Glossary
A glossary of the terms, systems, and shorthand used across Three Bears Alaska projects. If you're new to the account - or you've run into a term in a ticket, PR, or client call that you can't place - start here.
Platform & Tools
The applications, devices, and systems we build, maintain, or integrate with.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Smart Tools Hub | The full name of the web app we've built for Three Bears Alaska. It functions as the single repo for every store-based tool we've built for them, and accepts a single login from each store (not each employee). |
| SmartPO | Fully named Smart Purchase Order, this is the purchase order builder and predictive ordering tool within Smart Tools Hub. It is our, to-date, biggest development for Three Bears Alaska. |
| Warehouse Order Guide | Or WOG for short, is the legacy version of SmartPO. Originally built in Power Apps then moved to PHP, it only builds POs (no predictive ordering) and only allows orders to the Warehouse. |
| Costco Item List Catalog | Or CILC for short, sometimes called the Costco Catalog, this is a list of item information that gets automatically added/updated in BRData daily from Costco. It contains information such as item on-hand info for the various Costco vendors, as well as item-specific info. The data is something Costco offers that many vendors do not. Three Bears has their own system of internal scripts that import this data. |
| Zebra / Handheld / Scanner (TC57) | The handheld, mobile phone like device that Three Bears Alaska PICs use to scan items and use our app. Zebra is the brand that manufactures them, and the TC57 is the latest model of device that Three Bears Alaska is using. They run Android behind the scenes. |
| BRData | The company that handles the POS for Three Bears Alaska. They manage all of the data and many of the collection systems Three Bears Alaska uses. Because of this all of the store and item data we use is loaded into the database they use and maintain. This can also simply refer to that database or the data in it. (see Replication for more info.) |
| Replication | The BRData database is not managed by us and thus we cannot control the resourcing. For that reason, when initially reporting for Three Bears Alaska, we created our own copy of their database and a replication process from their database to ours. After that time, we created some tables on our end that are not on theirs (mostly SmartPO / ordering related tables). The replication process unfortunately breaks often due to issues Three Bears causes, or issues at BRData who often truncate and rebuild tables in the night. |
Ordering & Purchasing
Terms that come up when creating, adjusting, and submitting purchase orders.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| PO / Purchase Order | In any field or client, these are just a list of items one party is ordering from another. With SmartPO, these are the (usually excel) files we create and send to the back office or direct to vendor. |
| Vendor | These are the external warehouse stores that Three Bears Alaska orders their items to sell from (ex. Costco). The term also includes the internal Three Bears Alaska warehouse where they store items in bulk and the stores order shipments from. |
| Lead Time | The time between an order being placed to a vendor, and the items from that order arriving at the store. These can vary due to things like barge sailing days, but base values are stored in the database (TB_SmartPO_OH_LeadTime) by store and vendor locations. |
| Goal Period / Coverage Window | The time period/window we're ordering for - often used in context with predictions. IE we're guessing how many items you should order to satisfy the next X number of days after the lead period ends. |
| DOHG / Days on Hand Goal | The current (but legacy after UOW 26.08-A) method of obtaining the Goal Period. This method is the number of days of stock any item should have at a given store, tracked in the database (TB_SmartPO_OH_LeadTime). This metric is used by Three Bears Alaska to modify the cushion of supply they have - ie if they're selling out too quickly, they just bump this number up. |
| "Suggestion" | This is the term used generally to refer to the predicted quantity of an item that SmartPO 'suggests' a PIC order at any given time. |
| CE / New to Vendor | Items that are new to the vendor and are not yet in BRData and thus have no UPC in the system. CE here refers to 'Costco Exclusive' as currently the only New To Vendor items we're tracking come from Costco on the (See Costco Item List Catalog). These items will be added to BRData the first time they arrive at a store after being place on a PO. No historical data exists for them, and we cannot make predictions on them. Often special circumstances need made for these items, such as the OrderItemsCostco table in the database. These are useful to see so stores can fill holes on shelves made by other products becoming discontinued. |
| New to Store | Items that have never been sold at a given store before. These are useful to see so stores can fill holes on shelves made by other products becoming discontinued. |
| Receiving | General term referring to the process of getting a shipment in at a store. IE receiving the items that were ordered via a PO sent to a vendor. |
Inventory & Product Data
Terms describing how products, quantities, and stock are identified and tracked.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Unit | The single item Ex. a toy car, a single soda, a pack of sodas, a jug of milk |
| Case | The pack of single units, including the pack that the vendor ships to the store Ex. the pallet of units that the vendor sends and the store receives. |
| Common Stock | The general term of when an item can be sold as is or broken into individuals and sold as individuals. Tracked in the database in the InventoryExtraction table. Ex. 6 pack of sodas being broken apart and sold as single bottles, sold as a 6 pack under one UPC or as 6 individuals under another UPC. |
| Common Stock - Main (UPC in InventoryExtraction) | The larger of the two common stock items Ex the 6 pack of sodas |
| Common Stock - Ingredient (Extraction UPC in InventoryExtraction) | The smaller of the two common stock items Ex. the single soda |
| On Hand | Referring to both the store or the vendor depending on what data source you're looking at, this is the count of how many units or cases a location currently physically has in stock - both on the shelf and in the back in the case of stores. |
| Size / Alpha | The sizing information about a product. This could refer to how many are in a pack (6 ea.) or how big an item is (16 oz.). |
| TI HI | Metrics that help describe how the warehouse stores this item. While I'm admittedly not sure on the specifics, it refers to the dimensions of pallets, IE x many cases wide, x many cases tall. |
| Shrink | The amount of product that is lost and not sold - spoiled, stolen, broken, etc. |
| Spoilage | The amount of product that is lost and not sold that specifically goes bad/hits its expiration before it is purchased. |
Store Operations
Terms tied to how the stores themselves are organized and run.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Department (Major Dept) | Departments refer to the different sections of the store. 'Major Department' is primarily used by accounting and are large sweeps like 'cooler' while just 'Department' refers to the more specific category in the store like 'dairy'. Both can be found in that database on a table by the same name, and map directly to the item table. |
| Tag | The name and barcode label on items. These appear on items themselves, but also on the shelf fronts under where the item is sold. Tags can be printed by a handheld Zebra printer. |
| PIC | Person in Charge, these are the department leads or managers in the stores. They make ordering decisions and the people who place orders using SmartPO. These are the people that fall into the role of 'orderer'. |
| Tax Exempt | For a number of reasons, certain individuals in certain regions of Alaska are tax exempt, meaning they carry a tax exemption card and do not have to pay tax on purchases. Three Bears Alaska record their signatures and purchases when they occur, so if they are ever audited they have a list showing why they did not submit that tax money to the government. According to Mike, this list isn't intended to be perfect, and only need to generally show accurate info to prove to the government that they're recording it. The tax exemption types are: Senior Citizen, Non-Profit, Government, Resale |
| Back Office | General term for the offices within each store. This can refer to the managerial folks who run the back office, or the physical office in the store those managerial folks run. These are in each store, not just the HQ. |