New DVS Item SID Options

This article explains new functionality added to the Item SID area of DVS.

Background

The process of identifying and resolving duplicate items is comprised of two stages:

• Item SID analysis (identifies items with matching SIDs)
• Item Description analysis (identifies items with matching item descriptions)

The following limitations exist:

1) Item SID analysis only identifies items with matching SIDs. Items that have different SIDs, are NOT identified, even if those items have a matching UPCs or ALUs.

2) Item Description analysis deals with the full list of different descriptions of items found (and Resolved) by the Item SID analysis. The only time the Item Description stage does not depend on the items identified in the Item SID analysis is if the Item SID analysis didn't find any duplicates.

3) The settings for ignoring item description fields (except Item #, Attribute, and Size) affect BOTH the Item SID analysis and Item Description analysis.

4) The handling of Item #, Attribute and Size fields was hardcoded in a way to prevent two items from the same style from being merged together, and two items with different item numbers from being merged together (unless they had been merged by Item SID analysis).

5) Item Description analysis was not designed to handle a scenario in which duplicate items exist in inventory but not history.

New DVS Functionality

Four new checkboxes (Attr, Size, Item # and Show All) have been added to the "Definition Fields to Ignore" area of the Item SID configuration screen.

Checkbox	Description
Attr	If selected, discrepancies in the Attr field are ignored when DVS is determining whether item descriptions match or not.
Size	If selected, discrepancies in the Size field are ignored when DVS is determining whether item descriptions match or not.
Item #	If selected, discrepancies in the Item # field are ignored when DVS is determining whether item descriptions match or not.
Show all	If selected, DVS will not ignore items that exist in inventory only (no history) or history only (not in inventory)

 The new checkboxes only affect the Item Description analysis. They DO NOT affect the Item SID analysis (or Style SID analysis). The new checkboxes are in a second column to signify this distinction.

Attribute, Size, and Item #

These checkboxes enable DVS to correctly handle the following type of scenario:

(At an installation that uses ALU/UPC-based SIDs) An item in inventory was recorded on a history document, and then the item's ALU in inventory was changed. At the same time, the item description (Attr and/or Size) was changed. Now, the retailer wants to update any history documents listing the item with the new ALU. However, changing the ALU/UPC results in a new Item SID.  As a result, the Item SID analysis wouldn't flag these items because they have different Item SIDs. The Item Description analysis also wouldn't flag these items because the item descriptions are different.

The only way for DVS to flag these items so that history can be updated is to use the following configuration:

• EXCLUDE attribute/size from analysis (by selecting the Attr and Size checkboxes in the list of fields to ignore)
• EXCLUDE attribute/size from and from resolution (by clearing the Attr/Size checkboxes in the list of fields for item resolution),
• Clearing the Item # checkbox in the list of ignored fields and selecting the Item # checkbox in the list of resolution fields (because you want to match that item by its number).
• As a precaution, leave all the fields that you know you didn't change checked in the resolution settings (e.g. if you knew that you didn't change DCS, VC/DESC1 - leave them selected).

Show All

The "Show all" checkbox enables users to overcome limitation #5. Previously, DVS could only match inventory to history, which meant that if an inventory item was no longer present, all corresponding items in the history were excluded from the Item Description analysis. The opposite was true as well - if an item was not present in history, it was excluded from the analysis because DVS couldn't do anything with inventory items directly.

But this posed a problem - if there were TWO items present in inventory with the same definitions (e.g. two items in a style with the same Attr/Size) and they were not listed on history documents, it was impossible to find this duplicate because it was excluded from the analysis.

Now, if the "Show all" checkbox is selected, DVS will not skip inventory-only and history-only items. DVS still cannot fix items that have exactly the same inventory description, but it will be display them so users can note which inventory items need to be fixed manually.

Important Note about Changing Default Settings!

Changing the default settings of these new settings is dangerous. Item definitions are a safeguard against the accidental merging of history of all items in a style to a single item. Therefore, if you change the default settings, keep in mind the following:

1) DO NOT write the changes to the history files until you have verified them as correct (uncheck the "hide resolved groups" checkbox in the Preferences screen if necessary).

2) DO NOT leave these settings in the non-default state for longer than necessary. After the analysis is finished and you are satisfied with the results, change the settings back to the default values.

3) After the analysis is finished and you have changed the settings back to the default values, re-run Item SID analysis. This is necessary because resolving duplicate item definitions might produce additional discrepancies which can only be resolved by the Item SID analysis.

Default settings for these checkboxes are:

Checkbox	Default Setting
Attr	Not selected
Size	Not selected
Item #	Selected
Show all	Not selected