What is a warehouse inventory transactions mechanism? A warehouse inventory transaction mechanism refers to a feature that improves performance for warehouse workers and reduces the number of records in a database. Let’s demonstrate the feature and its added value with an example.
Imagine a hardware company selling 2,000 ’13-inch MacBook Airs’. All MacBook Airs have a unique serial number. The pictures below show two pallets, both with eight boxes. Every box contains 250 MacBooks, each of these having a unique serial number. The pallets have unique identifier numbers (LP08072024-2041 and LP08072024-2042). These unique identifiers are the license plates representing the pallets.
After picking, the warehouse worker brings both pallets to the outbound area for packing and shipping to the customer. If the warehouse worker picks and delivers a pallet at the outbound area, Dynamics creates the following records in one of the most important tables: Inventory Transactions. In the Inventory Transactions table, Dynamics registers warehouse transactions such as receipt, pick and movement transactions. A transaction in Inventory Transaction table has also financial implications. The table below offers a simplified overview of the number of transactions of our picking scenario with serial numbers.
| Reference | Number of records |
| Pick from location A10 | 2000 (for each serial number a pick transaction) |
| Put to pack location | 2000 (for each serial number a put transaction) |
| Pick from pack location | 2000 (for each serial number a pick transaction) |
| Put to ship location | 2000 (for each serial number a put transaction) |
With respect to the scenario described above, one would end up with 8,000 records, which significantly impacts performance. In what way could the warehouse inventory transaction feature improve in this scenario? Let’s revisit the scenario of 2,000 serial numbers. After activation, the Inventory Transactions table looks as follows:
| Reference | Number of records |
| Deducted from location A10 | 2000 (for each serial number a deducted transaction) |
Instead of 8,000 transactions, we end up with 2,000 transactions in the Inventory Transaction table. In the new table for the warehouse inventory transactions, Dynamics creates only one data set for issue, reservation and receipt. This data set can be re-used for other movements, for example when you pick an item and bring it to the outbound location. This feature and architecture positively influence the performance of warehouse workers.
What is the added value of this feature for the business?
- Improved performance and therefore a faster throughput time for warehouse workers.
- Better user experience, as the warehouse worker no longer needs to wait as long as he had to before.
Configuration
1. To activate the new feature Warehouse inventory transaction mechanism, the parameter(s) ‘Use warehouse inventory transaction’ needs to be activated per process. If you enable all, every warehouse scenario will use the feature, including purchase orders for instance.
Path: Warehouse management > Setup > Warehouse management parameters
2. The feature ‘Warehouse inventory transaction mechanism’ also provides you with the possibility to automatic cleanup the reservation transactions. The reservation transaction is the reservation of the data set. The demonstration below shows what a data set looks like including the reservation transaction.
3. An activated automatic background process that archives the warehouse inventory transactions.
Path: System administration > Setup > Process automations
Demonstration
In this demo, I will show one scenario with the ‘Warehouse Inventory Transactions Mechanism’ feature activated and another without the activation. First, I would like to show a scenario with the ‘Warehouse Inventory Transactions Mechanism’ feature activated.
1. A sales order with a serial number controlled item and a quantity of 2.
2. Release of the sales order to the warehouse for picking.
3. Picking of the sales order line via the mobile device app.
4. Via ‘work’ you can view the warehouse inventory transactions. The warehouse inventory transactions include a dataset for each serial number. Warehouse transactions with the type ‘Removed physical reservation’ or ‘Physical cleanup’ can be cleaned up automatically.
5. After the automatic cleanup, the reservation transactions are removed.
6. The warehouse transactions are also visible via the released product.
7. The inventory transactions table now no longer shows the work transactions for the sales order. Only the picked transactions are visible.
The second demonstration is without the activation of the warehouse inventory transactions mechanism.
1. A sales order with a serial number controlled item and a quantity of 2.
2. Release of the sales order to the warehouse.
3. Picking of the sales order via the mobile device app.
4. The warehouse inventory transactions table for this sales order / work id is empty.
5. When you view the inventory transactions you can see that it includes work transactions and picked transactions.
6. When you compare the warehouse transactions table with the inventory transactions table you can see a difference in logic. The data set of the warehouse transactions is reused and transactions within the inventory transactions are re-created per transaction.
