The purpose of this article is to help guide you on how to set up the products drill pane while working in DotActiv software. It also covers how to access and navigate the products drill pane.
Applicable Products: DotActiv Lite, DotActiv Pro,
DotActiv Enterprise
The product drill in DotActiv is a function where items in the database are viewed in a hierarchical dropdown menu (tree view). You can choose how you want to break down or view the data in the current database.
If we look at DotActiv’s hierarchy (see image on the left), it would make sense to view data by Merchandise Group, drilling into Departments for each respective Merchandise Group, followed by Categories for each respective Department and thereafter Sub Categories etc.
Setting Up the Product Drill
If you want your data to show in the product drill as explained above. You can set your product drill by doing the following:
Go to ‘File’ and then ‘Setup’. Underneath ‘Dimensions Bar’, select ‘Product Drill’.
Please note that the product drill doesn’t change data in the database, it merely changes how you view the already existing data in the product drill pane.
This opens the ‘Product Drill Setup’ window. Here, you can set how you would like to view your data. We will now set up a product drill to show items first by Merchandise Group, then by Department, followed by Category and lastly Sub Category:
Step 1: Click ‘New’.
Step 2: Select the section/column where you will find your desired field. In this case we will choose ‘Display Structure’ since we want to add Merchandise Group. Do the same for other relevant fields you want to add.
Step 1: Once you have all the relevant fields under ‘Attributes’ in the ‘Setup’ section, you can change the order by either dragging the fields into the desired order or by using the ‘Shift Up’/’Shift Down’ options.
Step 2: Save your Product Drill by giving it a name and select ‘OK’. Close the set-up.
Please note that you can also delete saved product drill setups by selecting a product drill in the pop-up window in the ‘Setup’ section and clicking ‘Delete’.
Accessing The Product Drill Pane
To view the data in the product drill, go to DotActiv’s ‘Data’ tab. After clicking on the product drill button, a drop-down menu presenting all the saved product drill setups will appear. Select the product drill you have set up and saved.
Please note that the ‘Product Drill’ button is only enabled when working on a database.
After clicking on the desired product drill, the ‘Product Drill Pane’ opens in a dockable window, as illustrated above. It will show your products grouped as per your product drill setup.
Tip: If you want to make sure that your product drill is showing correctly, you can hover over each level, see image below.
In the case where you have a gondola open, you can drag and drop products, or groupings of products, onto the planogram. You can drop individual products this way if you have set up your product drill to show individual SKUs.
When dragging products from the product drill onto the planogram. The following pop-up window will appear:
When this pop-up window appears, you can decide to apply one of three options in the top left corner, namely:
- Insert – when you want to add products to the planogram for the first time (take note – the product is thus not in the product report at all).
- Update – when you want to update the information of products that are already on planogram and in the product report
- Insert and Update – when you have a mixture of the two scenarios explained above.
Please note that a product can be in the product report with, but not on the planogram. Thus, having actual facings of 0.
Once you have selected the desired option, you can tick a checkbox saying ‘Place products on shelf.’ This will be applied when you are adding products to the planogram for the very first time (meaning it is not already in the product report). It would thus be necessary if you have selected the ‘Insert’ or ‘Insert and Update’ option.
Lastly, there are three sections where you can decide to update Product, Market and Fact fields. This will be needed when you have chosen any of the update options (‘Update’ or ‘Insert and Update’). These fields are required when you want to update existing products that are on the planogram or product report.
If sales have been updated in the database after you have already built a planogram, the dimensions of a product might also be missing. Should you have chosen to update this information via the database, you can update the information of the existing products on the same planogram by dragging the same product (or grouping of products) onto the planogram and selecting the relevant fields you want to update.
The product drill can also be used to view data of certain products (groupings of products). If you want to view all SKUs and data relating to it in Baking Aids on the current database, you have to drill down to Baking Aids, right-click on it and select ‘View Data \ Images’.
Once you are done using the product drill, you can close the product drill by clicking on the ‘X’.
Tips And Tricks
The Product Drill can be pinned to stay on the screen, or it can be set to ‘Auto Hide’, where it then disappears until you click on the tab it creates on the left. See gif below.
If you have two product drill setups activated simultaneously, it will affect how the data is presented on the product drill. To avoid this, right-click on the product drill heading and select ‘Clear Filter’ as shown below. This will ensure that only one product drill setup shows.
Should the above steps not work for you, please create a support ticket and DotActiv support will assist you in uncovering the issue.