How to setup a request queue to order office supplies and create a cost report of items ordered.

[KarhyM]

We are creating a request queue for ordering office supplies that we can also enter the cost of each item once the invoice is received.

I created a dropdown field for the supply items, but realized I couldn't add a qty or cost field associated it with.

If anyone has done this type of queue I'd love to learn how you set it up to get the reporting needed. Thank you.

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

Hi Kathy,

I’ve modeled such “Price Books” a few ways:

• as Expenses (with custom data for discounts, etc) on Template Tasks that can be “picked” and then “filled out”...Too Hot: lots of extraneous data created
• using delimited values in the dropdown to “pack” additional information (eg Microscope|USD$999) that can then be split apart with calculated parameters....Too Cold: difficult to work with and maintain
• implementing our UberForm solution to allow a SysAdmin to upload the latest (valid) parts list as an Excel Document (eg each morning), so that requestors can then use typeahead to query the parts, selecting the desired item(s) from among those that match (including the much sought after “cascading dropdown” idea, where what’s selected in dropdown A then restricts what’s presented in dropdown B, etc), and then saves the selected values on the request, including (for example) the anticipated price, units per part, vendor email, etc...Just Right: highly configurable, a delight for end users, and data integrity

Happy to discuss the latter if you’re interested: doug.denhoed@atappstore.com

Regards,

Doug

[KarhyM]

Doug,

Thanks for the reply and the options. I'll need to speak with our system admn about the third option.

[JillAc]

My answer was also to use the Expenses object. I made a custom form as Expense type attached to each project and then I created a report with all the fields and we are able to fill in the expenses for each project right in the report. I haven't done it for requests and am not sure you can enter multiple line items on a single project (ie the request queue project for your office supplies) but I would play around with this idea.

[KarhyM]

Thanks JIl for the direction. I"ll work on it to see if it would fit our needs.