Problems with Headquarters Quantities After Performing Interstore Transfers

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Posted on by Spencer McCandless

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Hi. We run a business with one main store with headquarters and store ops servers and three satellite stores with store ops servers. We do all of our receiving at our main store and then send product to the satellite stores with periodic restocks. The problem I am running into is that after performing an interstore inventory transfer, while the quantities in both the sending and receiving store ops databases accurately reflect the transfer, the quantities listed as being at each store within HQ manager are thrown drastically out of wack. This occurs whether I originate an Item Transfer in the sending store's Store Ops Manager or perform the process via a worksheet 330.

For example, if I have 1 of an item at the main store and move to transfer it to a satellite store that has 0 of the item, I perform the following steps:

1) Create a worksheet 330 in HQ manager, stating to transfer 1 of the item from the main store A (where 1 is present) to Store B (where 0 are present) and approve the worksheet.

2) I allow both HQ clients to connect to the HQ server and process the worksheet.

3) I log into Store Ops at Store A, open the newly downloaded item transfer, click Issue, Issue All, and Commit.

4)I log into Store Ops at Store B, open the item transfer, click Receive, Receive All, and Commit.

5) I create a Data Upload Worksheet 401, approve it, and make both HQ clients connect and process the worksheet.

Now, Store Ops at Store A shows 0 of the item, as it should. Store Ops at Store B shows 1 of the item, as it should. But HQ Manager shows 2 at Store A and 1 at Store B. This result is not uniform. I've performed an identical series of actions and had HQ show as many as 4 or 8 at one or both ends of the transfer. And, of course, I can always request a full item count and perform a reconciliation for both stores, but this is a pain to do every single time, and it seems like a work around for something that should work in the first place. I've even tried setting up SQL Profiler on the Headquarters Server to see what commands the worksheets were issuing to the HQ Database, but I'm not super experienced with SQL and it was kind of overwhelming.

I know this is a pretty general problem, but any help on this matter would be hugely appreciated.

Thanks in advance

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Community Member Microsoft Employee on at

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RE: Problems with Headquarters Quantities After Performing Interstore Transfers

also one of the boxes causing problems is non xp.. its windows 7... latest SP's applied..
Community Member Microsoft Employee on at

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RE: Problems with Headquarters Quantities After Performing Interstore Transfers

nice, can you post the hotfix somewhere it seems they are down right now (MSFT)

anyone have the server 2008 hotfix ?
Cam Robertson 25 on at

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RE: Problems with Headquarters Quantities After Performing Interstore Transfers

Hi Jeff,, thanks for the suggestion about the back-dated 401. This, and many other suggestions I have seen from Check Point on the forums, have been very helpful!
Spencer McCandless 2,085 on at

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Re: Problems with Headquarters Quantities After Performing Interstore Transfers

Hi FCAses.

This definitely fixed this specific issue for us, though it was only a small step in bringing the overall database under control.

I'm not sure why the Server 2008 hotfix isn't listed for download through that link. The support article definitely lists it as being an OS that experiences this issue, and the page at support.microsoft.com/.../961451 even describes what files should be included in the package and lists Windows Server 2008 Datacenter, Windows Server 2008 Enterprise, and Windows Server 2008 Standard as all being affected.

I don't think the compiled language should make a difference in this case, as the issue is actually with an aspect of the OS (the Active X Data Objects) rather than the individual program.

I think I would try contacting Microsoft through the "Get Help Now" link at the bottom of the page I linked to and let them know that the download link is missing.

I don't think it was related to this problem, but just to cover all our bases, one other problem we had that affected transfers was that after (what I assume was) some kind of crash that occurred about a year before I started working on the project, several incrementing values (transaction numbers, purchase order ID's, a few others) started over from 0, and so entries in other tables that referenced the entries that originally held the values were getting confused. Like I said, though, the main symptom of this was random items showing up on transfers rather than random quantity fluctuations.
Community Member Microsoft Employee on at

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Re: Problems with Headquarters Quantities After Performing Interstore Transfers

i cant seem to see windows2008 in the support.microsoft.com/.../KBHotfix.aspx

page...

are you sure this fixed it ? we see same thing here, don't forget HQ is written in a different compiled language then store ops....maybe delphi or something, maybe something is wacked off...
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Spencer McCandless 2,085 on at

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Re: Problems with Headquarters Quantities After Performing Interstore Transfers

I finally resolved this by renewing our service contract. RMS should not be run in a Windows XP SP3 environment (or a number of other operating systems including Vista SP1 and several Windows Server versions) due to a compatibility issue that will generate incorrect data. More information and a hotfix for the issue can be found at support.microsoft.com
Spencer McCandless 2,085 on at

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Re: Problems with Headquarters Quantities After Performing Interstore Transfers

Sorry for the delay in responding; I've been away from the store for the past few days. Thanks for your suggestions. I'm afraid I do run into the same problem when the transfer is originated at the store level instead of via a headquarters worksheet. I'll be returning tomorrow and will get an exact version number (definitely 2.0+, not sure of the specific decimal), and I'll test using NTP to sync the times between the stores and hq and creating backdated 401 worksheets. I don't believe this is the issue, though, as I'm actually logging in remotely to the Store Ops servers and manually connecting with the HQ clients while I'm troubleshooting this, so I see the client find and process the 401s when I issue them.
Jeff @ Check Point ... 13,380 on at

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Re: Problems with Headquarters Quantities After Performing Interstore Transfers

Spencer,

First tell us what version you are running. There have been many changes to the Transfer/PO/sections

Next, to sync quantities between HQ and what the stores have, issue a 501 from HQ to all of the stores and then run a 190 to correct HQ.

Third, you must make sure that the times are correct at each store's server. Being even a minute off will disrupt things. We always suggest that a manually created worksheet to pad the effective time by 2-5 minutes to compensate. Automatic 401s cannot be changed, so if the time is off it may either miss a worksheet or it might/will be processed the next time the store connects.

If this is a constant thing, we also suggest that a 401 be created weekly that has an effective date of the previous Sunday nite at 11:59PM just to make sure the weeks worksheets have been run. If you have long connections between stores, you may have to run a second one on Wed nite dates. It will not duplicate any existing data.

If your clocks are not correct, maybe replacing the battery or use a time syncing program that it run often will help. http://www.nist.gov/pml/div688/grp40/its.cfm
Gerald Rothaus 2,930 on at

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Re: Problems with Headquarters Quantities After Performing Interstore Transfers

I'm not sure about this one, but I believe all you need to do is at the store level - just do your transfers, and the worksheets are not neccessary. Maybe that is the problem. I think running the 330 after that is causing your errors. So create transfer, issue, sync hq clients, receive at the other store, and that's it.

Maybe someone from Microsoft can comment on this.

-Jerry

jerry@jrdata.us