What is SharePoint Inventory Management? How to use it?

by Glenn Maxwell

The most challenging task for businesses is to handle the growth of content. Once the responsibilities increase, it is important to keep them organized and provide a clean structure to ensure a smooth workflow.

The SharePoint Inventory Management tool is one such solution available in the market that provides simple features to handle your store. It makes sure that you have an accurate and updated inventory of models for your platform.

But, are you aware of its unique functions? Did you explore the SharePoint inventory? What is the process of creating SharePoint inventory management for your site?

We will provide answers to the above and some additional information to make this journey more effective and hassle-free.

What is SharePoint inventory management?

Imagine having multiple office sites, and you need to schedule various tasks at a different location or fetch information from a specific location. This needs to gather and store all the data. Then begin your tasks which will take hours and still not provide an accurate solution. Even after spending so much effort, time, and resources, you fail to achieve the target.

Running a business demands a lot of care, maintenance, and effort to ensure a smooth process. It is definite that you will encounter challenging tasks, but it becomes easier with the help of SharePoint tools and resources.

The common type of lists available in SharePoint inventory are:

  • Customers: Stores information that customers add to the site
  • Inventory: It handles items, quantity, and other relevant information
  • Sales: This deals with sales from customers with data related to price and quantity
  • Orders: It manages the orders for suppliers with information about cost and quantity
  • Suppliers: Saves the suppliers with their relevant information

Add all the data to the SharePoint site and let the team collaborate in a workspace that provides centralized access. You no more have to chase people to get information. All you need to do is call, chat, or video call from the app itself. All these features help manage the inventory and keep it updated in real-time.

It also reduces the time required to handle duplication and errors in the data entry as the automation keeps the process flowing.

How to build a custom SharePoint inventory list?

Handling the inventory directly from a custom list is ideal for managing the bulk of items. It makes it easier for the users to manipulate the data as per their requirements. Now let us skip to the procedure of creating a custom SharePoint Inventory list:

  • Access the Home page or site in SharePoint. Go to Lists from the Quick launch menu.
  • Click on create button at the top of the list page
  • Choose Custom List type from the choices
  • Select List from the List Tools menu
  • Click on List Settings from the settings menu
  • Go to Create Column under the Column Heading
  • Add “InventoryID” in the Column Name field
  • Choose a single line of text as the type
  • In the Additional Column Settings, set unique values to enforce that column contains information
  • Click on OK
  • Repeat this process until you have the desired number of fields in the inventory.

What are the things you must consider before building a custom SharePoint inventory?

Software Licence Fees

In large organizations using SharePoint for inventory management tool is essential as it can handle the bulk of data within a fraction of seconds. But at some point, there can be an incremental licence fee. You must define the exact licensing situation and understand the detailed fee structure.

File Location

Businesses must define the flexibility to manage the models of their inventory. SharePoint inventory system provides user controls over all the files. With the help of SharePoint, the users do not have control over file storage.

Domain Expertise

These platforms bring in great capabilities to unlock the best features for SharePoint inventory management. It is important to have domain experts’ support to get the best for your store. It would be challenging to teach your team from scratch and then focus on business growth.

Understand the environment and usage

It is vital to know the environment and usability of your platform. There are various Microsoft PowerApps that will help you analyse the performance and make a better decision. You must be aware of the below things:

  • Size of the environment
  • Number of site collections
  • Number of files and folders
  • Potential issues
  • Size of file shares
  • Number of sites
  • Number of abandoned or unused sites
  • Number of workflows

Many tools will scan the environment and provide you with potential warnings that you must fix before moving ahead.

Various Cost Considerations

This is an important factor to consider for your business. It would help if you compared the cost of your SharePoint model and another cloud-based inventory service. Some points you must consider are:

  • Any incremental software licensing costs
  • Internal chargebacks for server storage or any hardware
  • Development and consulting costs
  • Maintenance costs
  • Fees for future modifications and changes

What are the features of SharePoint inventory management?

  • Inventory admin web part
  • Dashboard form that displays pie chart for sale, order status, and quantity status
  • Separate forms to handle inventory, orders, customers, suppliers, and sales
  • Tabbed forms interface for effortless navigation
  • Inventory reorder function

The Final Take!

Whilst developing your inventory using SharePoint can result in a great win for the business. You must consider various factors to ensure you use the platform to its full potential.

It would help if you focused on the speed, support, and convenience offered by the inventory solutions. Explore SharePoint inventory management to utilize it properly and manage the models effortlessly.

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