I’m hoping to get some collective wisdom from the board’s past experience with using CT to manage inventory. Some background:
I was an early adopter of CT (2004) and added wines but never removed them.
I sold a good bit of wine when we moved and didn’t touch CT. Getting messier…
Blew away the DB so that I can start from scratch (good move); my new cellar is almost done – will be relocating wines from offsite and ‘starting over’ with CT
What I’m hoping to do:
I see there’s now an option to mass load wines into CT; I’m going to try that as I have a clean spreadsheet (any cautionary tales welcome on that front – Eric helped me last time but that was ~15 years ago).
I’d like to have a means of adding and removing bottles (ideally) without typing OR printing labels. My fear is that, while I could do the label printing thing once, I’d likely not do it for additions as I’m notoriously lazy and unorganized with such things.
I don’t want to track where it is in my cellar – but, I do want to maintain an accurate inventory.
Does anyone have a painless routine for this exercise (using CT) that lets you quickly add and remove without the use of labels and scanners? If no, is there a painless label scanner routine that works without maintaining a MacBook in my cellar. I’ve read through Eric’s articles and the sparse postings on the subject. I just want to start with the best available thinking on this to waste as little time with this exercise as possible and improve my chances of sticking with it…
I already have CT opened on my laptop when I want to find a bottle to drink. It literally takes seconds to mark it consumed once I have the bottle taken out and confirmed that it was in the proper slot. I don’t understand what is so hard about that.
Jim, bulk loading from a spreadsheet should be a snap, but like you when I first started Eric did it for me. I bet one of his support guys would help if it doesn’t go right the first time.
If you’re not using CT to record tasting ones or consumption details, removing bottles doesn’t take any typing. Three clicks:
Click on the wine
Click on the link showing the wine’s location immediately under “In My Cellar” in the panel to the right
Click on “Save and Done”
Adding bottles of a wine you already have is almost as easy:
Click on the wine
Click on the link “Add to My Cellar” under “In My Cellar” in the panel to the right
Type in the number of bottles you’re adding
Click on “Save and Done”
The barcode aficionados will disagree, but I find the above much easier than setting up a scanner, printing labels, putting them on bottles, and scanning them in and out. I might feel differently if I were logging many bottles per day or found it hard to remember or didn’t have the discipline to remove them. Then a scanner in the cellar would be a help.
Somewhat similar situation where i need to fo a massive inventory purge and correction. My plan for maintenance is to keep a cheap android tablet in the cellar for anytime bottles come in/out.
I have been using CT since 2004 and have never used the barcode feature. Like David said above routine in and out is quick and easy. To make certain that everything stays aligned I do an annual inventory. There is a CT inventory report that is very useful if you chose to do this…
I don’t have any experience with mass data transfer but do know it is possible. The one person I know that did this said it was straight forward.
Once you are in I am confident you will be pleased with the functionality and ease of use.
I think taking the time to add everything was part of the fun. I also enjoy the solitude of planning, organizing, and getting everything put in. I agree with others, it’s easy to keep track once you’re in the habit of it. Anything I open gets pulled immediately or the morning after before I start washing glasses.
I figure it comes down to whether you really want to have an accurate inventory. If you do there will be some work involved and the best way to implement is to have a routine that you follow every time. Find what works for you and stick to it. In my case the bottles are removed from inventory as soon as removed from cellar using the mobile app.
I played around with it a little this weekend and it seems a lot easier than it was 10 years ago. While it would be nice if it were faster – I get why no one seems to be using scanners anymore. And, I kind of see why the general reaction was that this was a dumb series of questions.
I’m going the phone route, as suggested. I’ve reached out to Eric and Team and will hopefully get some support in repopulating the DB.
Since using CT allows me to fill my cellar’s shelves efficiently while placing bottles pretty much randomly, if I don’t record a purchase when it is racked, I will probably never see it again. As a result, I can’t find anything without first consulting CT, so it is trivial to record consumption on the spot.
I’ll follow this thread, as I could have signed my name rather than Jim’s under the original post. If it’s dumb, then two of us are thereby labeled. I suspect there are many more of us. Power to the lazy CT data entry slackers!