, add brief instructions and a due date.
If the page was accessed by clicking on the ‘Supersede’ button of a SKU, the SKU in the brief page will be pre-selected.
Once the ‘Supersede SKU’ brief is created, it will kick off a ‘Create BOM’ task for the product supplier, same process as a ‘normal’ brief.
The process to create and approve the new BOM for the new SKU that is superseding the existing one is the same as the current process to create/approve a BOM:
- Create BOM task.
- Complete BOM task.
- Approve BOM task.
If the ‘Create BOM’, ‘Complete BOM’ and ‘Approve BOM’ tasks have been created as a result of a ‘Supersede SKU’ brief, the details of the SKU that is being superseded will be displayed as part of the brief instructions:
Once the new Bill of Materials is approved and the new SKU has a status of ‘Available for sale’, on/off sale dates will need to be entered for the new SKU, same as for any other SKU.
When the retailer users click on the ‘Add dates’ button and the ‘add dates’ modal pops up, they will see the details of the SKU they are adding the dates to and the SKU that is being superseded, its predecessor.
If the retailer is editing the on/off sale dates of a SKU that has both a successor and a predecessor, the details of both the predecessor and successor SKUs will be displayed in the popup.
Please note the dates of sale of the connected SKUs cannot overlap.
On sale dates cannot be added to a SKU with a predecessor if the predecessor SKU (the ‘old’ SKU) doesn’t have ‘off sale’ dates.
Cancel SKU: Add cancelation reason and comments
When cancelling a SKU, users will now have to add a cancellation reason and optional comments.
As with all other cancellation reasons, these will be reportable. If you would like to add these to your reports, please contact Support on support@sunbrandingsolutions.com.
New product statuses
The product statuses have been enhanced to update automatically depending on their SKUs. Helping users to understand the lifecycle of their product at a glance:
When a product is initially created, it will have a status of in progress. An ‘in progress’ product is a product that is currently being worked on and has no SKUs ready to go on sale.
Available for sale: the status of a product will automatically change from ‘in progress’ to ‘available for sale’ when any of its SKUs have a status of ‘available for sale’
- The product has at least one SKU ready to go ‘on sale’ but none of its SKUs have ever been ‘on sale’ before.
On sale: the status of a product will automatically change from ‘available for sale’ to ‘on sale’ when at least one of its SKUs is currently on sale/available to purchase (has a status of ‘on sale’).
Off sale: a product will have a status of ‘off sale’ when the product has been on sale before but it’s currently not available to purchase.
- The status of a product will automatically change to ‘off sale’ if none its SKUs are currently ‘on sale’ and any of its SKUs are ‘off sale’.
- This will help users identify seasonal products, products that need to be archived and special editions, amongst other things.
Cancelled: we have added additional restrictions and enhancements when cancelling a product.
Users will not be allowed to cancel products that have ever been on sale/launched. This is because if the product has been on sale, it has a history against it and therefore it should not be cancelled.
If a product that needs cancelling has any SKUs linked to it, its SKUs must have one of the below statuses for it to be cancelled:
- In progress.
- Available for sale.
- Cancelled.
When a product is cancelled, all its SKUs will automatically be cancelled.
To cancel a product retailer users will just need to click on the product’s ‘options’ button and select the ‘cancel’ option.
Note: If the product doesn’t meet the criteria to be cancelled, the ‘cancel’ button will be disabled.
If the product meets the criteria to be cancelled, the user will need to enter a cancellation reason before it can be cancelled (the comments are optional):
Once the product is cancelled, the cancellation details will be displayed in the Product’s details page:
Delete product
Retailer admin users will now have the ability to delete products that were created in error. Once deleted, the product will not be available in the Product Hub and cannot be re-activated.
Products can only be deleted if no BOMs have been linked to it.
To delete a product retailer admin users will just need to click on the product’s ‘options’ button and select the ‘delete’ option.
Note: If the product doesn’t meet the criteria to be deleted, the ‘delete’ button will be disabled.
If the product meets the criteria to be deleted, the user will need to enter a deletion reason before it can be deleted (the comments are optional):
Download lists: components, products, bills of materials and tasks
Users will now be able to download lists of items form the following hubs:
- Product Hub
- Component Hub
- Bills of Materials Hub
- Task Hub
To download a list of items, go to the hub with the items you need, e.g. Components Hub, you will see a ‘Download list’ button on the top right of the page.
You can use the hub filters to make the list of items smaller if needed to, e.g. only look at ‘active’ components.
Click on the ‘download list' button, a popup will open asking you if you would like to download all the items available in your hub or the filtered.
If you select filter, it will only download the filtered results you were looking at, e.g. only ‘active’ components.
You will also need to select in what format they would like to list to be downloaded:
- CSV
- xls
- xlsx
Click on the ‘Export’ button when you are ready and the file will be automatically downloaded to your computer.
Updates and Bug Fixes:
- Fixed the issue where product suppliers were unable to download documents linked to components.
- The free text filter on the ‘Supplier Codes’ page has been enhanced so that the results include ‘connected organisations’ whose name match the value entered on the filter.
- Fixed the issue on the Bill of Material page where the component’s weight was not being displayed.
- Fixed the issue on the Brief Hub where the products number didn’t match the actual number of products on the brief.
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