Introduction

The "Catalogue" is a centralised master list of all the devices and services that your company provides to your customers. This is made up of three components:

Inventory

These are the individual item SKUs (be it devices, licenses or services) that you offer to your customers.

Bundles

These are packaged solutions - effectively a dynamic collection of inventory items that address a particular concern for your customers. Bundles can also package other bundles.

Each bundle is made up of "Inclusion" and "Addon slots". These slots define the components of the bundle - and the slots then reference the items that can fulfill that component. Inclusions are items that come with the bundle whereas add-ons are optional, related items that can be bought with the bundle.

Slots

Slots are a named collection of items that fulfill a particular need in bundles. Importantly, slots can be shared between bundles - this is a key feature for saving laborious time in managing your catalogue.

Inclusion slots are for managing items that are included in bundles. These, by default, have zero cost in the bundle - though you can specify an additional cost for upgrade options. For instance, an inclusion slot could be "Meraki MR Licenses". This slot should include the different Meraki MR licenses that you wish to offer to your customers. You would then add this slot as an inclusion to bundles with Meraki access points,  to include Meraki AP licenses and their upgrade options.

Similarly with addons, you can defined a named add-on slot that represents a collection of relevant add-ons. For instance, Meraki offer a variety of mounting kits and antennas for their wireless access points, so you could create a "Meraki MR Addons" slot and include those items that you wish to offer to your customers. Like inclusion slots, you can add this slot to bundles with the relevant Meraki access points, to make those add-ons available when quoting that bundle.

The nice feature about having a single slot re-used across many bundles, is that should you ever need to update that slot, for instance and new license type comes out, you can make the changes to the single relevant slot "Meraki MR Licenses" and that change will be made available to all the bundles that reference this slot.

An example

The relationship between bundles and slots is perhaps easier to understand with an example. Lets say we are building a 'car' bundle - a bundle that defines a single car. A car inclusion slot could be "Engine". Meaning that in this bundle, the car comes with an engine - but we haven't specified which one. Instead, the "Engine" slot itself specifies all the different options that can be used as an "Engine". It will have a base engine, and a couple of upgrade options for additional cost. The car must come with an engine, so it's an inclusion not an add-on.

An add-on slot for the car bundle could be "Roof Racks" or "Floor Mats". These are optional additional items that can be bought with the bundle.

States and tabs

Inventory items and bundles have three states: Active, Draft, and Retired - each with its own corresponding tab in the Inventory Catalogue section. We’ll explain each below.

Active

Active items are ready for use and can be quoted and ordered. Active items can be retired.

Draft

Drafts allow you to create items without them being immediately active so they can be reviewed and activated at a more suitable time. Draft items cannot yet be used in quotes and cannot be ordered. Draft items can either be activated or deleted.

A draft can be edited, activated, or deleted by going to the Draft tab and selecting the Actions drop-down menu.

Retired

Retired items can no longer be used in _new_ quotes or _new_ orders. Existing and in progress quotes and orders may refer to retired items. Retired items can be activated again.

To retire an inventory item, simply find the item in the Active tab and select Actions>Retire

Retired inventory items can be activated again by going to the Retired tab and selecting Actions>Activate

Creating Inventory Items

To create a new inventory item, select Catalogue-Inventory from the main menu and click New. This will show a form where you fill in the relevant details for the item.

Only active inventory items will be available to quote and order.

To make the item immediately active for use, make sure to toggle the Make active for use switch at the bottom and hit save.

Leaving this switch off will create the item and send it to your drafts, where you can decide to activate it later.

Remember: Only active inventory items will be available to quote and order.

Creating Bundles

To create a new bundle, select Catalogue-Bundle from the main menu and click New. This will show a form where you fill in the relevant details for the bundle.

The Details tab contains the general details of the bundle, including the SKU, pricing and description. The Content tab defines both the inclusion slots and the addon slots of the bundle. The inclusions are what make-up the bundle, and the add-ons should be relevant, optional accessories and up-sells to the bundle. You will first need to define the slots before being able to use them here.

As with inventory items, to make the bundle immediately active for use, make sure to toggle the Make active for use switch at the bottom and hit save.

Leaving this switch off will create the bundle and send it to your drafts, where you can decide to activate it later.

Remember: Only active bundles will be available to quote and order.

Creating Slots

To create a new slot, select Catalogue-Slots from the main menu, then select either Inclusions" or Add-ons and click New. This will show a form where you fill in the relevant details for the slot. Slots consist of a name and a collection of item or bundles. These can then be shared across multiple bundles via the "Content" in each bundle.