More than a typewriter & adding machine ....

When Exploris first came out we worried that it might only be a 'typewriter' and a 'adding machine' ...as what does the JV ( company owed side of stores ) really need?   The JV side pulls the A/R out and pushes it thru Oracle ... what else they do -- who knows....

BUT -- what about us Independent Jobbers -- how do we plan and manager our business ....  here is a good example -- name me a report or screen that calls up a customer and gives us a good and SIMPLE scan of his purchases ... noting were he does above or BELOW average on purchases ....

One - lets work with product groups  .... group all BRAKES into one bucket ... and so on ... we use these buckets below for review on sales by LINES ... but they could also be grouped for sales analysis for specific customers ... helping us see what we need to work on ...


accessories Total
battery Total
belts + Total
brakes Total
buy outs Total
chassis Total
chemicals Total
dorman type Total
electrical Total
emmissions Total
engine Total
equipment Total
exhaust Total
farm Total
filters Total
fork lift Total
fuel Total
heat-cool Total
import Total
lighting Total
marine Total
misc Total
obsolete Total
oil Total
P B E Total
paint Total
plugs Total
special Total
struts Total
tools Total
trailer Total
welding Total
wipers Total
zz-obsol Total
Grand Total


If any of your readers have an idea --love to hear it  --- really need some more innovation in Exploris ( NexPart by eBay nee WHI )

Welcome back ?

Well - after a great 9 week vacation that took me across USA and back and an extended stay in Carlsbad, Ca ( what a town ! ) ... time to get back to work

Doing an updated data dump where we grab all the product into and import into excel - typically we separate the CQ and the X lines - but I forgot  ...on the 1st store --- nice to see the system didn't crash --and all 252,000 parts came out .... but had to go back and re-do it ---as it make the excel file just TOO BIG once we add in the remaining stores ( we have 3 in total ).

Grabbing all data and dumping into excel helps us spot many kinds of problems ....

ps - --just sorted all parts with a REPLACED BY data ... and all items with qty on hand -- hmm ...between 3 stores we have $23,000 in parts that are replaced by something else ( a lot is one recent line in brakes - but it does help us identify the few stragglers )

ps- how many parts do you have in your system with a BLANK sales class - we have 197 ...some are our fault - were the system allows us to make a BAD PART # .... others are mistakes of CARQUEST

ps- How many parts do you have with a sales class or 8 or 8.0 .... either way it is a mistake = that CARQUEST has MISSED in updating the sales movement codes  .... for our 3 stores -- we have a combined 20,402 ....holly cow ...   similarly we have 842 parts with 1 sales movement code of  X or x.0 ( e.g. 1 or 1.0 thru 7  or 7.0 ....all examples of sales movement codes been forgotten in the updating process )

ps - how many parts do you have with a sales movement class of LESS THAN ONE .... we have 4679 .... most are 0.0 which means obsolete ( of these we have 19 sku's with on hand stock .... hmmm ) but there this a variety of .9 or .1 sales movement codes that are also errors ( one assumes )

ps- ever wonder how many parts you have on hand with a 7.1 or slower movement code and no sales in 12 months and you have stock -- hope you don;t -- you will never sleep at night once you do --- damm

Limited Posts -- one more Month

Hi ... yeh ..I know ... no one is posting ... it surprised me that more jobbers with the knowledge just don't like to put their problems and issues down on paper for the world to see ....  hang in there ... this vacation to parade will be over ...one more month ... Carlsbad Ca ...ouch ... but I can handle this place ( big smile ) ...back to work March 17.

Greg H

How many years to FIX stupid bugs in Multi-Store

How many years will it take to fix STUPID bugs in Multi-Store in Exploris ( WHI Nex-Part )

Factors against prompt fixes
-few multi-store owners in CARQUEST
-feeling that Exploris is 'good enough' ...time to move on ...

Example - you have a new part - you add it from the non-sku file in store #1 ...then go to multi-store create-edit and ADD to the other stores ....  but wait --it adds and forgets to update the DESCRIPTION
----------- forgets to update the sales movement code
---------- forgets to update the PN Code ( sub line )

Nice programming ... from a system that is 5 years old ... and still has this many bugs awaiting fixing .... OMG

This part is the new anti-freeze required by Asian vehicles .....

Call # 208 8498

Delays on phone - waiting for help desk

Wondering if it just us - or are the waits for the help desk getting longer?  The image attached is from my iPhone --to take a screen shot of your iPhone ... well google it if you have forgotten  ....

That 12 minutes from from Dec 21 and a copy was sent to Debra(dot)Rosenbaum(at)gpi.com.

There are ways to reduce the number of calls to the help desk - for example - give us a video library of popular problems with solutions .... and let us check the most common problems to see ( also a great training aid ) ... but ... oh well ...   btw ....  click here and look at item #5 --- more video in enterprise ... hmm ... a trend everywhere ...  but still waiting for GPI CARQUEST ////

Smarter ways to help us get smarter on the Exploris ... a wish for 2012 ....

I had a 10 minute call while I was writing this blog entry ... on yet another question on how do you use EXPLORIS ... here is a good one .. if you are multi-store - you have to run salesman reports for EACH store separately .... not a consolidated ... do it once ... that would be too easy ?  Working on options ...  call # 2083542 - these fixes take years ( decades ? )

No Wildcard ... hmm ... are we wrong ... ?

A great comment was posted on the most recent post about missing wildcard searchers .....

From: Anonymous <noreply-comment@blogger.com>

Subject: [Exploris Computer - Tips & Tricks] New comment on Basic Omissions .... NO Wildcard Search in Part Nu....

Date: 20 December, 2011 7:08:44 PM EST

To: xxxxxxxxxx

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Basic Omissions .... NO Wildcard Search in Part Nu...":


If in POS click on the PN/SKU/UPC. The '%' will work at the beginning, middle or end. The '*' can also be used instead of the '%'.


Also you can use the '_' character to wildcard a single character.
Ex. 8__0S I'm looking for 8660S seal but the 66 is missing.


Publish
Delete
Mark as spam 

Here are some screen images .... showing the points .... NOTE -- we can't figure out the 'beginning' wild card search ...  but the MIDDLE and ENDING wild card searches  -- thank you so much for that clarification .... it reminds us that sometimes we need a verification on some 'issues'  ..that the help desk are sometimes wrong ...

Here is the % in the middle  ... the * or % can be used ...go try it

Here are examples of the underscore to represent a single unknown digit ( used less often )

and the wild card search at the rear of the part

Now --how to make the wild card search work at the beginning of the part  ....

REMEMBER -- open the parts box for this search ... try it ... that is how you learn

Basic Omissions .... NO Wildcard Search in Part Numbers

Omissions - there might be none GREATER than the fact ...that ...there is no wildcard search for part numbers .... we know part of the number but are missing some part ...

Now --in EXPLORIS view--that missing part has t be at the first .... as the 'percentage sign (%) can only be used at the beginning --for other uses  ... get  %234 ... covers for 11234 and 1111234 etc etc.   Wildcards should be able to be used ANYWHERE ...

So -- Dane --  when do we get wildcard searched for the counterman ....  call # 206 9403

This was Gary's first call to the help desk - love that new staff training ... but what a weak reply.....

ps - anyone noticed the HUGE wait for the help desk these days .... thank goodness we can go on with other work while we wait and wait and wait ...

Managing your CASH Customers

It wasn't long after our 3 stores went live we found that each store had an idea of what they thought was 'normal' for their actions in dealing with CASH CUSTOMERS.  And within stores we had a wide diversity of expectations and actions ... to make a LONG STORY short(er) ... thru several months of action - threats - pushing and shoving ...one by one we got the store managers on line and then the counter staff --so we could TRACK cash sales ... by insisting that (almost) every cash customer be flagged in the system.

So --now what ... we have data in the system, ... gee .... this #$^&*()_ system doesn't allow us to get the data out (easily) and let us review and adjust cash customers for their proper discount level ( the assumption is the more they buy--the better the discount they should get - all other things being equal )

One way you can get the data --is to ASK .... ask Tier One staff to have then ask Tier Two staff to run you a report ... see image for the headers we used ....

If we had to do it again -- we might have asked for LAST YEARS SALES ( again - Exploris is confusing ... is every sales column always the past 12 months or is  some data by Calendar year ?? ) ... we are asking the store managers to go thru the CONSOLIDATED List  ( we use a logic line this ....cust #11 is store#1 billing schedule #1 ....works if you have 9 or fewer stores ..:-) ... and so on ....

The columns TAGGED TO -- is the master cash customer ( e.g.:  Cust#11 ) and the sales is their data divided by 100 to get a decimal point into the data.

PS --so after 2 years on the data -- cute to see which of the 3 stores might be 'dragging their feet' the most ... can you help me decide ... ---what store do you think ....   one that sells $2601  .. or $4419 ... or $20,557 ... gee ..... let me think on this .... I do have to smile that decisions made as a group of managers ( who are also partners ) ...there is always someone who resists .... love it when I get the data and can POINT FINGERS .... as the whole concept is to have data for the customer who count ... 'things that make you go hmmm'

UPC Code questions - this will get Ugly ....

Here is what we have posted on UPC codes so far.....

Aug 31 2010 - where is data ( newbie type question ) - click here

Nov 24 2011 - starting to get serious .... click here

    and a our sister blog of Nov 21 2011 .... click here 

Nov 29 2011 - 11 or 12 digits ... starting to ask REAL questions ... click here

OK - so we know where the UPC data is supposed to be ... talking with a  USA jobber - he had ZERO UPC codes in his system for PCH chassis ... I sent him a picture of our data ...  ask for a data refresh.

We have an outstanding question - when you ask for a complete refresh of your system UPC data from CQ - will they wipe out your X line data from other vendors - we are told it won't - but I would like that PROVEN.

QUESTION - in above links -- we mention that CQ uses 11 digits - and most other suppliers use 12 digits on the UPC data ... and when you scan that part the 12 digit code TRUMPS the 11 digit -- hmm ...  so we tried to add the 12 digit UPC t the CQ part --to see what happens when you scan ... guess what ... EXPLORIS won't let you have a duplicate UPC code ....

We have a hard time with this ... we think EXPLORIS should be smart enough to list the multiple options ... saying --which V ENDOR do you want to sell -- the CQ or the X line ....

Oh well .... more headaches with our EXPLORIS system ....

Making MOVEUPS Easier ....

It should be noted that a vast majority of CARQUEST jobbers do NOT do move ups - they ask their CQ rep to do them ... WTF ....   we need to make MOVEUPS to be easier to understand.

Call # 2035576 placed today is to have an OPTION box - check it if you want to see any Supercession for a parts involved inmoveup ... much like we see any available ALTERNATE ( where it shows underneath the part - see this image as example of an Alternate



Why is this important -- well have a look at this example - DOR 698-100 -- what looks funny ...  the sales movement code is 8.5 ( real dog-eh!) ... but I have stores that are selling it - one even sold 12 .... while the DC shows only sales of 3 ....    We find examples like this where CARQUEST is just so slow at adding parts ... or ....  the part has been superseded to another sku ... would be nice to know what case this is ??  In the first case -were CARQUEST is just SO SLOW to add --we have cases were we are sourcing from where ever but the warehouse doesn't stock (enough) based upon their sales and movement code ... a real catch 22.  In the 2nd case -- well--just tell us it is a supercession ... how can you do this on the moveup screen ????????  How is our suggestion on this ?

Ps - this item is the super popular Dodge tranny solenoid valve ...   and we won't get into the problem on the superseded part is much more money ( they have been told and are promising to fix (partially??) .... but we leave that part for the upcoming book with attached movie rights .... Michael Lewis .... eat your heart out ... Money Ball and Blind Side ... this one will be bigger that all of those...

Part of the problem - there is not much of a driving force to make EXPLORIS better ---'close enough'  seems to be good enough ,...  the  guys like Mike Allen ( USA ) and Brian Taylor ( Canada ) should be listening and driving the improvements .... well ...one can wish ...

Water water every where - but not a drop to drink

Exploris has a LOT of sales reports -- take for example the REPORTS>Inventory?PN Code Report

Or the REPORTS>Financial>Line Sales

Ever wonder why one can be WRONG and it is still wrong --even thought the flaw was reported  on call more than a year ago .... and I am wondering about the accuracy of the other .... having access to a special report on sales that gives me yet a 3 set of numbers .... OMG ....  just for one accurate report ... please ....

want to know more-- call the help desk and ask them on the ticket #104 6699 called in in Jan 2010 - and ask them why errors take so long to get fixed in EXPLORIS

============  update ===========
I was inferring that ONE was correct and the other was wrong .... update .... both are wrong ... but for different reasons .... what total bullshit ....

Does your Gross Profit Pricing Utiity work?

We have not had a need to use the
  Gross Profit Pricing Utility after we did the gargantuan task of converting BACK TO WHAT WE HAD in J-Co ---to go to pricing by Model ...

so when we tried it and it was BROKE --and called the help desk -- ( call # 2027643 to prove this - call and reference this number ) ... and they tell us that our AE ( sales rep ) must come by and re-install the program ... hmm ... smell a dead fish here somewhere

OK -- have a call in ....

Dumping you data to Excel ... part #3

Had written this in 2010 .... click here ....

Here is part # 2  .... click here .....

Since then we have a couple of things to add ...here is part#3

-we try to limit the total number of sku's being pulled to preview at less than 150,000 ...yep - Exploris can have a LOT of items ... for our stores we pull store #1 all CQ lines then sure#1 X lines .... and so on thru the stores ... go do other things file you await the preview to come up ... takes a while - 3-4 minutes is a guess.  If you try TOO many -- something pukes in your  computer or EXPLORIS - not quite sure.
-we have a fast way to get all the text to numbers ( I think newer versions of Excel might have a better way ? ) by type a number1 in a cell and paste special "multiply only' to the columns needing the change
-BEFORE we do the above paste special--we sort out the  line totals --- we get all data into ONE main sheet ( our limit on excel is 1 million rows  - we have approx 350,000 rows for 3 stores ) and sort for BLANK PN Codes ...  these are parts that someone has manually entered ... these are the most problematic ... and we mark them with the word BLANK and send copies to store managers for review.
-remember if you are multi-store - add a column and mark your stores ( for us it is as simple as a 1 ..2   or 3 and we colour to flag easier .... see image
-we have not found a report much better than Inventory Info ...  not great by any means - but better than nothing -- line - part - desc - pn code - qty on hand - order point -  cost ( but no core cost ) - date added - date last sold - qty sold 12 mths - qty sold 24 mths ... have lots of other fields we can use -- but --we wait

SO --once you have all the data
-send replaced by data (oh - forgot to mention - an unmarked column you get the  superseding part #  --so sort for this data and for what stock you have on hand...  ( the image uses is this report - well - part of it )
-parts with blank PN codes

Then --as you work on a line .. you can grab just that data  ... for example in hard parts we look at our stock depth and see impact if we expanded stock depth ( yep - we do all our move ups ).  Or on things like RETAIL: lines - handy to see what one store sells that a 2nd store doesn't --and why/why not for expanding stock depth here

We change the column order --from the original data ...  have fun and work your data ....

Images - the more we learn - the less we really knew

see this blog on our sister site ...

http://cqchange.blogspot.com/2011/11/rotor-specs-what-do-you-know.html

Any more help- drop us a line

UPC Update

If anyone can tell me the reason that CARQUEST only sends the UPC data with 11 of the 12 digits -- can you PLEASEZZE leave a comment or send us an e-mail ...

Go figure ....

They drop the last digit ... so when we scan a part that we have from BOTH CARQUEST and a 2nd warehouse .... BUT we buy from CQ ...the 12 digit data trumps the 11 digit and the other source data shows up ..

We have a lot to learn about UPC data ....

UPC codes - what we don't know

http://cqchange.blogspot.com/2011/11/options-for-problem-parts.html

The above link takes you to our staff blog .... and the start of the discussion on UPC codes .... we have had to ask for a complete refresh on UPC codes for all CARQUEST data

There are times that if STAFF KNOW how to manually enter a UPC code --they can sell a part faster ...eg some retail lines like Castrol

Click here for more UPC info

Updating X line data - gee ... who thought of this ?

In J-Con when you updated a line -- you got a list of the parts that DID NOT UPDATE .... so when we went to Exploris in Jan 2010 we were surprised to see that this was missing ....

Why care ...well-- if you are updating a line and say 10 parts do NOT update --what do you do with them ... are they obsolete or superseded or ??

Couple this with the fact that EXPLORIS still can't quite figure out how to delete parts ..and we have the making of a mess in 5 years from now.

One solution -- CHANGE descriptions ( and ask DFIU to update descriptions on all price changes ) -then you can run a report and sort by description in excel - and figure out what you have to do ...

We have started to make a PN Code ( sub line ) of 999 where we are moving crap --and waiting while Exploris comes to grips with how to delete parts ....  you have to do this 999 with EVERY LINE you have crap in..that is quite a few when you start looking at excel dumps.

DFIU -the Import utility written ... badly ?

I was talking with some jobbers a while back and they had yet to try importing data for X Lines into Exploris - they said they were waiting for DFIU ( Data File Import Utility ) .... well ... if they thought DFIU would make learning excel any easier -- they sure were wrong.

I like to think I am pretty good in excel .. but DFIU taxes your ability.

Here is a summary - this has been areal pain to get a grip on.
1) make a template - the one CQ  gave us is poorly ordered ... we start with part # ( ignoring the line code in excel -as you have to define that in DFIU ...and go in the same order as the field questions
2) format all prices with TWO DECIMAL PLACES as standard in your template - be aware that DFIU ignores decimal point and takes the two right hand digits as pennies .... for $30 becomes 30 cents ... selling at a loss ( are we ? )
3) one might have thought they would have formatted DFIU for excel -- but you are better off ( who knows why - but the smart guys on the help desk that I trust - say so ) using CSV ( you have two different types of CSV if you dig deep enough ... the DOS CSV will error right away - like on huge run-on sentence - so use Windows CSV)
4) open in MS Word - change preferences to show invisible characters ( like carriage returns ) and look for BLANK LINES ...they will look like this ....  in MS Word you can save and it will save like the format it opened up - in this case CSV

Another Great Tip ( thanks Dick from Lansing ) is if you have multi store -- you can use the mass import from store #1 to other stores ... however as of yesterday this way seems to be broken ...so you have to REPEAT the process to add for additional stores ... until tier two figures out the problem (call #1975227)

Give DFIU a grade --- hmm ... at this point .... C-

***********  update ********  the Multi-Location Mass Update ... is indeed broken -- gone from Tier 2 to WHI programmers ....  I have asked if the Creator/Editor is also broken .... awaiting that reply *****

How to write about something you swore not to disclose ?

Read the title --ok - here goes .... walking a tight rope of ethics - want to remind you about something that we can't tell you how we know ....

Background .... a good buddy and local CARQUEST Jobber - Bob from Walker Rd - constantly impresses me with the points he finds and solves ... we rag on him ( a term of endearment ? ) to post some info on THIS BLOG ..well guess what ..he reminded me of a few posts from 2008 .... remember we didn't get our Exploris machine in operation until 2010.

Click Here
 and Click Here

Some day you will get a way to list the parts on hand with a stocking qty and that you have (for whatever reason ) in system with a DNR ( do not re-order ) flag checked ....

Bob reminds me that once you master theMass Update screen -- use the CLEAR BUTTON -- check the DNR box --then click YES for the STOCKED - the REAL and the ACTIVE -- and then UPDATE.   A caution - as I remind my partners -- if you are too quick and you clear your ON HAND stock qty -- that will result in hundreds of hours in panic while you correct ...so think and be careful.

Bob does this action a couple times a year - and can stop once we all can get the report of parts effected .... some day ....

Hey Bob - more posts please ....

DFIU -- what a MESS for importing data into EXPLORIS

The DFIU utility was written by some brain dead programmer - there are numerous issues that 'could have been better" -- here is just ONE example ....

Instead of common sense -- the utility demands you have TWO DECIMAL PLACES for every price ... so if you are not careful your excel may trim a price like $1731.1 into $171.31 -- and you sell it for a HUGE LOSS .... see the image .....   what DFIU  does is to ignore any decimal and assumes the two RIGHT HAND numbers are pennies .... regardless .... one way to cull out the stupid --I guess .... I would never  accept this as a company ... but then ....