The following is the highlights of new features and functionality added since the last release mid-June. Rental Logic
Rental Infrastructure for Billing Calculations
Rental infrastructure was added to support logging of billing. This included:
- New set up section for Billing Schedules. Billing schedules can be defined for daily and hourly calculations.
- Ability to assign a billing schedule to item master records that have the rule association of rental to a customer.
- Unit Billing Grid. This is a reporting grid view to view the calculated billing records.
- Unit Billing Report. A billing report will be added to the report library.
- Infrastructure for billing logic. An infrastructure has been added to support the ability to refine the calculations for the billing logic.
Item Template Setup Changes
The Create and Receive New Unit transactions have been separated for enabling attribute assignments.
Check Out and Transfer Custody transactions have been added as options to the serial-tracked UNIT attribute assignments for capture or display of data.
Changes were made for the item template setup. An item type option was added to the setup. The types include Asset-Returnable and Inventory. Asset-Returnable inherits the ‘Track as Returnable’ rule setting. Additional rule options are presented based on how assets are managed. The asset-returnable type can be defined for both serial and quantity-tracked items. Inventory type displays corresponding rules based on inventory items would be managed. Here is the updated rule matrix:
| Item Rule | Serial Asset | Serial Inventory | Quantity Asset | Quantity Inventory |
| Track Place-In-Service | X | |||
| Can be Assigned to a Group | X | |||
| Can be Checked Out | Checked Out | Consumed | Checked Out | Consumed |
| Can be Deployed | X | X | ||
| Track Ownership by Team versus Organization | X | X | X | X |
| Track Maintenance Activities | X | X | ||
| Track as a Master Item for Build Unit | X | X | ||
| Enable as a Component Item for Master Item | X | X | X | X |
| Track Retirement Date and Disposal | X | |||
| Enable Status Change on Update Unit Transaction | X | X | ||
| Track as a Rental TO Customers | X | |||
| Track as a Rental FROM Vendors | X | |||
| Track as parts for Maintenance | X | X | ||
| Capture Unit Cost on Receive and Create | X | X |
Other New Features
- USER SET UP.
- Corrected the ability to edit a system user’s display name. Originally it defaulted to the user’s email login without the option to change how it is displayed.
- Any Panatrack system support users have been moved to a separate tab under the User setup to differentiate support from your company actual users.
- TRANSFER CUSTODY FOR BILLING. Updated Transfer Custody logic to support the rental billing logic. The logic supports setting the check in date/time and re-setting the check out date/time.
- MENU NAMING CHANGE.
- On mobile, the Reserve & Check Out transaction has been renamed to just Check Out.
- On mobile Pick Order has been updated to display as Order Pick.
- GRID COLUMN UPDATES.
- Added Item Template and Validation Status as columns to the Validation Audit and Grid Views.
- Customer type column was added to the Customer grid views.
- Container type column was added to the movable container grid view.
- Receipt Date, Place-In-Service Date, and Unit Cost field was added as columns for the Grouping grid views.
- The executed date and the executed time columns have been added to the Validation logs. This will display the date and time the item was validated or counted. The Create date represents when the item was returned in the logging based on selection of the area.
- ATTRIBUTES. Attribute setup has been updated to define where the attribute would be available to select. This will make additional setup steps easier as only the attributes marked will be available to select from. Options include: Item Masters, Serialized Units, Lot Item Units, Transactions, Transactional Templates, Movable Containers, Shipment Templates, Project Templates, Grouping Templates.
- SYSTEM COST FIELDS. A system field for Unit Cost and Item Master Cost was added. ACTION: If tracking Unit Cost with a created attribute, contact Panatrack to have your costs updated to the system fields for reporting. A new rule was added to item template setup to display the system Unit Cost field. If using Purchase Orders, the unit cost will automatically be inherited from the PO line item.
- UNIT BUILD. On Build Unit/Update Build Unit transaction, an in-build component that is also tracked as a parent (master) can be selected for edits to the component assignments without requiring removing the units as a component.
- The display of the components has been updated for better visibility of the parent-child relationships.
- NEW SETTINGS.
- New settings to support restricting assignees based on facility assignment has been added to Check Out and Check In transactions. When enabled, only assignees associated with the user’s logged in facility can be assigned at check out and deploy unit. Only units checked out to assignees associated with the user’s logged in facility can be checked back in.
- Time zone setting was added to the Organization Setup.
- Added an ‘inactive’ checkbox for Item Masters. When checked, will restrict the ability to add new units associated with the item master.
- UPDATE UNIT. Logic was added for the Update Unit transaction to support selection of a deployed unit.
- VALIDATE-COUNT UNIT UPDATES. Updates to the logic for Validate-Count were made. Two additional tabs were added on the Validate Logging:
- Item Count Reconcile. This will return expected QUANTITY-tracked items when the AREA is selected. Counts and variances are updated as item counts are recorded.
- Unit Validation Reconcile. This will return expected SERIAL tracked items when the AREA is selected. Validations will be tracked for the expected units.
- Logic was changed for quantity-tracked items. The expected quantity will be returned when the ITEM is actually selected instead of when the AREA is selected. This will better support counts when there is a broader representation for areas. This will also allow continued activity for the items within the area for quantity-tracked items that can lead to cumbersome reconciliation. By shifting the count to when the item is selected, the expected quantity will be an accurate reflection based on that current point in time.
- MENU UPDATES ON DESKTOP. Menu updates have been made for the browser interface.
- New section for Admin Transactions. These now include Transfer Ownership, Reclassify Unit, Replace Handle, and Grouping features.
- Transfer Custody has been moved under the Check Out Management section. Logging for a Transfer will generate 3 entries: Transfer, Check In, and Check Out to support billing logic.
- NEW GRID VIEW SETTINGS. The main Item Grid View now has a settings section available. This will change the logic for the grid views. Changes to columns displayed and column order will no longer be cached in the browser. Instead, the logic will be inherited by the settings. The set up allows defining what columns to include in your personal view and the order the columns display. This change will be applied to other grids in subsequent releases.
Roadmap
Next release is planned for mid-January. Currently, we are working on the following new features:
- UNIT MAINTENANCE ENHANCEMENTS
- A new maintenance plan option will be added to support one-time maintenance activities. This will provide the ability to define a maintenance action as a work order for scheduling and managing unplanned and unscheduled maintenance actions. This will also include numbering of maintenance activities.
- Ability to save an in-progress maintenance activity. Along with the feature above, this will offer a work order management type of infrastructure.
- Dedicated and enhanced mileage and hours maintenance activity support. Miles and Hours capture was previously added in conjunction with a period scheduled maintenance. The enhancement will support the ability to set number of miles or number of hours instead of a date period for maintenance. Periodic capture of hours and miles can then be configured on transactions including check in and update unit.
- DELIVERY TRANSACTION AND SUPPORT
- A new delivery transaction is being added.
- Updates to both transfer orders and customer orders and the shipping template logic is being updated to support the differences between delivery and shipping.
- An additional transfer transaction and logic will be added to support loading picked items to trucks and delivery personnel.
- VALIDATE-COUNT FUNCTIONALITY ENHANCEMENTS
- A new ‘Consignment Count’ transaction is being added to support for automated processing of variances and items not found as items sold. Additional infrastructure will be added for reporting and integrations for billing along with settings for auto-creation of transfers for restocking.
- Additional logging enhancements are being added.
- Additional date and timestamp columns for comparison to original log entry date/time and unit selected date/time. This is targeted to provide additional reporting for quantity-tracked item variances.
- Additional criteria options for pre-defined audit schedule set up.
- Setting options to log variances as part of the audit complete step. The counts will continue to be logged; however, no updates will be made until the audit complete action. As part of this support, edits to variances will be made available.
- LOT TRACKING SUPPORT
- Lot Tracking support will be added across the system.
- SCAN TO COUNT FUNCTIONALITY FOR QUANTITY-TRACKED ITEMS
- Add the option to enter a quantity or count scans for quantity tracked items. This option will be applied to the Order Pick transaction first.
- MANAGING TEAM
- A managing team will be added to the system. With this change, the custodian logic for teams will only be applied for checked out and deployed unit. Owning team will be for reporting purposes and for assignment to view only users. All owning teams will be assigned a managing team. Managing teams may have multiple owning teams. This overhaul will add additional flexibility across the system. Expected timeline for rollout is Q2 of 2025.
As always, comments and feedback are appreciated for our roadmap.