A company that produces milk and cheese, or soy and maize, ends up with long lists: every stage list, process and lot of every product in one place. A product line groups your products by family, for example Milk and Cheese, or Soy and Maize, so you can work with one family at a time. In Spanish and Portuguese the console calls it a cadena or cadeia.
What a product line is
A product line is a named group of your products. Each product is in one product line at most. Products with the same code are always in the same product line, because a lot names its product by that code. Products in no product line are listed as Other products. An input, such as feed or seed, is never in a product line and never in Other products.
Everything else follows from the products: a lot is in its product's line, and a stage list or a process is in the lines of the products it uses.
Main products, co-products, by-products and inputs
Every product has a Role, so the product lines show what your company really makes. Choose it in Products when you add or edit a product:
- Main product: what your company produces or trades. It makes a product line.
- Co-product: comes out together with a main product and is sold on its own, such as soybean meal or hides. It stays in the line of the product it comes from.
- By-product: a residue of lower value, such as coffee husk or molasses. It stays in the line of the product it comes from too.
- Input: what your company uses up, such as feed, seed, fertilizer, crop protection products and veterinary medicines.
An input is never a product line: it does not show in the header switcher or as Other products, and the product form hides its product line. It belongs to the lines of the work that uses it. The maize you feed your cattle is in the cattle line through the lots and runs it goes into. An input that nothing has used yet shows in every line.
The role is your company’s choice, not the product’s. A grain farm that sells maize has maize as a main product and works in a maize line. A cattle ranch that buys the same maize and soybean meal as feed has them as inputs, and works in its cattle line only.
A product line never cuts the traceability
A product line only groups lists and reports. A trace, a recall, the origin of a lot and its passport always follow every lot, whatever its line. When milk becomes cheese, the cheese lot still shows the milk lots it was made from, even if milk and cheese are in different product lines.
A product line does not limit what people can see. If a team must be kept apart, it is a separate company of your group.
Choose the product lines you work in
When your company runs two product lines or more, the header shows a third switcher after the company. Choose All product lines, one line, or several, and Other products for products in no line; the header then reads your choice, for example Coffee + Soy. Every list follows it, such as Products, Harvests & lots, Processing, Deliveries, Certificates and Processes and stages, and so do the dashboards and the reports. The console remembers your choice on every device you sign in on.
A link someone sends you can carry its own product lines. The page then shows those lines with the notice Showing product lines from the link and Back to my lines, and your choice stays as it was.
Approvals, Needs you, findings and the agents’ Review are never narrowed by your choice, so nothing waits unseen. Below what is in your lines they say, for example, +3 in other product lines with Show. Show lists those items with Showing only what is in other product lines, and Back to my lines returns to your lines. Notifications always show whole. A trace, a recall and the custody of a lot always follow every line.
A processing run whose inputs and outputs are in different lines, such as milk made into cheese, shows in both lines and is marked as a bridge, for example Bridge: Milk → Cheese. A field work type of your company shows in the lines you give it with Choose product lines; with none chosen, it shows in every line. Plantings, applications and irrigation always show. The assistant works with product lines too: ask it, for example, which lots you have in the cheese line.
What each list follows
Your choice in the header narrows every list by what links a record to a product line:
- Lots, stages, deliveries and movements: the product of the lot.
- Processing runs: any lot that goes in or comes out, so a bridge shows in both lines.
- Certificates: any lot or product they cover.
- Sites and plots: what is grown or kept there, from their field work and the lots registered there.
- Parties: the lots you trade with them.
- Field work: its crop, its type or its plot. Facts: their lot or site. Certificate documents: the record they belong to.
- Automations, agents, dashboards and reports: the product lines you give them.
A record with no link to a product yet, such as a new site with no field work or a party you have not traded with, shows in every line, so nothing gets lost.
Some pages never follow your choice, because they must see everything: the lineage of a lot, recalls, traces, custody and the mass balance, the audit trail, billing, members and access, and your settings and integrations.
Reports and dashboards by product line
Dashboards follow the product lines chosen in the header: every widget about lots, deliveries, processing and certificates shows only those lines, and a widget that cannot be narrowed says it ignores them. To compare lines, choose All product lines and group by product line.
In Reports, every dataset about lots has a product_line field with the line's code,
and none for Other products:
FROM lots
SHOW count() AS lots
BY product_line
DURING this_quarter
A processing run has two: product_line, the line of what it made, and input_product_line, the line of most of
what went in. The milk your cheese plant used is WHERE input_product_line = "milk" AND product_line = "cheese".
The product lines and Other products always add up to the company's total. A signed report keeps the names of the
lines as they were when it was signed.
A scheduled report from the library keeps the product lines chosen in the header when it was scheduled: every run reads those lines, whoever opens it later. The bell also says how many notifications and approvals are about other product lines.
Automations by product line
An automation can act on one product line only. In Automations, under Only if, add the field The product line and pick the line, for example "When a lot is registered, if the product line is Cheese, then notify operators". The line is read when the automation runs, so a product that joins the line later is covered. See Act on one product line.
Product lines of automations, agents, dashboards and reports
Automations, agents, dashboards and saved reports name no product, so you choose the lines they belong to. Open one in Automations, Agents, Dashboards or Reports and choose its Product lines: one line, several, or none for every line, which is the default.
When someone works in a line, these lists show what belongs to that line and what belongs to every line. A-REX reports are in every line. The product lines only sort the lists: an automation or an agent still works on everything it is set up for.
Start with your product lines
When a group is set up, the first question after its name is which product lines it works in: coffee, soy, maize, cattle, dairy, cotton and the other main product families. Each one says what it recommends and why: products by HS code, units, stages and processes, the rules of your countries and markets, certificates people often hold and what partners usually share. A line marked Starter has its products, rules and certificates ready, and its stages are being prepared. Each company then chooses, in its own setup, which of the group's lines it runs; with only one, it runs that one without being asked.
Product lines of your organization
Your organization keeps the product lines together with its product catalog. When your company adds a product from the catalog, it runs that product's line too. Under Processes and stages, the Product lines tab lists the lines your company runs and, below them, the lines of your organization it does not run yet. Choose Run in this company to start one: the products your company adopted from its catalog entries join it.
Where your organization allows products of your own, New product line adds a line of your company's own. Its code never changes and is never used again.
Move a product to another product line
In Products, open a product's menu and choose Move to product line. Products with the same code move with it. Nothing changes on the ledger, and its lots keep their history.
A product line can be archived once it holds no product.