Action schedule

In managing your genebank's germplasm inventory, the staff are responsible for many tasks that must be systematically completed. You can use the GGCE Inventory Actions and Schedule features extensively to manage these daily tasks and operations.

The Schedule organizes and groups inventory actions to give you a quick picture of genebank activities in a selected time period.
Here is a partial view of an example inventory action schedule screen.

Adding and monitoring inventory actions

More importantly, by using GGCE's inventory action capabilities, your genebank can schedule ongoing inventory tasks in an organized fashion. You can record these tasks and assign target dates to them. By recording and storing these actions in the database, you can then monitor tasks in progress or even review completed actions performed in the past.

The GGCE database has a list of possible actions that are related to inventory items. (Your GGCE administrator maintains the list to meet your genebank's needs.) When you are recording an inventory action, you select it from the list of possible actions.

However, in GGCE, the first step in recording an action is to select the inventory item(s) to which the action will apply. The general steps in recording and using inventory actions are:

• Select the inventory item(s) from an inventory list.
• Open the action menu on the list's bottom right; click the Schedule inventory action option.
• Complete the Inventory Action form.
• List and review actions:
  • using lists
  • using GGCE's Schedule feature
• Edit or delete actions as needed.

Adding (scheduling) an inventory action

Select inventory items from the inventory items list and then roll the mouse over the action button on the bottom right. Click the Schedule inventory action option.

The Schedule inventory action form will display. This contains fields that are useful in documenting an action. The fields' descriptions document each field. Note that the Method and Action Cooperator fields use existing data from the database; as you type, the available choices will be listed.

Listing inventory actions and their statuses

How do you determine what actions have been scheduled for inventory items? Several different methods are available:

• Display actions for one inventory item
• Display actions for multiple inventory items
• Use the Inventory menu's Schedule feature

Displaying, editing, and deleting actions for one specific inventory item

When displaying a single inventory record, selecting the Actions option on the banner will list the actions for that one inventory item.

You can edit or delete these actions one at a time. Select an individual action item from the action list and then use the button in the lower right corner; select Edit or Remove, as needed.

Displaying actions for multiple inventory items

With an inventory list displayed, select the Inventory actions option from the Inventory menu. Actions will be listed in the grid for the current list of inventory records. Notice in the image below the banner displays four action headings.

Use the banner links to select an option respective to the four possible states:

• In Progress – lists inventory item/action pairs that have started and have not yet finished
• Pending – lists actions that have not yet started, but whose Not Before Date is prior to the current date
• Completed – lists actions that have completed; the Duration column indicates the number of days
• Scheduled – lists actions which have not been started, displaying the number of days before these actions will become pending in the Not Before Date column

Monitoring a schedule of actions

Use the Schedule option on the Inventory menu to display an overall view of genebank inventory actions. This feature displays metrics graphically by inventory action type and progress. Use the Schedule feature to manage tasks pertinent to your inventory.

If you click the label in one of the action sections, the list of corresponding inventory items will be displayed. Below, as an example, "Overdue" is selected. The second screen below is the resulting display, listing the inventory items whose "Cleared for seed storage" task is overdue.