October 26th 2021, Release Note: RME: Change Alternate Ingredient to the Parent Ingredient

Summary

Release date for this feature: 26th and 27th October 2021

Change Alternate Ingredient to Parent Ingredient

• Enabled by Default? - No
• Set up by customer Admin? - Yes, partly. User Group permission is controlled by customer
• Enable via Support ticket? - Yes, partly. Should be enabled in global database settings for new permission to be visible
• Affects configuration or data? - Yes, possibly. If enabled, the user can change an alternate ingredient to be the parent ingredient (from within a group of a parent and linked alternates)
• Roles Affected: - Ingredient Data Managers

What's Changing?

A simple automated workflow has been introduced to allow users to change an existing alternate ingredient into the parent ingredient for its parent/alternate group.

Reason for the Change?

Increase ease of use by providing an automated workflow that is quicker than the current multi-step manual process. Expected to be useful to customers who are changing suppliers and want to stop buying the current parent ingredient.

Customers Affected

Available (but optional) to all customers using alternate ingredients. 

Note: This functionality is not available to customers who use the configuration 'Restrict Ingredient Access By Vendor'.  When this configuration is used, the parent ingredient is not a purchasable product so there is typically no need to change one of the alternates to become the parent ingredient.

Release Note Info/Steps

The new functionality must first be enabled in 'global database settings' (via a request to Fourth Support team). Once enabled, a new Ingredient permission will be available in User Groups. 

Fig.1 - Global database setting to enable new alternate ingredient 'change to parent' functionality

Three Ingredient permissions are required for this function to be enabled for a user group: edit ingredients, edit alternates and promote alternate to become parent. 

Note: When the new permission is enabled, the two other 'edit' permissions will NOT automatically be enabled.

Fig.2 - New user group permission to change alternate ingredient to be parent ingredient

When the three user group permissions have been enabled, a new 'link' will appear on each alternate ingredient except for the alternate that represents the current parent ingredient.

Fig.3 - New 'link' to promote an alternate ingredient to be the parent ingredient appears for all alternates except the alternate that represents the parent ingredient

Note: If all three permissions are enabled and 'edit ingredient' or 'edit alternate' is disabled, the 'promote alternate' permission will also be disabled and the Promote to Parent link will not be displayed.

When the parent or alternate is locked (because someone else is editing it or it's in approval workflow), the Promote to Parent link will be disabled.

• When the Promote to Parent link is selected, a confirmation message will appear. If the user selects Proceed, the modal will disappear and the selected alternate ingredient will become the parent ingredient.  

Fig.4 - Confirmation pop-up for changing the selected alternate to become to parent ingredient

These values, which are parent ingredient attributes, should not change when the alternate becomes the parent ingredient:

• Nutrition
• Intolerance
  
• Ingredient List
• ABV
  
• Categories that apply to parent ingredient, including Cost Centre Category
  

The alternate rank order of the old parent and new parent will not change when the swap has been completed.  

For Inventory customers:

• Unit Size Value

In the scenario where an alternate is being 'promoted' to become the parent ingredient, if the parent and alternate 'base UoM' are different, the new parent's 'unit size' needs to be updated to ensure that the base UoM and unit size UoM are the same for the new parent.

A confirmation modal will appear if the parent and alternate 'base UoM' are different.

• Within the confirmation modal, the user can populate a new numeric value for unit size. The new unit size UoM will be automatically populated with the 'base UoM' of the new parent. This UoM cannot be changed.
• The Proceed button is disabled until the user populates the required Unit Size value. When the user selects Proceed the new parent and all alternates will be updated with the new unit size value.

Fig.5 - A pop-up will display if the new parent's Unit Size value needs to be amended

After the ingredient has been manually updated to stock or updated via the overnight feed, the weighted average must be reset in Inventory. For guidance please see Inventory Restaurants: Weighted Averages Explained.

New Terms/Acronyms

Unit size: For Inventory customers, 'Unit Size' defines the product's stock count size in Inventory. This is not a new term, just a reminder.