In the next generation Assortment Plan, you'll be able to plan your assortment on two levels:

Offering of a choice helps you to plan your choice on the cluster level. As an example, if you like to customize certain attributes for Web vs Retail vs Wholesale such as Launch/End Dates or Unit Ticket, you can do so on Offering Level planning. However, if your choice attributes do not change across your clusters/channels, you may want to plan your choice on the Choice Level which this article covers this use case.

As in other modules, next generation Assortment Plan also have 'Core' attributes that are defined by Toolio by default, and you can configure more 'Custom' attributes according to your needs through the settings 'Attributes' page.

Toolio - Line Building view includes the minimal attributes to show case the typical use cases that you'll use during your day-to-day operations. You can also add choice level summary metrics through the 'Metrics' section under the view to customize your view.

Attributes may be used as a user planning input as well as system calculated or defined attribute. Toolio Line Building view shows the system attributes with a gray background.

We'll not define each and every attribute on this article, however, we would like to cover the key attributes that will help you to understand the suggested workflows.

Progress - System Attribute - Shows the choice's life cycle status on the system. The values can be Placeholder, Assigned or Committed.

Cluster Group - Cluster Group is a mandatory attribute for system to create a choice and its offerings based on the clusters.

Please refer to this article to find out more about creating Automated Clusters and defining Cluster Groups (TBD).

Cluster - System Attribute - Based on the Cluster Group selected, system automatically defines which clusters will be used and which offerings will be created based on this clusters as well basing calculations such ROS Model based on the cluster information.

Number of Locations - System Attribute - Based on the Cluster Group selected, system automatically calculates number of locations included for this choice to be sold at.

ROS Model - Rate of Sale Model is used calculate rate of Gross Sales Units per week per store. You can define the time frame and filters (choices) that will be used so the system makes the calculation based on these defined criterion.

Calculated ROS - System Attribute - This is the output of the ROS Model which is calculated on Offering Level per cluster and then choice level average is used for planning purposes.

Adjusted ROS - User can adjust the Calculated ROS as they like. In the presence of a Calculated ROS, system uses the weighted distribution among the clusters and adjust the ROS according to the user input among the clusters. If no ROS Model was defined, then, each offering gets the same defined value for the defined Adjusted ROS. Please note that, Adjusted ROS always overrides the Calculated ROS for Forecasting calculations.

Sales Curve - In order to run a forecast against your choice, user must select a Sales Curve from a pre-defined list. Sales Curve is the seasonality index that will be used to forecast your choice's performance throughout the choice's launch and end date.

Please refer to this article to find out more about Sales Curves.

Growth Rate - If you anticipate a growth or decline within your sales for the choice's launch/end date duration, then you can optionally use this attribute to define this rate. This rate will be factored in during the forecast operation.

Size Curve - In order to generate receipts for your choice based on the forecasted sales, you need to define a Size Curve from a pre-defined list. Size Curve is the reference distribution of sizes that will be used to determine the size level receipts for your choice.

Please refer to this article to find out more about Size Curves.

Safety Stock - In order to generate receipts for your choice based on the forecasted sales, Safety Stock should be entered in weeks and represents the minimum level of weeks of supply Toolio will make sure to maintain.

Order Cycle - In order to generate receipts for your choice based on the forecasted sales, Order Cycle should be set in weeks. Order Cycle is the frequency in weeks that replenishment should be run.

Lead Time - Optionally, you can enter Lead Time which should be entered in weeks and represents the time between placing a PO and the items being ready for sale (i.e. in DC date).

Once you define Cluster Group, Clusters and Number of Locations attributes will be automatically calculated by the system and the planning screen will be automatically refreshed once this task is completed.

Once you define Cluster Group and ROS Model and save, Calculated ROS attribute will be automatically calculated by the system and the planning screen will be automatically refreshed once this task is completed.

Toolio will run automated forecast once you define or edit the following attributes,

Toolio will run automated rollup summary update once you make changes to your assortment attributes and metrics that affects your reporting and rollup views on other modules.

Toolio will also run automated rollup summary update once there is a data-refresh applied on Merchandise Plan and/or Choice Plan.