The Project Section: Inventory

Project Section

The Project Section: Inventory

Thursday, 27 June 2024

This is intended to give more information about the functionality and features of the Inventory page within the Project Section of Master Patch.

  Master Patch is built with a comprehensive inventory system which helps the user to plan equipment allocation and optimisation. Users are able to build their own custom inventory sets or import their common sets exported from another Master Patch file.   The Inventory page inside of the Project section is where the user is able to build and manipulate inventory items. The inventory page is made up of the following areas.

1. The sources section
2. The summarised data section
3. The stands section

 

The sources section

The sources section is where all sources currently in the projects inventory will be shows. Each source has the customisable attributes of a name, +48v (Phantom Power) and quantity value.

+48v

When the user toggles the +48v button for a source in the inventory, they are given the option if they would like to Globally Update the +48v setting for the source. Upon selecting 'Update' Master Patch will go through the entire project and toggle the state of the source +48v value to match that of the inventory value. If the user ops for 'Don't Update' then the value will not be changed in the project, however any new instances of that source being added to a band will have the +48v status as per the Inventory.

 

Quantity

The quantity value represents how many of that inventory item are available for use in the project. This is the value that Master Patch will use to calculate availability of that inventory item.

  Inventory items can be removed from the inventory using the 'X' at the end of each row.

The stands section

The stands section behaves in the same way as the sources section, except that the stands section is intended for stands available for use in the project as opposed to sources, and does not feature a +48v toggle button.     The summarised data section  The summarised data section is where the user is able to move items that appear in the channel lists of bands into the Inventory. The central section of the Inventory Page, called the Summarised data section is where all inventory items (both sources and stands) that appear in a channel list but are not in the inventory will be shows. The user then has the ability to select from this list and add them into the inventory. Upon adding the item to the inventory the user is given the option add, skip or transform  the inventory item.

1. Add
   1. Adding an inventory item will move the item from the summarised data section into either the sources or stands section.
2. Skip
   1. Skip will pass over that item and ignore it, meaning it will not be added to the inventory list and will remain in the summarised data section.
3. Transform
   1. Transform allows the user to take an inventory item and transform it into another inventory item that already exists in the inventory. This can be useful if for example the user has imported some data and in doing so imported a sourced called BETA52. If the inventory already contains a source called b52, then the user will now have two instances of an inventory item that are essentially the same thing. In order to deal with that the user could select the BETA52 from the summarised data section, add it to the inventory and when prompted select Transform, the user will then be presented with a list of all the inventory items already in the inventory which they can then transform their selected item into. When the user selects the item to transform into Master Patch will go through the entire event and find any instance of the original item and update it.

Once a value has been added to the inventory then it will become selectable to the user in the drop down menus in the channel list.

Inventory Optimisation 

Once an inventory has been built, Master Patch is able to report information on usage of inventory items in the band page of. As the users adds sources or stands to the channel list, the utilisation tables on the right of the band page will begin to populate and give feedback on the availability of inventory items. Next to the name column two additional columns can be seen. # and 'Avail'.

# - Shows the quantity of that inventory item required to build the channel list.

Avail - Shows the quantity of that inventory item remaining in inventory minus the amount needed to build that band, therefore it is possible for this number to be grater than the total number of the inventory item in stock.

 

Colour warnings for Inventory Optimisation 

Each row of the utilisation table has a set of colour warnings to inform the user on the availability of inventory items. These warnings are:

1. Red or Green light to the Left of the inventory item
2. Red or Green light to the Right of the inventory item
3. Orange backgrounds behind # and Avail

Red or Green light to the Left of the inventory item

If a red light shows to the left of the inventory item this means that there is not enough of that item to build both the band currently being added, and the band preceding it. In contrast, a Green light before the inventory item shows there is enough of this inventory item to build both the band currently being added, and the preceding band. For example if the inventory had a total of 5 x Tall stands, the current band being edited needed 4, and the previous band also needed 4, that would mean in order to build both bands simultaneously the inventory would need to have a total of 8 Tall stands, but as it only contains 5 there will be a shortage between these two bands, and the red light indicates this shortage.  

Red or Green light to the Right of the inventory item

The Red or green light to the right of the inventory item has the same function as its twin to the left, but instead of indicating availability for the band prior to the band, the Red and Green lights to the Right of the inventory item indicate the inventory availability for the next or succeeding band.  

Orange backgrounds behind # and Avail

The orange background behind # and Avail will show when there is not enough of that inventory item to build the current band in view/being edited. For example if you had 5 x Tall Stand in the inventory, but the band being edited needed 6 x Tall Stand, then the orange background would show, and the avail column would show '-1'  

Substitutions

The user may sometimes find themselves needing to seek a substitution for an inventory item. Perhaps there is not enough inventory of a certain source type, or maybe a guest mix engineer would prefer a different source on a specific instrument. By double clicking on the header of the utilisation table, the table will flip to show all inventory items, regardless of if they are used in the band or not. This makes it quick and easy to find or offer substitutions for shortages or requests.  

Exporting an inventory

Back in the Inventory page the user had the ability to Export an Inventory from Master Patch as a .mpi file (Master Patch Inventory), this mpi file can then be imported into other instances of Master Patch. In this way users or entities are able to build inventory sets which they commonly use and then simply import them into projects as needed. When a user imports an Inventory it will overwrite the existing inventory in the project.