Introduction

In order to understand how OpenBoxes manages inventory, it is good to become acquainted with the way products are entered into the system.

• In the search bar at the top of the screen type in “Syringe”. You’ll notice that many options will populate below the search bar. You have the option to select one of the option or just hit the enter key.

  • If you select a particular suggested item, it will bring you to a page—called an “electronic stock card” with information about that specific product.

  • If you just hit enter, OB will show you all the products that have the words (in the order/punctuation you typed) in the system.

• After typing “syringe”, hit enter. The following screen should show up:

• As you can see, at the time of this example, there were 280 products that related to the search term “syringe”…this item can come in different volumes, different gauges, can be made of different materials, may be produced by different manufacturers, and on and on the differences go. 

• Ideally, this exercise has demonstrated that there are MANY different types of medical products, even when looking at a single type of product, like a syringe.

OB deals with this issue from two different angles in order to help the user to drill down into the specific product they are looking for:

• OB Codes

• Specific naming conventions for products

The OpenBoxes Code

1. Similar to a manufacturer or vendor reference number, each product in OB is assigned an alphanumeric identifier that is specific to that exact product.

2. Products are "generic", meaning we might have many different manufacturer codes and sources for the same product

   1. If you order 1 million 4” steel nails from a vendor, they may send you 500,000 that were made by Manufacturer #1, 250,000 made by Manufacturer #2, and 250,000 made by Manufacturer #3.

   2. In OB, we would keep track of all 3 batches under the same product, "Steel nails". We would note the sources in the sources tab

3. Knowing the OB code can be helpful for you to search for the product in the search box in the upper right hand corner of the screen.

4. The user can type in any keyword from any part of the product description, vendor name, manufacturer name, or OB code. 

5. The easiest way to find the exact product you are looking for is to type in the 4-5-digit OB Code, if you know it!

View and Search

Users can view, filter, and export lists of products under Products>Products

Clicking "list products" shows a list of all products. Users can filter the list by Name, Category, Formulary, or Tags. In the example below, I have filtered for all drugs on the HUM or ZL formularies. Click “download results” for a list in excel.

For a list of all product in the system and all associated data, click export products

Create and Edit

Only users with Admin permissions can create and edit products. For instructions, refer to <insert page link here>. For more information about user permissions, refer to <insert page link here>.