Inventory Owner Features in IMS 5.2

Managing Inventory Owners in IMS

IMS 5.2 introduces several new features for adding and applying inventory owner assignments to allocations directly in the IMS user interface.
This article will explain:

• How to add, edit, and activate new inventory owners
• How to filter the Inventory Allocation Editor by owner
• How to assign an owner to an allocation and prevent overwrites of the assignments
• How to generate inventory reports using the editor filter

Adding New Inventory Owners

1. From the main navigation menu, go to Inventory System/Owner Management option.

2. Click on the Inventory Owner tab.You will see a toolbar with options just below the tab.

3. Click the New button. A window appears with the following fields:

Field	Description
Name	Type a name for the inventory owner
Code	Enter a code (up to six characters) to help you identify the owner. This code with be displayed in the Allocation Editor grid.
Default Inventory Type	Choose an inventory type from the drop-down list. Choices are: AGG, Linear, SASO, VIACOM, and ZTA
Active	Click the active button to make the owner available for allocations. Inactive owners are not displayed in Inventory Owner lists.

4. Click Save to commit your changes. Active inventory owners will be immediately available for use with allocations.

Editing Inventory Owners

To edit an inventory owner properties:

1. Select the Inventory Owner in the grid.
2. Click the Edit button. In the popup window that appears, make your changes.
3. Save your changes.

Deactivating Inventory Owners

To deactivate an inventory owner

1. Select the Inventory Owner in the grid.
2. Click the Deactivate button.
3. Click OK to the dialog window that asks you to confirm your change.

Adding Owners to Allocations

After you have activated the owner you want to use for allocations, navigate to the Inventory Allocation Editor option in the main menu.

The filters at the top of the page have been modified by the addition of a new Inventory Owner filter. By default, the owner is set to DISH.

However, you can modify this selection by clicking the filter, which will reveal a complete list of active owners. The menu is multi-select, meaning that you can select one, several, or all of the owners in the list. By selecting all, you can see the complete allocations for the network, including ones that may have been assigned to specific inventory types.

Assigning an Owner to a Specific Allocation

Assigning a new owner to a specific allocation is a simple task.

1. Find the allocation you want to change and right click the tile. A menu appears with a new option at the top of the list, Inventory Owner. Click this option to see a list of inventory owners.

2. In this case, we are going to change the owner to Brighton (code assigned in the Inventory Owner setup is BRTON). Click BRTON. A message appears telling you than the change is being made. Once the changes are applied, the tile will change to show the new details of the allocation, including a color change to show that the allocation is SASO.
3. To prevent future updates from SOS from overwriting the owner, you must lock the allocation. Right-click on the tile again, choose Lock/Unlock, and then Lock. A message will appear confirming the change. Once the process is complete, a lock icon will appear on the tile.

4. To confirm that the allocation is locked, choose the "Locked Only" checkbox at the top of the page, then click Search. The resulting page should show only allocations that are locked.

Note: To change the locked status, right-click the tile, select Lock/Unlock, and choose the Unlock option.

Creating a Report using the Inventory Owner Filter

The Reports page now contains an inventory owner filter so that you can see allocations for one or more owners.

1. Navigate to the Inventory Allocation Report option in the left navigation pane.
2. In the top filter selection, choose a market, zone, and network(s). In the Inventory Owner filter on the right, choose one or more inventory owners.
3. Click Get Report. You can also export the results to PDF or Excel using the Export menu in the lower section of the page.