The up-to-dateness of created planograms, for example in case of seasonal goods that can no longer be reordered because there will be a different model of such products next year, is a very common problem and concern when starting with planograms. This is what the automatic product replacement functionality on planograms can help with as it includes automatic republishing of the planogram with the new product.

Perhaps the most notorious example of such situations is the clothing market, where it usually means that different goods are offered every season. If a product is sold out in one store, cannot be reordered and there is no stock in the central warehouse, it is necessary to place a new product on the planogram. With a large number of stores, this is very difficult to manage as each store will fully sell out the product at a different time. This is why we have implemented an automatic placement module in Quant, where you can use fully automatic substitutions based on exact or more open matching of product attributes or a substitution mode for only certain products with defined substitutions. 

Automatic replacements can take place immediately, but they can also be scheduled for the future. This allows for smooth coordination between replacements and orders, where the replacement is first scheduled, then the product is ordered to the store, and finally the replacement is processed.

When setting up automatic replacements, you must go through the following steps to control which stores, categories and products will be replaced:

1. Settings at categories

The settings on the categories allow you to set whether Quant should automatically generate reacements for those categories, as well as several other attributes that allow you to define exactly how the replacements should work.

For more information, please read the manual Automatic Replacements - Category Settings.

2. Setting up categories at stores

You can also set up automatic replacements at a more detailed level, for a category-store combination, if for some reason you don't want to use replacements everywhere. This setting takes precedence over the category settings.

For more information, please read the manual Automatic Replacements - Category Settings in Stores.

3. Settings on products

Settings on products are necessary if you want to replace products only with a defined replacement or products from one group of replacements. If you are happy with the settings on categories, you can skip this step.

For more information, please read the manual Automatic Replacements - Product Settings.

4. Setting up the Automatic Replacements task

By setting up an automatic task, you define, among other things, on which day and at what time Quant should perform automatic replacements.

For more information, please read the manual Automatic Task for Automatic Replacements.

5. Setting up Reverse Replacements

Setting reverse replacements allows you to get the set of required products on already published planograms.

For more information, please read the manual Reverse Replacement Settings.

6. System for Selecting Replacements

Automatic replacements are evaluated based on a number of attributes.

For more information, please read the manual System for Selecting Replacements.

7. Evaluation of Replacements

Completed, planned, and missing replacements can be evaluated based on designated reports.

For more information, please read the manuals Missing Replacements Report, Planned Replacements Report and Automatic Replacements in Planograms on Dashboard.