Hi,
Don’t you thing ERPNext’s Item management (Item naming, Item Coding, Variant and attributes) is not good, you can not automate item Coding, naming or whatever based on some information like product tree for example, or combination of something, even here; https://docs.erpnext.com/docs/user/manual/en/item-codification#3-example it is suggested to have codding in mind (Manually), and variant is the worse, i introduced ERPNext to one of my so called friend, he sales chip, and he is using DigiKey’s product tree, if you create a product from Digikey on ERPNext using Variants you will get very long names and thousands items of one item, and you can not manage those variants by main (template) product, he did not like it, did not fit his needs.
i have ERP software experience ERPNext is good but this item management, and not generating barcode thing is not liked by people.
Can you be more specific on the “very long names” you are getting for DigiKey products (maybe some examples), and what type of management you want to do from the main template product that ERPNext doesn’t do?
Please note you can view and manage variants belonging to a template by filtering your list using the “Variant Of” filter, and then updating all or some of those items in the list using the bulk ‘Edit’ action.
You can also update many fields directly from the Item template, which copies changes into all its variants (as long as the field is not in the no-copy list).
@DCRob Hi, Thanks for reply, i did not say it does not meet the needs, of course it does in a way, but it does not manage in a good way as i think, i may say one thing that why cant manage items by template item, for example in buying module i have to choose every variant for an action, but instead i would chose template item then it may bring all the variants it has (as an alternative it may also ask which variants of an attribute). secondly i don’t want to see variants as an item in item list, i want to see variant under template item, this will keep item list short. ERPNext threads to variants as an individual item (each variant is an item), in my humble opinion variant is something that belongs to an item can be manage by the head item.
Another thing is that why would i give a name to an item, by using ERP i want to eliminate the mistakes of employees, so i may give some specifications to ERPNext then i will choose the kind of an item i want to create and ERPNext will create item name by those given specs, for example, i want to create a resistor item, i will choose that resistor with or without some specs then ERPNext will create a Resistor item with the queued item number etc.
Those are something may ease the use of ERPNext, there are many things to consider like product specs. Product specs can be used instead variants as an option, “Everybody cherishes his own way of doing things”.
i hope i made my point.
@pmjd Thanks for reply, you are right, we are doing something to cope our problems but it takes too much time, can you automate this given example; https://docs.erpnext.com/docs/user/manual/en/item-codification#3-example , it will take too much time, and they also know this so the suggest you to have some item coding in mind, and give item names or codes etc, manually.
Another thing there is an option to automate name by script (if you customize item doctype you will see in naming section) , but does not mentioned in Docs about how to do it.
In this script you are setting the item_code from the inputs or other parts of the Item, item_group and brand. Depending on what values are present for item_group and brand.
cur_frm.cscript.custom_validate = function(doc) {
// clear item_code (name is from item_code)
doc.item_code = "";
// first 2 characters based on item_group
switch(doc.item_group) {
case "Test A":
doc.item_code = "TA";
break;
case "Test B":
doc.item_code = "TB";
break;
default:
doc.item_code = "XX";
}
// add next 2 characters based on brand
switch(doc.brand) {
case "Brand A":
doc.item_code += "BA";
break;
case "Brand B":
doc.item_code += "BB";
break;
default:
doc.item_code += "BX";
}
}
Not sure how variants are handled but could be worth experimenting.
Also, if you customize the Item DocType, you can set a custom naming series (remember you have to switch the option to use item_code or naming series in the Stock Settings page), which can be defined from Item input fields and also auto-increment.
Yes, ERPNext does create individual items for variants. That seems to be typical for most ERP systems, since it gives granular control (pricing, images, descriptions, etc) for each variant. Some ERP Systems do manage variants exclusively from the parent, but that gets tricky because then every form dealing with a product needs to handle variant lookup & selection as well, and you’re more limited with what you can customize on each variant.
As for naming, ERPNext’s naming convention to append the attribute abbreviations to build the SKU is pretty typical, but as was mentioned you could probably use scripting to further customize the name if required.
Variants can definitely be a complex challenge, and ERPNext’s default handling can be a bit simplistic, but fairly standard compared to other similar software on the market.
