[Show & Tell] Bulk creation of stock locations and part categories

[wolflu05]

Hello,

I want to share the first beta version 🌟 of my inventree-bulk-plugin. Currently it's fully functional, but not fully tested. I'd love if some of you find it interesting and would give me feedback.

It is a bulk creation plugin for InvenTree, which helps you generating locations/categories in bulk by using customized naming strategies and ensure them along your complete storage tree. That means you not only have the option to generate multidimensional* names for stock locations or part categories, but also have the option to save the templates for later usage if your storage room uses e.g. drawer towers to ensure naming consistency for later added towers.

ℹ️ * multidimensional means that you are not limited to namings like D1,D2, .. but also something like D1.A, D1.B, D2.A, D2.B, ...

🌟Screenshots

This will generate the previous mentioned example:

📄 Some more examples

But even nested generations don't stop you.

And with parent name match, you can even generate different sub-locations depending of the name of the parent:

ℹ️ More info

You'll find a complete usage and installation guide on my README.md.

I already know that @joaoferreira-git was trying to build something like this with ChatGPT in #4016.

[SergeoLacruz]

Hi,
Nice Idea. I needed this a year ago... i just wrote some python code using the python lib cause I needed it only once for the first setup. I will try your plugin soon. It is also a good example. Thanks for that.

Michael

[wolflu05]

Hey Michael,

I was at the same point and wanted something more usable for non-programmers. Remember this is currently in a beta phase (v0.1.0) and should not be used in production. I'd love to get this released as soon as it gets more tested.

Lukas

[joaoferreira-git]

For now i don't really need this but if i have the time this week, i will install this in production and test it, if it breaks i'm going to ask for a refund and start a lawsuit for all the emocional damage. 😂

[SergeoLacruz]

Nice maker space. The T-shape SCHUKO divider is vintage :-) Seems you are located in Germany.

[matmair]

@SergeoLacruz not another one ;-) I would think Portugal or Spain

[wolflu05]

@joaoferreira-git Thank you for trying out my plugin. Your space looks pretty cool organized.

For your label printing thing, maybe you can develop a standard paper printer plugin which just adds bulk prints onto a single paper until it's filled and uses the next page, so that you don't have to waste your time manually adding QR codes to a word document.

I think your request could be handled with this feature request wolflu05/inventree-bulk-plugin#4 . Then you could do something like 1-40,I1,Please let me know what you think of this solution.

[matmair]

I thought we had an FR for printing labels on sheets of paper but can not find it right now. This has definitely been asked about before. Feel free to raise a feature request, not sure how this is done best (core or plugin) but this seems like something we should have a standard solution for from my POV (no promises though).

[joaoferreira-git]

Nice maker space. The T-shape SCHUKO divider is vintage :-) Seems you are located in Germany.

I'm from Portugal and T-shape SCHUKO thing is still sold here in Portugal, this one is old but in the garage I have one I bought last year.

@joaoferreira-git Thank you for trying out my plugin. Your space looks pretty cool organized.

For your label printing thing, maybe you can develop a standard paper printer plugin which just adds bulk prints onto a single paper until it's filled and uses the next page, so that you don't have to waste your time manually adding QR codes to a word document.

I think your request could be handled with this feature request wolflu05/inventree-bulk-plugin#4 . Then you could do something like 1-40,I1,Please let me know what you think of this solution.

I think that feature would do what i need.
Trying to be organized and that's why i installed inventree, to force me to be organized and so far it's kinda working.

I thought we had an FR for printing labels on sheets of paper but can not find it right now. This has definitely been asked about before. Feel free to raise a feature request, not sure how this is done best (core or plugin) but this seems like something we should have a standard solution for from my POV (no promises though).

No problem i can open a feature request, after i finish sorting and organizing all my stuff i will make sure to post the pictures in the a discussions as someone asked, not sure if it was you or SchrodingersGat.

[matmair]

Nice!

[SchrodingersGat]

Very cool @wolflu05 and looks great

[wolflu05]

Thanks @SchrodingersGat and @matmair. The generation on the backend is making use of pythons itertools. My next goals are to add some tests and add a few smaller features.

Currently I don't know, but I feel like the AppMixin (to store custom models) for saving stored templates) feel somehow not right, but I don't found another solution. And secondly I use the app mixin for serving preact (leightweight react which needs in combination with htm no build, it can run directly in the browser) as a static file.

And my second point is bulk creation takes some time (multiple seconds) if they are huge amounts of items (>1000) if I create each item after each other. What do you think of this solution? https://stackoverflow.com/a/67517621

[matmair]

@wolflu05 AppMixin was exactly included for these more complex use cases as it exposes all Django functionalities. And it reduces the number of things we need to expose manually.

[wolflu05]

Ok. Feel bad because this has some side effects if you remove the plugin, you still have the table on your database.

And what do you think to that Stack overflow Post where they set the lft, rgh and level to 0 and then regenerate the tree? Does this look like an appropriate solution or should I continue with the single creation?

[matmair]

@wolflu05 I do not really see a problem with persistent data storage, better than losing it. We could add a lifecycle task for removing it but that could create issues with failed migrations.

Does this look like an appropriate solution or should I continue with the single creation?

We probably need to change the base model for that - not really sure it is worth it.

[wolflu05]

Ok. Thank you

[eeintech]

Very nice, well done!

[eeintech]

Done! I updated the description to check the preview:

Looks good and it works!

Nice job @wolflu05 😉

[wolflu05]

Thank you.
One Tipp, you can also use a generate name without a dimension, so you can just generate a static name in each parent as sub-location.

[wolflu05]

What do you think? In the beginning, the ui may look a bit complex to understand, but my goal was to provide that set of advanced opportunities. Was it self understanding? Do you read through the documentation? How did you managed to learn how to use it?

[eeintech]

One Tipp, you can also use a generate name without a dimension, so you can just generate a static name in each parent as sub-location.

Makes sense, I was pushing your plugin to see how far it can go 😉

What do you think? In the beginning, the ui may look a bit complex to understand, but my goal was to provide that set of advanced opportunities.

Overall I wasn't familiar with plugins, @matmair did a real nice job adding this feature in InvenTree which, with a little bit of polishing, can become more admin friendly.

About your plugin, I guess I like the idea if you were to manage a warehouse for instance. For our "little" lab I could have saved myself from creating our current sublocations (we have 20), but it didn't take much as I probably spend half hour doing it manually.

Was it self understanding? Do you read through the documentation? How did you managed to learn how to use it?

I wouldn't have understood without the screenshot you posted above honestly, pictures/video examples are much much easier to get you started than words IMO.
I did ready your README but was still confused about a few things so the screenshot helped clarify.

So I would say the first thing to show is a simple example then dive into the details.

[wolflu05]

Thank you for your feedback. Good idea with the example. I'll also try to add some short gifs. It's hard for me as a developer who developed that plugin to say how easy it will be for others to understand, but I try my best to make it as easy as possible.

[Benjamin0001]

Any news about this plugin? Can I use it and then remove it when I'm done?

[wolflu05]

Hello, sorry to say, but I'm currently very busy, so I have no time improving it. Currently the plugin works, but I have several improvements planned. My goal is to continue development in a few months.

[Benjamin0001]

Ok, thanks for the quick reply! I will try it out. I have about 12x16x4 shelf locations that I need to create for a test run. I will let you know how it goes.

[wolflu05]

Hello all, it took a long time, but now the time has come, v1.0.0 finally arrives 🚀 on 02.08.2023. There were a lot of breaking changes during the beta period to test out different things, but now with the first final version the syntax will stay compatible. You can read more about v1.0.0 on the inventree-bulk-plugin announcement discussion or on the README.md. I would really appreciate if you can share any feedback about the plugin on the linked discussion.

[wolflu05]

v1.1.0 is released now 🚀. Now even parts can be generated using templates. You can read more about the highlights on the v1.1.0 release page

[SchrodingersGat]

Very impressive @wolflu05