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Product Management - managing parts

We don't have a huge product catalog, but we do have parts and products go end of life (obviously).  Is there any good way to manage those as 'inactive' so the reps don't have to sort through a growing catalog of parts?  i.e. we sell computers, and about once every 6 month the old model goes away.  Do we just delete it?  will that affect old quotes / invoices?  I just feel like there should be a way to tag something as inactive and not have it show up.


There is no such feature, although it has been requested a few times.

Deleting an item from a product database will have no impact at all on existing QW documents.

Simply deleting the item(s) from the database will ensure it won't be quoted in future.


If you're dealing in computers, are you not using the Etilize feature?

If you wanted to keep old "inactive" product details for posterity, then you could set up a separate Product database and move them over as they become obsolete.

We also have a huge problem with discontinued items from our suppliers.

Every time there are discontinued items, frequently 100+ items every month, we make a list and have someone searching each product on the Product Lookup window then press DELETE.

This absolutely ineffective!


I would like to see some more options on import wizard:

1)  DELETE the items.

2) MARK DISCONTINUED, that would require a checkbox on the product lookup windows to hide or display discontinued / obsolete items.


I have no issues with keeping those old references on QW databases since in principle each supplier will no longer use them but I need a effective way to make sure no one is quoting those items, either removing or hiding.


Someone suggested we start a new database for each new price list. Can't do that either because links and bundles would get lost. Item descriptions it self would have to be copied to new price list before importing, etc etc etc. Proved to be laborious and not feasible!


Other than having Aspire Technologies changing QuoteWerks I don't see any other solution.

On the basis that Qw doesn't do it today; I still believe my "add the date to the import" solution would work well.


Once it's imported, you sort by that date and can then easily delete those not of the date you added to the import. That would add about 10 seconds per list you're importing.


1 person likes this

Matt Rose, smart, that works like a charm!

It's indeed very easy to organize a column with notes or a custom field in the product lookup window.

From there we can distinguish those items who haven't been updated in the last import and delete them.

Perfect!


Thank you

hate to bring this 3 year old thread up, but where is the thread or details regarding the "add the date to the import" solution.

When importing products, you can manually enter a fixed value (such as 20/07/2022) into a CustomText field. There's a 'properties' button allowing you to enter the value.

I followed Matt Rose suggestion and added Custom Text Field just for that.

I can see that field on the product search screen.

So every time I am importing or updating references I have to remmember to write something else on that field. Then after import I go on the product search and organize on that collumn. Mark and delete the old references which havent been updated.


I tried many things. One that doesn't work well is to use multiple databases. Keep with the same database and don't change database name.

Alternatively, use a SQL script to automatically set the LastModified date to a CustomText field; you then don't have to worry about editing the field manually.


I did this for another user earlier this week - took about 15 minutes to set it all up.

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