Glossary

This is a feature that came from an early project in which our partners (PSI India) expected to send in multiple reports in bulk

i.e. Mobile agents can submit stock on hand, stock request, and all other SMS reports in one structured sms. The SMS is composed of keywords/codes for the specific type of action, product, amount.

CommTrack SMS supports 4 types of stock actions. If your CommTrack project is using SMS reports, you would need to pay more attention on this section

1. Receipts, 
   1. i.e. Your mobile agent sends out an SMS 'r crt 40' in the beginning of a month, this means he receives 40 units of Coartem (say crt is the SMS code for Coartem, one of the products managed by the mobile agent)
2. Consumption,
   1. i.e. If your mobile agent sends you an SMS 'c crt 30' at the end of a month, this means the facility he was reporting the inventory status had used 30 units of coartem
3. Stock on hand, 
   1. Your mobile agent sends an SMS 'soh crt 10', this means the facility he is reporting has 10 units of coartem in stock
4. Stock out
   1. Your mobile agent sends an SMS 'so crt', this means the facility is running out of Coartem. Same with 'soh crt 0'
      
      

In push systems, mobile agents do not really need to send request to warehouse managers asking for resupply. In this case you don't need to enable 'requisition'.

BUT if your project is more of a pull system and you won't schedule any delivery until receiving requests, you should enable 'Requisition' and edit your requisition actions.

4 requisition actions are currently supported:

1. Request
   1. Your mobile agent sends out SMS requesting replenishment for coartem: 'rec crt 100'
2. Approval
   1. You review the order, decides to approve it, and respond to your mobile agent: 'appr crt 100'
3. Pack
   1. The warehouse person receives your notification and starts to pack coartem. Once he's done with that, the mobile agent would receive an SMS (either from you or the warehouse person, depending on the workflow and usecase of your project) 'pk crt 100'
4. Receipt
   
   1. Once coartems are packed and delivered to the mobile agent, he would send out an SMS confirming the product and amount he received: 'rec crt 100'. If in the receipt SMS it says 'rec crt 80', that means there are 20 unknown losses and you might want to look into that.
      
      

.This is NOT related to CommTrack SMS. You would set location hierarchy if you have any of the following purposes:

1. You are using CommTrack mobile app
2. You have multiple mobile agents tracking multiple facilities in different districts, and you don't want the mobile agent in district A seeing or accidentally updating stock status in facilities in district B
3. You want to have a map view of stock status, reporting status in different facilities

You do NOT need to worry about this if you are using a push system. You would only worry about this section if:

1. You are using CommTrack mobile app
2. You want to make better decisions when approving requisition from mobile agents instead of approving whatever they request.
3. You want to have real-time data on stock status in each of the facilities, whether they are over-stocked, under-stocked, or adequate.
   
   

Emergency Level (months): 

This is the level of stock that triggers an emergency order; it can be reached at any point during the review period. It must be lower than the Low Stock Level.

Low Stock Level (months):

This is the level of stock at which actions to replenish inventory should occur under normal conditions. The min stock level should be expressed in months of stock (for example, the min level is 1 month of stock); it can then be converted to a quantity (for example, the min quantity is 30,000 units). The min stock level is fixed, whereas the quantity varies as consumption changes. Depending on the design of the max-min system, reaching the min may be the trigger for placing an order.

Overstock Level (months):

This is the level of stock above which inventory levels should not rise, under normal conditions. As with the min, the max stock level should also be set as a number of months of stock (for example, the max level may be set at 4 months of stock). It indicates how long supplies will last.

Scenario:

So you set Emergency Level to 0.5 month, Low Stock Level to 1.5, Overstock Level to 3.0 months. You are delivering coartem to each facility on a monthly basis. Half a month ago you delivered coartem to all 8 facilities using CommTrack mobile app. Now you go to CommTrack web and visit the Inventory Report for each facility. If the column 'Remaining MOS' for coartem has a value lower than 0.5, that's an EMERGENCY and it means the facility would have a stock out before the next delivery is scheduled.

This returns history data for CommTrack to do automatic consumption calculation,

Minimum Transactions (Count): (i.e. 1)

Mobile workers need to submit no less than the amount of forms before CommTrack can conduct automatic consumption calculation or forecast future consumption rate. It must be bigger than 1.

Minimum Window for Calculation (Days) (i.e. 3)

This means mobile workers need to submit data for at least 3 days before CommTrack can calculate consumption automatically

Optimal Window for Calculation (Days) (i.e. 14)

This means ideally mobile workers should submit form data for at least 14 daysn to serve as the historic data for CommTrack automatic calculation

CommTrack use all these settings to return a value for Resupply Quantity Suggested.