Inventory Attributes

Overview

Inventory Attributes provide a method of defining a template of custom fields which can then be attached to individual inventory items.

Inventory Attribute Template

The Attribute Group Template form is used to define an Attribute Group and the fields associated with the group. Each field must be given a name unique within the Attribute Group.  

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Inventory Group Attributes

Inventory Maintenance

Inventory items are associated with Attribute Groups and their respective values set for each field on the Inventory Maintenance form. The Attributes tab under the Other tab of the Inventory Maintenance form contains two grids.  The grid on the left is where Attribute Groups are added to the item.  The grid on the right is where the values for each field are set.

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Inventory Attributes v Custom Fields

As mentioned in the Overview, inventory attributes are a way of grouping custom fields against inventory items. So why not use custom fields?

The benefits of Inventory Attributes over custom fields are:

1. Attributes don’t have to be applied to every inventory item. If you have a group of fields that only apply to computer hardware say, then you don’t also have to see those fields on your computer software items. Whereas a custom field applies to every item in the database. If it’s not relevant, you’ll need some kind of ‘not applicable’ or blank value.

2. Because attributes are only being applied to the relevant items, this keeps your database size and therefore your database performance more manageable.

3. Attributes can be easily maintained by an experienced user. Whereas custom fields usually have to be maintained by a programmer in the relevant plugin.

There is a minor downside to Inventory Attributes, that is, if you have very many attributes then it may make opening the inventory maintenance form slightly slower.