Updated: Version 3.1
Master lists are standard lists of items you would supply to wards, clinics, etc. on a regular basis. Once set up, a master lists can be assigned to customers or Virtual stores, and then used to support Stock Control including imprest orders. Master Lists are useful to stores which have a number of customers or virtual stores that they supply whose lists of stock items are either identical or very similar.
Choosing the Item > Show item master lists… menu item or clicking on the Master lists button on the Item tab of the navigator displays a list of the current master lists in your datafile in this window:
If the list oif master lists is long, you can tyoe something in the Search master lists field and the list will only show master lists that contain what you have typed.
Master lists can only be managed (created, deleted, edited, applied to stores or customers) on the Central Server in a synchronisation system.
Enter the name of the master list here - this is the list name that everyone will see e.g. All items: General warehouse
. Any non-printable characters entered before or after the description will be removed. Any entered in the description will be replaced with an underscore (_
).
Add any note or information here that will help you and others understand what the list is for.
If you check this, any new items created, whether manually or during import, will be added to the master list. This is a particularly helpful setting when you are using master lists to control the visibility of items in stores.
If checked, this tells mSupply to use the prices on this master list for any of the items on this list on prescriptions (not customer invoices).
You then populate the list with the required items by clicking the Add Item button:
To remove one or more items from the master list, select (click) the row(s) and then click on the Remove item(s) button.
The master list is copied to the clipboard when this button is clicked so that you can paste it into other applications on your computer e.g. a word processor or spreadsheet application.
Also only visible if the Use program pricing preference is turned on (see the 15.03. Invoice preferences page for details). When you click this button, mSupply calculates a weighted average price for each item from all the cost prices on all supplier invoice lines that were confirmed in the 12 months previous to the current day for each item. That calculated price is then shown for each item in the Price column. When you click on the OK or OK & Next buttons these prices will be saved on the master list, if you click on the Cancel button the prices will revert to what they were before. mSupply will create logs when the function is run so that you have a record of the old and new prices - see the 25.19. The system log page for details on viewing the logs.
You can import a list of items created elsewhere e.g. an accounting application or a spreadsheet. This can save you a lot of time when creating a master list!
The file to be imported must be tab delimited text file, which is most easily created in a spreadsheet. The file must contain columns in this order:
If you are not importing imprest quantity or price, then this is the only column needed. The following columns are not required.
Records in the file are, of course, separated by the end of line character, which will be created by the spreadsheet when you save the file as a Text (Tab delimited) format.
For example:
Item code | Item name | Imprest quantity | Price |
---|---|---|---|
amo250t | amoxycillin 250mg tab | 800 | 4.50 |
amo500t | amoxycillin 500mg tab | 300 | 5.50 |
Clicking on the Import item list button takes you to a prompt:
after which you can select the file:
And then the import preview dialogue box is displayed:
On this screen you use the Next and Previous buttons to move through the records and see what details will be imported for each. The First line contains column headers tells mSupply whether to ignore the first record in the import file (checked = ignore first line of file). The first record in the import file often contains headers describing the fields in each record, not actual data.
The Remove quote characters on import checkbox, if checked, tells mSupply® to strip all “
characters from the data. This is recommended. In fact, this option can be selected anyway without detriment to the import.
Clicking the Import now button executes the import with the settings you made and takes you back to the master list screen with the imported items now showing in your master list.
The Cancel button also takes you back to the master list screen but, obviously, does not execute the import.
If you need to find a specific item in the master list you can type something in the Search items field just below the buttons. Only the items in the list with a name or code that contains what you typed will be shown, all others will be hidden.
Shows the list of items on the master list.
Shows which customers the master list has been assigned to (see below).
From the Item Master lists window, selecting the Delete Master List button allows you to delete a list which is no longer required.
+
Should you wish to create a Master list which is very similar to an existing one, click on this icon, and a new Master list with the same name (description) but with ` (Copy)' appended to it is created; this can then be edited and renamed to suit your requirements.
To create a custom master list report, click on the Report button on the Master list window. This will open the custom report editor and you can create your custom report there.
To generate a built-in report based on all the master lists in the list, click on the Print button on the Master list window. You will be given the following options:
To assign a list to a customer, the customer's details need to be on screen; Choose Customer > Show customers , or using the Navigator, select Show customers , fill in the appropriate details, and press Find, or just press Find, then double click the entry required on the Names list. You will see the name's detail window:
Once the desired customer's Edit Customer/Supplier window appears click on the Item Lists tab to see this window:
Double-click on the list you want to add to the customer; the window will close and the selected list will be added.
If the list of master lists is long, you can type something in the Search master lists field, then only lists that contain what you typed will be displayed.
When operating multiple stores in mSupply, you can sometimes have difficulty with item visibility: an item might be on a master list for a particular customer but if the item is not visible in the store you are logged into when using the list, then the item will not appear.
A temporary fix can be achieved by setting the item visibility in a particular store to match an item list - refer the Visibility tab. This is only a temporary fix. If you add a new item to a master list, the visibility of that item in the stores using that list will not be updated.
To avoid this problem, you can set a preference (see here for details) to have the visibility of items on lists altered to match the visibility of the name for which the lists are made.
The attributes of a list are set by double clicking on the name of the list. This window is displayed:
The options should be checked as appropriate:
You can use master lists to control item visibility in each store. This will make the items visible in each individual store match exactly the items included in the master list(s) selected for that store.
Control of item visibility by master list can have drastic unintended consequences!
It affects ALL stores in the system.
One unintended consequence: An mSupply store can only order from another mSupply store those items that are on master lists which have been assigned to both stores.
For example:
Central store has the following master lists assigned:
Kathmandu store has the following master lists assigned:
Kathmandu store tries to place order from the Central store for:
For example, let's say there are 100 stores, and you want all of them to have the same item visibility:
A temporary list is created for each store containing items that cannot be removed from visibility when the master list preference is activated, normally because there is stock of the item in the store.
When deleting items from a master list, mSupply will first check all stores using the master list to make sure it is safe to remove that item. It is unsafe if the item has stock on hand and isn't included in another master list for any stores using master list you are editing.
If you've been running your mSupply for some time without controlling item visibility by master list and you now want to move to it, you will likely want to start by creating a master list containing ALL items and applying visibility to all existing stores according to that ALL items master list. Then, over time, different master lists can be created and applied to those existing stores.
To create a ALL items master list, you can export all items, and then import them to the master list, refer above.
You may need to create a new master list which is similar to an existing one, but with significant changes, including, particularly, changing the sort order.
If this is a small list, this is relatively easily achievable by:
However, if the list is a long one, then the re-organising can be extremely tedious, especially over a dodgy internet connection to the Central server (editing master lists must happen on the Central Server)! This is best achieved by:
This method can even be used to effectively re-order an existing master list, but be careful; stop any syncing if in a synced system, and take a backup of your datafile before embarking on this:
Method 1:
Method 2:
This is scarier (deleting items of master lists is a big deal), but avoids the need for steps 3 - 6 of Method 1.
There are a number of circumstances under which you will need to remove an item from a master list when it is currently in stock including:
In these cases, it is relatively straightforward to remove an item from a master list - except that if your system is using master lists to control item visibility in stores, then:
mSupply will not allow you to remove an item from a master list IF any store that is assigned to that master list has:
There are two options open to you:
Wait for all stock to be removed from all the affected stores before you remove the item(s) from the master list. This is a particularly painful process if there are many affected stores. While you are waiting for the last store to remove the item, other stores can continue to receive and stock the item!
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