How does the Low Stock notification work?

Whether it's your Assets, your Licenses, or anything else you routinely deploy to the colleagues in your organization, a key part of managing your inventory is knowing when you may be close to running out of a specific item.

BlueTally helps you manage that with the Low Stock notification. These alerts can be enabled for your BlueTally account, as well as for additional notifications made available through email, Slack, and Microsoft Teams.

In short, Low Stock refers to any item whose Available quantity is lower than its Minimum Quantity. Read on to learn more about how you can use this effectively.

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The first place you'll most likely see mention of Low Stock is in the corresponding dashboard widget. If you're using the default dashboard on your landing page, you'll see the Low Stock widget below the search bar, as shown below.

If you click on the red number in the widget, a pop-up window will appear showing you which items are currently experiencing low stock.

Additionally, any time an item in your inventory goes into "Low Stock", you'll receive a notification through the platform. You can view this from the bell icon in the upper right-hand corner of your screen.

You'll notice in the screenshots above that not only will the Low Stock notification inform you how much of an item currently remains in your inventory, but it also tells you that it's below a certain minimum quantity. You may be wondering how this works and if this is something you can customize for your own needs. The answer is yes!

The Minimum Quantity value sets a threshold for when you should be notified if the item in question goes below the quantity you've set. Whenever your available stock of an item goes below the Minimum Quantity, that item will appear in the Low Stock section of the Dashboard, and you will receive a Low Stock notification.

Please be advised that a Low Stock alert only gets sent when your available inventory begins above the Minimum Quantity, then goes below the Minimum Quantity during a Checkout. This means you won't be inundated with continuous alerts if your stock continues to decrease after an item has already entered Minimum Quantity.
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For example, in the screenshot above, if you were to deploy another laptop, you would not receive a new notification informing you that there are only 5 laptops available, below the minimum of 15. However, if several laptops were returned to bring your deployable inventory back up to 15, and then you initiated a new checkout, you would receive a new notification letting you know that this item had entered the Minimum Quantity threshold again.

Minimum Quantity can be set for the following sections in your BlueTally account: Accessories, Consumables, Licenses, Components, Products, and Categories.

Accessories:

Consumables:

Licenses:

Here, it is called "Min Seats", instead of "Min Quantity" like the others.

Components:

Products:

Categories:

Minimum Quantity does not appear on the main Categories page like other items, but if you click on an individual Category, you will see the Minimum Quantity listed on its Show Category page.

Editing the Minimum Quantity value for an item can be done as if you were editing anything else on that page. Wherever you can click an Edit button, you'll be brought to that item's Edit page, where you can then determine what number should go in the Minimum Quantity field.

We'll use the Laptops category as an example. First, from the Categories page, click "Laptops" to see the Show Category page or click the pencil icon in the Edit column to go straight to the Edit Category page.

If you clicked "Laptops", you will be directed to the Show Category page, where you can see the Minimum Quantity and other key data about the Laptops category. You can then click on the blue Edit button in the upper right-hand corner to go to the Edit Category page.

Whichever way you get to the Edit Category page, you'll see the Minimum Quantity field where you can enter the numerical value that should trigger the Low Stock notification.

You might also notice the "?" icon next to Minimum Quantity. When you hover your cursor over it, it reads "The minimum amount of assets using products belonging to this category that should be in a deployable state before an alert is triggered."

So, in case it wasn't already clear, your Available quantity for any item is determined by how many of those items are currently in the Ready to Deploy status or any other status that fits the green Deployable status designation.

Once you've entered the new number for your Minimum Quantity, click the blue Save button at the bottom of the page to update your changes.

You'll then see a message in a green confirmation box reading, "Category was updated successfully." This will confirm that your Minimum Quantity has been changed to your preferences.

Low Stock notifications will always be available through the platform by default. However, you can configure your account settings to receive these alerts via email as well.

First, click on the Settings tab in the dropdown menu under the profile icon in the upper right-hand corner of your account.

Scroll down to the Email Notifications section in your account settings. Alternatively, you can click the Email Notifications heading in the left-hand column of the page.

Enter the email addresses that should receive notifications and toggle on the Low Stock Notifications option.

Scroll down further to click the blue Save button at the bottom of the section.

You'll see a message stating "Settings were updated successfully" in a green message box. This will confirm that your Low Stock emails have been enabled.

Now, any time the Low Stock event occurs in your Dashboard, not only will you receive an alert through BlueTally platform notifications, but you will also receive an email sent from [email protected].

Our Microsoft Teams and Slack integrations allow you to receive many of the same notifications from BlueTally on your respective Teams or Slack account, including Low Stock! Here's how you can enable them:

First, visit the dedicated Integrations page on your BlueTally account, found in the dropdown menu when clicking on the profile icon in the upper-left corner of your screen:

Scroll down to the Notifications section and select either the Microsoft Teams or Slack button to access the appropriate section.

Once in the configuration section for either integration, make sure the Low Stock Notification is toggled on. You'll see examples of this for each integration in the screenshots below:

Microsoft Teams:

Slack:

Once that is done, scroll down to the bottom of the section and click the blue Save button. If you have not enabled your Slack or Teams integration, the button will read "Enable" instead, as shown in the screenshot below.

For more information on each of these integrations, please visit the corresponding articles in our Knowledge Base regarding Microsoft Teams and Slack.

In summation, Low Stock alerts can help you keep track of your Assets and other valuable equipment. Here are the important things to remember:

Why am I not receiving email notifications for Low Stock?

If you are not receiving emails for Low Stock, we first recommend double-checking your Email Notification configuration in your account settings to confirm that it's set up the way you expect it should be. See our Email Notifications guide for additional help if needed.

If there are no errors, double-check your spam folders in your email for any messages that could have come from [email protected], as this is the email address used to send email notifications. We also recommend whitelisting this address if you haven't already, to make sure it goes into your inbox instead of any potential spam folders.