The Items tab is the place to establish an integrated foundation for your new products or make alterations to your existing ones by:
- Creating or adjusting an extensive item Data Sheet
- Associating one or more specifications to your product
- Finding similar items and associating matches with the TraceGains Gather® Marketplace
- Searching the TraceGains Gather® Intelligence app to monitor ingredients, dietary supplements and/or suppliers for an item
- Connecting data from "Items Supplied", if your item is also in that tab
Why did we create this feature?
The Items tab's pages function as a Single Source of Truth:
"In information systems design and theory, Single Source of Truth (SSOT) is the practice of structuring information models and associated data schema such that every data element is created and edited in only one place."
This is the term we use for the data you gather and integrate by creating an item on the Items tab. For example, if you receive three different versions of a Nutrition form from three different suppliers, it's up to you, the customer, to have defined your own "Single Source of Truth" here in these Items pages.
How do you implement/use this feature?
Let's say you're creating a brand-new item to sell and you want to put it through FM.
Step 1: On the Items grid-page click New.
Step 2: Fill in the identification details in the "Create New Item" pop-up, then choose whether to make your new item a "Production" item or a "Research & Development" item.
| Production Item | Associate production items with suppliers to create Items Supplied. |
| Research and Development Item | Item needs development and can be converted to a Production Item later. |
Step 3: Click Create to go to the item's "Overview" sidebar-page. This is a page of panels to link and import various data relating to your new item.
Step 4: Fill in all the information you can on this Overview page. Review the associated Attributes and Document Requirements through the provided links. Click Save.