Bulk Inventory Import

Learn how to import inventory or inventory movements into Autodesk Fusion Operations.

David Andrade avatar
Written by David Andrade
Updated this week

Autodesk Fusion Operations allows you to import inventory movements in bulk.

This can be done in two different ways:

A. Inventory Fix: By setting a target quantity for a Product / Lot / Warehouse Location. Autodesk Fusion Operations will do the calculations and create the necessary inventory movements to reach that quantity.

B. Inventory Movements: Create the stock movements directly to add or remove stock for a combination of Product / Lot / Warehouse Location.

How to import

1. To Bulk import your inventory movements, go to Inventory → Inventory Movements.

2. Select the option Import and choose if you want to import a Inventory Fix or Inventory Movements.

3. You can choose to import or to download a file template in case you are not sure which columns to include. In case you choose to download the file template, in the right side of the page, you will find an option to download it. After choosing the most convenient format, an excel/csv file with the correct headers will be exported into your computer.

4. Choose the excel/csv file to import and click in ‘Start to send’.

The template is the same for an Inventory Fix and to create Inventory Movements. The file should be previously prepared as follows:

Mandatory Fields:

  • Product Code (Column A): Code for the product you are creating a movement for.

  • Quantity (C): Quantity you either wish to fix for or quantity for the movement you want to create (according to the import type that you chose).

Optional Fields:

  • Date (D): Date of the movements that will be created, if not filled the current date will be used.

    • Depending on your User ‘locale’, the date format varies. It is possible to verify the date format of your company in the creation page of an inventory movement. If you need help on how to access this page please click here.
      Note: in case your date time format includes seconds, those must not be added to the import.

  • Product Parameters (B): Variable Parameters (if they exist) for the product you are creating a movement for.

  • Lot (E): Lot number that you wish to create the movement for.

  • Cost (F): Total cost for the movement or total cost for the Product / Lot / Warehouse Location after the import (according to the import type that you chose).

  • Comment (G): In this field you can leave a comment that will be in the inventory movement created. This way you can easily afterwards identify the imported movements in your “Inventory Movements” tab.

  • Location (H): If you are using the Multi-Site feature, you can choose which Site the movement is being made in.

  • Warehouse (I): Warehouse where the quantity is being moved.

  • Warehouse Location (J): Warehouse location where the quantity is being moved.

Notes:

1. Consider formatting the columns in text before you begin filling;
2. Do not use formulas in cells;
3. Only the first page of the file is imported. You can use other pages but only the first one will be taken into account.

4. The import only accepts 1001 lines at the time, if you have more than 1001 lines you will have to separate them into several imports.

5. Read carefully the warnings that may appear:

Yellow warnings - There are two possible warnings:

  • Quantity matches current inventory. Will be ignored.
    The quantity you have as a target in your Inventory Fix is the quantity that is already there. In these cases, the system will import the file anyway but will ignore the line. You must recheck what might have been changed.

  • Quantity will be decreased and cost will be increased (or vice versa), so 2 inventory movements will be created.
    When you are fixing the quantity and changing the cost, the system will create two inventory movements, one for increasing the quantity and another one for decreasing the cost or vice-versa.

Red warnings - the system will not import the line with the warning, because something is wrong and a workaround cannot be applied. Nevertheless, you can ignore the line and import the rest of the file, by clicking ‘Ignore line’.

6. Click on the ‘Confirm’ button and your Inventory Fix/Inventory Movements have been uploaded!

Inventory Fix vs Inventory Movements

As mentioned before in a Stock Fix you give Fusion Operations a target quantity and the software will do the necessary adjustments to bring the Product with that Lot and Location to that quantity.

Stock movements will create individual movements with the quantity you specify.

For a practical example :

Product A with Lot C has 20 units in Production.

Let’s see the difference of importing an Inventory Fix or an Inventory Movement with quantity 10 for this product and location.

Inventory Fix : Since we input quantity 10, Fusion Operations will create a -10 movement on this Product, to bring it back to 10 from 20. You will be left with 10 units.

Inventory Movements : Since we input quantity 10, a +10 movement will be created and you will be left with 30 units.

Facilitating the import and notes

You can extract your inventory list from Fusion Operations by going to Inventory → Pressing Excel (whole list) (1) or Excel (Whole List) Parameters (2), depending if your products have variable parameters or not.

This makes it easier to build your import as all fields that are required can just be copied to your import and you just need to adjust the quantity.

The first option, "Excel (Whole List)", will export a file with two tabs:

  • "Inventory": will contain a list of all inventory items in Autodesk Fusion Operations, along with their respective total quantities (ignoring lots or warehouse locations),

  • "Lots": will contain the same list as above, but detailed by lot and warehouse location (meaning that the same product will appear more than once in case multiple lots exist, or it exists in more than one warehouse location). In the image below, an example is presented.

The second option, "Excel (Whole List) Parameters" is intended to use when you have variable parameters associated with the products. Therefore, if you need this information to be presented in the list, we recommend choosing this option.

Note: The movements/fix will only be applied to the Product / Lot / Warehouse Location that you specify in the import. In other words, if you wish to zero out a Product / Lot / Warehouse Location, you will need to create a row on the Excel import for a movement or specify that you want to fix the quantity to zero for that Product / Lot / Warehouse Location.

If you still have some doubts about the ‘Bulk Inventory Import’, feel free to reach out in our live-chat feature or directly to your CSM.

Need help? Request a Fusion Operations expert to contact you here.

Did this answer your question?