Table of Contents

Getting Started with Inventory

Jennifer Trower Updated by Jennifer Trower

Read Time: 3 mins

Introduction

Good inventory management cuts storage costs, reduces idle time, and keeps equipment from getting lost between the warehouse and the field. Sonar's Inventory module gives you full control over your equipment and a complete history of every item you track.

Each item in Sonar has its own lifecycle record. A typical lifecycle looks like this:

  1. The item is added to Sonar and assigned to a warehouse (inventory location).
  2. A technician picks it up, and a warehouse employee reassigns it to the technician or their vehicle.
  3. The technician installs it at a customer's location, and the item is reassigned to the customer's account.
  4. If the customer cancels, the technician retrieves the item and reassigns it to themselves or their vehicle.
  5. The item is returned to the warehouse, and the receiving employee reassigns it to that location.

At every step, Sonar records where the item went and when. You can see its full history at any time.

Before You Add Items

Every inventory model must be associated with a manufacturer. Because of that, a few settings need to exist before you can create models or add items. Configure them under Settings → Inventory:

  • Categories: group your models in whatever way fits your business, such as routers, ONTs, radios, or cable.
  • Manufacturers: the hardware vendors for the equipment you stock.
  • Inventory Locations: your warehouses and depots. They require a validated address, just like any other address in Sonar.
  • Generic Inventory Assignees: catch-all assignees for anything that doesn't fit another assignee type, such as contractors without Sonar logins or locations with no address.
  • Vehicles: the trucks your technicians use, so you can track inventory that lives in a vehicle.
Work through the articles below in order. Setting up categories, manufacturers, and locations first means you won't have to go back and edit models after you've started adding items.

Setup Articles

Article
Description
Walks through creating the Categories, Manufacturers, Inventory Locations, and Assignees your instance needs before you add any equipment.
Covers how to create and manage Inventory Models, the templates for the equipment you stock, and how to add new items to each model.
Explains the layout and features of the Inventory List and Inventory Item management views, where you find, move, and review individual items.

Working with Specific Inventory Types

Article
Description
How to track equipment deployed in your network infrastructure rather than at a customer's location.
How to track divisible stock, such as spools of fiber or cable, that gets used in portions.
How to track generic, non-serialized items, such as connectors and hardware, by quantity.

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