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Inventories, your thoughts required
So, we need inventory editing of course. I want it to be as easy as possible, I would like your thoughts both from people who have done inventories, and those who never have that might be interested. You get one point per item in an inventory to encourage you 
I was thinking, you go to an item, you click "Begin Creating/Editing Inventory". It will show you a screen with the current items in the inventory if there are any.
To add items to the inventory, you open a new tab, search the catalog for the item you want to add. When you find it, click on it, then there will be a button like "Add to open inventory". A pop-up window will appear, you enter the quantity and if it is an extra etc. You then carry on to finding the next item.
When you are done, you go back to the original item, refresh the screen, and all the items you have added are there. You then check it over, and submit it for approval.
I may also make a bar at the top of the screen, a bit like the cart on stores,to show items you have recently added to the inventory.
Thoughts? Issues?
We will also support upload from Brickstore, but ideally I'd like to make the website good enough that there is not need to use other software.
I was thinking, you go to an item, you click "Begin Creating/Editing Inventory". It will show you a screen with the current items in the inventory if there are any.
To add items to the inventory, you open a new tab, search the catalog for the item you want to add. When you find it, click on it, then there will be a button like "Add to open inventory". A pop-up window will appear, you enter the quantity and if it is an extra etc. You then carry on to finding the next item.
When you are done, you go back to the original item, refresh the screen, and all the items you have added are there. You then check it over, and submit it for approval.
I may also make a bar at the top of the screen, a bit like the cart on stores,to show items you have recently added to the inventory.
Thoughts? Issues?
We will also support upload from Brickstore, but ideally I'd like to make the website good enough that there is not need to use other software.
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A very important part will be the search. When looking at the part list on instructions it is not always clear what kind of part it is. Plates and bricks are obvious but for instance a large ski pole element is very unclear to me: is it a bar or a minifig utensil? I'm thinking a thumbnail gallery of likely elements of which to pick, filtered by color and not by type.
With respect to inventories in general I would like to be able to start an inventory but not finish it. 90% of the parts are easily added but for the other parts you need to take pictures, add them to the catalog, and so on. That takes a lot of time and effort and frankly doing the basic inventory AND doing all that other work is too much. On multiple occasions I would have started an inventory if I was not required to also add all the new pieces.
If you could have a searchable pop up or frame on the first screen that you could drag and drop the items from I think it would be faster. Adjust the quantities, colour, variation all in one screen from options.
The biggest thing I would want is the least number of clicks or pages to do it online.
(Even with a perfect system, offline manipulation software fits many people not privileged with fast connections and zippy computers. )
I have, however, maintained item databases, as well as contributed to new items. The less windows/steps and more info in the same window...the better. If it's super easy, it'll be super maintained.
Being able to submit only part of an inventory is a foundation of this system. There is no reservations, there is no waiting for an inventory to be complete. You can submit one item or all of them. We will use the piece count from Brickset to indicate if the inventory is likely to be complete or not and maybe also a flag from our system where somebody has verified it.
Ability to delete an item currently listed in the inventory or just modify it.
Notification system for people that have parted out sets into their stores' inventory or wishlists that the inventory has changed - maybe the affected parts in that store's invenotry and that buyer's wishlist become flagged somehow?
I'm in the catalog trying to envision doing the inventory here as I think you mean.
Would it be a standard cat page with all the stores and colour buttons? If so the button should be found without any scrolling.
The colour list could be quite long. This can be one of the biggest places to save time as scrolling for that takes a lot of my time now with brickstore.
On the main item page all the known colours are sitting there, if you could do it more like a button "I am going to add this color to the open inventory" it may be more direct. Not even moving that I can see and if you could do it for more than one colour of the same item there. this item in blue and green, ok add click click.
Worry about adjusting quantity on the manipulate page.
So done one item... back page and there is the last category I was at, almost as good as having the add function on the same screen as the list.
This screen needs a better search order though. Probably by item number and thinking visual, for plates, 1x whatevers side by each, 2x whatevers as well. Now I can't list it so I don't have to search through that I can tell.
A filter for this working page would be great.
I'll stop there for now....
Kept to known colours and being able to add quantities for more than one of that part would be neat.
Being able to specify if it is an extra/alternate or not may be useful here?
I don't know if more people would want to add all the information about a lot once and be done with it or are more like me and like to get a list together and then double check everything as I go through.
I changed my mind about it again
Now I'm thinking, just like brick store, you have an empty screen with no rows in it. You click add item, an add item screen appears (inside the current page, like brickstore) that is essentially the catalog with search/filters etc. The screen has the usual grid of items in it, when you click on an item that you want, the add item screen disappears, and it appears as a new row in your inventory. On that row, you then set colour ( drop down with existing colours first) and quantity/alternate etc. Then you click add item for the next row and continue.
Maybe even the add item screen would not disappear automatically so you could just click click click on all of the bricks and then set their colours afterwards.
Sorry I keep changing, it's a bit of a difficult thing to get right. Trying to have the minimum amount of clicks.
And regarding "known" parts, are you taking a feed from BrickSet? It seems that most new parts and new color/part combinations are exposed in that feed before they actually appear in a set. That would reduce the catalog add activity here.
We don't take the data from brickset, we get it direct from Lego and it forms the basis of our catalog.
Great idea to have the know colours first in the list, works perfect for me. I already like your sort order better when I was adding parts manually, that option there would be great too.
The rest sounds better all the time to me.
One of the easiest ways I could Imagine is to use the PCC codes, they are printed in the building instructions (and available through TLG's partsreplacement service) and automaticly relates to 'colors'.
Offcourse BO should support those PCC codes and the easiest way to do an inventory (even a partial one) is:
Line: PCC code xxxxxxx, quantity x
it would be very easy to create an online inventory that way, particulary for new sets.
Offcourse the option for actual part and color needs to be available as well, as older parts do not have the PCC code.
So a line would need:
PPC Code OR part + colorcode AND quantity. The filling of the PCC code could block the entry for the partnumber and color. If Partnumber is filled in, the PCC code would get blocked...
If the PCC code does not exist, it will be in the inventory, but as long a 'part' is not linked to it, the inventory will show a 'blank' item, but at least it's linked in the inventory, soon as the part gets matched to the PCC, it will appear correctly...
Just some thoughts ;-)
Brian
On BL, what I find complicated is to have 2 screens: 1 to submit the inventory, one to type the PCC code and find the actual part number and color (usually obvious), then go back to first screen, type or paste the partnumber and color.
It would be much easier to simply type the PCC code and quantity, in just one screen. If the PCC codes is not recognised, no problem, it will be in the inventory as 'blank' item, untill someone matches a part to it... This would mean inventories are complete to start with, but just not showing all parts...
In that case the actual partnumber could be used + color in stead of the PCC code, but usually that's just a couple of partsnumbers per set. That is offcourse if BO wants to use 'determined' versions in sets.
I have quite a few sets where all the parts are present, so in one sense they're complete, but there's no instructions or packaging so it doesn't seem quite right marking them as complete.
ATM I've marked them as complete and put in the notes that there are no instructions or packaging, but it would be useful for buyers to see upfront when shopping.
http://brickowl.com/catalog/lego-batman-jetski-set-30160/edit_inventory
Now it looks as if some items are really cheap, but the moment you click on it, you see that the item is used..... hence the price
On the add window, the main list could have more of a memory. I keep scrolling back down to open a sub category of where I just was. If when it opened again to add more, it would still remember it would be a bonus.