Re: Help with inventory control - Thank You!

Thank you very much Mike. I will do just that.

Fernando

On 9/30/05, Mike Nolan <nolan(at)gw(dot)tssi(dot)com> wrote:
>
> > User1 starts order and takes the last two units. User2 starts order 1
> minut=
> > e
> > after and checks inventory. He sees 2 units left and adds them to the
> his
> > order. User1 commits his order. Now User2 cannot finish his order
> because
> > the products are not available anymore.
> >
> > This is the problem I want to avoid. Therefore if User1 takes the
> product
> > but does not finish the order I want the inventory to still show that
> the
> > product is sold out to other users.
> >
> > Any suggestions on how to implemnt that?
>
> One common way to deal with it is to have a separate 'hold quantity'
> field (or table) for items in pending orders. You can commit to that
> field or table as each line item is entered, revised or deleted during
> order entry. When the order is finalized, you simultaneously release
> the hold and take the item out of inventory.
>
> The primary problem with this method is abandoned orders, because you
> want to release that inventory so someone else can order it.
>
> That's more of an issue if you are writing an application for your
> customers than if it's being used by a sales staff who will know to
> cancel an abandoned order. (However, you probably still need a 'cancel
> pending transaction' capability to deal with things like system crashes.)
>
> I once designed a web-based transaction system which kept a timestamp on
> each 'on hold' line item. It assumed that if the order wasn't completed
> within an hour the order had been abandoned, and at that point it released
> the hold on any items. (Actually it just checked the timestamp when
> adding up the 'on hold' quantity during an inventory check and ignored
> any timestamp that was more than an hour old.)
>
> There was also a one hour inactivity timeout on the web form, as I recall.
>
> You should be able to do most of this with trigger functions.
> --
> Mike Nolan
>