Products

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Products

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The Product Screen is where all the hardware products that you add to the program are stored. Hardware Products may be displayed and modified from Door records but the general information originates from this Screen. Hardware Products are for the most part the hardware that's installed on your doors.

 

 

This topic includes:

 

Working with Products

 

Product Types

Open the Product Type Screen

Add a Product Type

 

Products

Open the Products Screen

Add Products

Field Descriptions of the Product Screen

 

Product Usage

To View Product Usage

 

Mass Assign Products

 

Product Photo

To View a Picture of a Product

 

 

Working with Products

 

The primary purpose of the Products Screen is to enable you to track all the hardware that's on your site's doors or on your customers' doors. This is useful when emergency or maintenance calls must be performed on hardware and to enable you to extract important information about hardware code compliance, life-cycle, replacement, and warranty. When assigning Cylinder/Cores and keys to doors, the program requires that there is a Cylinder (hardware) Product on each door.

 

 

Product Types

 

For each product that you add, you are required to assign it a Product Type. For this reason we will begin this topic with Product Types. The Product Types Screen is a Control List and a Record Information Screen. There you add or edit the product types that you assign to your hardware products. Examples of Product Types are Cylinder, Lockset, Exit Device, Door Closer, Hinge, or any type of product that you use on your doors. The most important Product Type in the program is Cylinder. This is because the program links the Cylinder/Core codes to Cylinder Products.

 

 

To Open the Product Type Screen:

 

1. Click on the pull-down Setup Menu and select Control Lists. Then select Product Types from that list.

 

2. The Product Types Screen opens with the Records List in the expanded view. All the fields in the Records List are empty in this mode.

 

3. The Description field is a lookup field for finding Product Type descriptions.

 

Help with > Looking Up Records

 

4. Click on the Mode button on the top of the Product Type Screen to display record information about a selected product type. The record information is on the right side of the screen and the product types to select from are on the Primary Record List on the left.

 

5. For technical specifications about the Product Type field, see Technical Program Information.

 

 

To Add a Product Type:

 

1. Click on the Add button on the Product Type screen.

 

2. Enter the name of the Product Type into the Product Type field.

 

3. The Check Box called Cylinder Products is for marking a product type as a cylinder in the program. A lockset, for example, is not a cylinder and neither is an exit device. These product types may accept cylinders but they are not cylinders. You may have different cylinder types such as Used Cylinder, Cylinder, SFIC Cylinder, and Falcon Cylinder entered as product types and mark each one of those types as Cylinder Products. When you rekey rooms using the Rekey Rooms Wizard and you want to change the cylinder hardware on specific rooms, this wizard produces a selection list of all the products that have had their product types marked as Cylinder Products.

 

4. Click on the Save button on the Product Type Screen to store the record.

 

 

Products

 

Once you've added your product types (above), you're ready to add your products to the program. Products are the hardware items that are installed and serviced on doors but may be other things as well. For example, you could use the Products Screen to keep up with door and room signs. The level of detail that you use to track products in the program is entirely up to you. We recommend that you assign your products a level of detail that is similar to how you maintain these products in inventory. When service calls come in, you can look up door information to determine the hardware product that needs servicing or replacement. If the products in the program match your inventory numbers on the shelf, you will know in advance what product to take with you on the service call or need to order.

 

The program also has a Hardware Group Screen that allows you to assign multiple hardware products to a hardware group that you name. You use these hardware groups (templates) to assign hardware to rooms and doors when adding records with the program's room and door Wizards. This feature substantially cuts down the amount of time required to assign hardware products to rooms. See Hardware Groups.

 

Important: The minimal Product requirement in the program is one Cylinder Product. This is a hardware cylinder as opposed to a Cylinder/Core record that is really the Pinning information for a cylinder. This program requires you to put the pins in a hardware cylinder in order for the keys to work properly. As a minimum, you must create at least one cylinder in the Products Screen, and mark that cylinder as a Cylinder Product in Product Types. By at least doing this, you can use the program's room and door wizards for keying and rekeying Doors. Despite this minimum requirement, we recommend that you explore and consider the benefits of adding products and hardware groups to the program. The program includes one cylinder product called "Generic" that you can use. You can edit the name (Part Number) and use it, or delete this record and create your own cylinder products.

 

 

To Open the Products Screen:

 

1. Click the Products icon on the main Button Bar.

 

2. The Products Screen opens in the expanded view, allowing you to Add or Look Up records. You may also access reports, exit from the Products Screen, or change the mode of the screen. The buttons that appear with gray text are inactive and not available in this mode.

 

3. The Part Number lookup field is the default, but you may click on any of the Field Column Names such as Description to look up records by that name.

 

4. Click on the Mode button to contract the Primary Record List to the left and display the record fields on the right.

 

5. For technical specifications about the Product fields, see Technical Program Information.

 

 

To Add Products:

 

1. Click on the Add button on the Products Screen.

 

2. Type in and/or look up the information about the new product. See field descriptions below.

 

3. Click on the Save button on the Products Screen to store the record or Cancel to abort the add.

 

 

Field Descriptions of the Products Screen:

 

Distributor: This field is read-only. When you assign a Manufacturer to a Distributor, all the products under that manufacturer automatically display that Distributor. See Distributors.

 

Manufacturer: The manufacturer of the product. When adding a Product, type in or select a Manufacturer for the product. If this Manufacturer has been assigned a Distributor, then this Distributor will be displayed in the Distributor field for the Product. See Manufacturers.

 

Important: During a Product add, you will not see the Distributor displayed until you exit and return back to this Product Screen. This is because the screen must refresh itself before it can automatically display the Distributor.

 

Product Type: The category of the product such as Lockset, Door Closer, or Cylinder. Product Types that you add are stored in the Product Type control list.

 

Part Number: The actual part number of the product. You may assign the product a part number that matches its number in your inventory or it may be the manufacturer's part number.

 

ADA (Check Box): Check this box if the product is compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

 

Inventory Number: You may enter the inventory number if you keep this product in stock.

 

Function: A product may be assigned a function such as Storeroom or Office for a lockset and Delayed Action or Hold Open for a Door Closer.

 

Trim Design: Assign the trim design if the product has one such as Rhodes, Saturn, or Tulip for a lockset.

 

Finish: This is the finish color of the hardware product such as 605 (polished brass), 626 (brushed chrome), or 612 (satin bronze).

 

Handing: Enter the "hand" of the hardware product. Some door hardware is handed to work with the swing of the door such as LH (left hand), RH (right hand), RHRB (right hand reverse bevel), and LHRB (left hand reverse bevel).

 

Description: You may type in a description of the product.

 

Warranty (months): When you add a product that was just purchased or installed through construction, enter the manufacturer's warranty in months. If a product malfunctions, you will be able to find out if it is still under warranty.

 

Life Cycle (years): Enter the expected life cycle of the product. Life cycle will also be affected by your particular environmental and usage conditions.

 

Cost: Type in the price you paid for the product.

 

UoM (Unit of Measure): This is how the product is packaged such as Each, Pair, or Set.

 

Comment: Type in any comment you wish to make about the product.

 

 

To Edit and Delete Records:

 

Once you have records added, you can edit or delete the records as well as the linked information associated with those records. Editing and deleting records affect any parent-child relationships of those records. To learn about editing and deleting records, see Editing Records or Deleting Records.

 

 

To Look Up Records:

 

The program's interface provides you with an extremely efficient way to look up and sort records and to find linked record information. To learn how to look up records, see Looking Up Records.

 

 

To Access Reports:

 

Click on the pull-down Reports Menu at the top of the Main Menu. To learn about the reports for this topic, see Reports.

 

 

Product Usage

 

The Product Usage feature allows you to quickly view all the rooms and doors where a product is assigned. For example, if you wanted to see all the doors where a certain lockset is installed, you can instantly access all the door records on the Product Usage list. The Product Usage list displays the ADA, Building, Room, Door Number, Quantity, Date Purchased, and Warranty Expiration records for the selected product.

 

 

To View Product Usage:

 

1. Click on the Product Usage button on the Product Information Screen.

 

2. The Product Usage list displays all of the locations for the selected product.

 

 

Mass Assign Products

 

After you add your products to the program, the Create Rooms and Add Door Wizards are generally used to mass-assign multiple products to doors by means of Hardware Groups or individual Cylinder Products. You can also use the following mass-assign feature. This method allows you to select a single product and assign it to multiple doors simultaneously:

 

1. On the Products Screen, look up and select the product that you want to add to doors.

 

2. Click on the Product Usage button. This opens the Product Usage sub-screen.

 

3. On the Product Usage List, click on the Binoculars button. This opens a Door Find Screen.

 

4. Use the Find All button to display all doors, or type in a Building Name to display the doors for that building.

 

5. Click in any of the check boxes next to the door records that you want to add the product.

 

6. Use the Select All button to select all door records.

 

7. Click on the Accept button. The product is added to the door(s).

 

 

Product Photo

 

You can take pictures of your products and display them in the program. These pictures apply to the general product and not to the specific product on a door. Product images may come from manufacturers' catalogs (respect copyright), or the actual pictures you take of products out of the box or out in the field. These pictures should represent the product records in the program's database.

 

One advantage of having product images is that when a service call comes in regarding a problem with a door, you can look up the hardware that's on the door and see a picture of the hardware product. This helps you to better identify the product for parts or replacement.

 

Idea: You can use the program to keep up with door signs. By taking pictures of your different types of signs, when you need to provide a new sign for a customer or for your site, you can look up another door in the vicinity to determine the right style and color to use.

 

 

To View a Picture of a Product:

 

1. Click the Product Photo button on the Products Screen that changes the mode. The image that you have stored for products will be displayed for the selected record.

 

2. The Image File field shows the location or path of the photo image that is displayed.

 

To learn how to add images to records, see Adding Images.

 

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