In my last post I wrote about the new DockMaster Mobile app we are building and introduced basic concepts, such as adding customers and retrieving customer info from your smartphone. As I mentioned before we believe that a mobile business app shouldn’t do everything that the desktop application can do. We are aiming for efficiency and ease of use. We want to uncover the routine tasks our customer perform daily when they are on the move and away from a computer. In this post we will dive more deeply into some of the Parts Inventory functionality.

Parts Inventory

When you tap the plus (+) sign to the left of Parts Inventory you will see two modules: Parts Look-up and Stock Re-order. These are the two primary parts inventory modules to date.

Parts Look-up is a quick way of looking up a part using its barcode  in the DockMaster inventory. Simply tap “Parts Look-up” and the next form describes how the DockMaster mobile app will access the pic2shop barcode and QR code scanner. Tap “Scan Part” to enter barcode scanner mode. pic2shop uses your phones camera to basically take a snapshot of the barcode. The barcode must be within the red line. Once the camera has focused, the line will turn green and the barcode is captured. The barcode is then returned to DockMaster where it is cross-referenced with the DockMaster inventory database. The resulting form displays the part number (part ID) in blue, the description, price 1 through 3, WAV cost and quantity on hand. From here you can “Scan Another Part”, or tap “Done” and go back to the main menu.

Stock Re-order is a function that allows parts personnel to quickly create a list of parts to be ordered. This is typically used for those parts that you tend to sell in high volume and/or need to be re-ordered often. When you tap “Stock Re-order”, the form shows a slider with a default of one (1). If you only want to order one, you do nothing. If you want to order more, simply slide the ball to the appropriate amount to order. You can also tap the quantity and type in the appropriate amount.

I am unsure as of yet how useful this slider will be. It may prove to be better to provide a keypad that pop-ups when you tap an icon. Notice that you can add as many parts as you want by tapping “Scan Another Part”. When you tap “Done”, the app sends a list of the part numbers and quantities to DockMaster. DockMaster will then create a PO by primary vendor that includes the parts and quantities entered.

For this app to be successful, customer feedback is critical. That’s why we’ve decided to develop this app in the open for all to see, rather than behind closed doors. Please give us your feedback on what has been done thus far. In a future post we will explore the Service modules, and eventually Slips and Reservations.