New User Experience

A new user experience (UX) has been launched for the FirstShift application, introducing a modern, unified interface across dashboards, planning views, and other business modules. This beta version features a consistent filter panel, standardized hierarchy selection, and inline filtering within tables and inspect data screens, delivering a more intuitive and seamless user experience.

Notification Preferences

This release introduces a new capability that allows planners to configure and personalize their Notification Preferences at an individual Planning View level. This ensures planners receive timely alerts for exceptions that matter most to them, based on their own thresholds and communication preferences.

Key capabilities:

1. Notification preferences at planning view level:

   1. Each planner can define Notification Preferences separately for every Planning View they have access to.

   2. When Notification Preferences are configured for a Planning View, the system displays an indicator icon on the Planning View List screen.

   3. Users can select which exceptions should be notified.

   4. Users can define deviation thresholds — both positive and negative — to determine when an exception alert should be notified.

   5. At any point, users can modify or remove their Notification Preferences at the Planning View level.

2. Delivery mode options:

   1. Notifications can be delivered through: 

      1. Email, with flexible scheduling options.

      2. In-app notifications, displayed within the Notification Panel.

3. Access control: 

   1. Notification Preferences respect user data permissions — planners can only configure preferences for Planning Views and datasets to which they have access.

4. Global notification preferences: 

   1. All preferences set at individual Planning Views can be viewed and managed centrally through a Global Notification Preferences page.

   2. The global list view displays all configured notification settings across Planning Views.

   3. Users can view or edit these preferences globally, offering a consolidated control experience.

5. Email scheduling: 

   1. Planners can schedule when email notifications are sent by selecting:

      1. Frequency:

         • Immediately after an event

         • Once in every x hours.

         • Once in every x days at a specific time of day

      2. Email notifications automatically group exceptions by type and display the top five deviations, followed by an option to “See all” for complete visibility.

In-app notifications panel

The new Notifications Panel enhances planner visibility and collaboration by providing a unified hub for all in-app notifications, including Exception Notifications and Mentions.

Clicking on the bell icon in the top navigation opens the Notification Panel. The panel is divided into two tabs:

1. Exception notifications: Each Exception Notification contains: 

   1. Planning item details (e.g., Product–Customer–Location)

   2. Exception name & Deviation percentage

   3. Click-to navigate to the specific Planning View, which includes pre-applied filters that display the exception details. 

2. Additional controls: 

   1. Read/unread state: Notifications are visually distinguished as unread until opened.

   2. Mark as unread: Users can manually mark notifications as unread if they want to revisit them later.

   3. Resolve action: Planners can resolve a notification once it has been addressed, removing it from active alerts.

3. Mentions 

   1. The Mentions tab lists all instances where the planner has been tagged by other users in comments or discussions.

   2. Each mention displays:

      1. User who mentioned them

      2. Comment text

      3. Context link to the associated Planning View or notification

   3. Clicking a mention opens the relevant view directly, helping planners quickly respond to collaboration requests or comments.

4. Notification generation logic

   1. Exception notifications are automatically generated after specific system events that could alter planning data. These include:

      • Data Load Jobs

      • Overrides

      • Cycle Roll

      • Trigger Events

      • Configuration changes

Note: In this release, Notifications are limited to Demand Exceptions only. Inventory Exceptions and other categories will be introduced in upcoming releases.

Multi-Tenant SSO Login Support

The application now supports Single Sign-On (SSO) access for customers with multiple tenants. Users belonging to the same organization (e.g., ABC INC) can log in using their corporate SSO credentials and then select the desired tenant (such as Demand or Supply) during login.

The system authenticates users via the organization’s Identity Provider (e.g., Microsoft SSO) and grants access only to the tenants where they have been invited and assigned roles. 

Replenishment - Proposed order enhancements

In this release, a new Proposed Order screen has been introduced as part of the enhanced user experience (New UI). This feature is available exclusively on the new interface and will not be accessible from the legacy UI.

 Key Features & Enhancements

1. Unified proposed order view 

   1. The new screen displays both order headers and order lines in a single, consolidated view.

   2. Orders are grouped by order header, with the option to expand or collapse individual orders to view their respective order lines

   3. A “Switch to Order Line View” option allows planners to view all order lines across multiple orders within a single, flat table.

2. Bulk editing and approval

   1. Planners can now edit multiple order lines simultaneously and approve multiple proposed orders in a single action.

   2. Edited cells are visually indicated with a light orange marker at the top-right corner of the cell, helping users easily identify modified values. 

   3. Users can undo changes at the row level before saving.

   4. While editing the SOQ, Total Order Cost is automatically recalculated in real time based on the unit price configured at the Product-Location level. 

3. Computed insights: Two new computed columns have been added to provide better visibility into inventory health: 

   1. Weeks of Supply:

      • Represents the number of future weeks of demand that can be met using all available supply at the product-location level.

   2. Coverage from SOQ:

      • Indicates the number of weeks of demand that the SOQ can fulfill, starting from when the order becomes available.

   3. Both these values are automatically computed and populated by the solver engine whenever a new plan is generated.

4. New column: order policy 

   1. A new Order Policy column has been introduced. It helps planners quickly understand the logic behind each proposed order

   2. This column identifies the policy type used to generate the order, such as:

      1. Due-Order Policy

      2. Min-Max Inventory Policy

5. Attribute-based filters 

   1. The proposed order screen now supports advanced attribute-based filters similar to those in Dashboard and Forecast Creation screens.

   2. Planners can filter data across multiple hierarchy levels, such as:

   3. Product (example, Product family, Sub family)

   4. Location (example, Region)

   5. Supplier (example, Supplier Type)

6. Inventory status and occurrence date 

   1. The solver engine now computes and displays the current inventory status and occurrence date for each proposed order line.

   2. The calculation considers On-hand inventory, In-transit supply, Safety stock, and Demand during lead time

      • Each line is classified as one of the following: On Target, Low Stock, Stock Out

      • The Occurrence Date indicates when a low stock or stock-out condition is expected to begin, enabling planners to take proactive replenishment actions.

7. Order summary widgets: A new Order Summary panel has been added at the top of the Proposed Order screen to provide planners with quick, high-level. 

   1. Replenishment Order Summary: Displays the count of replenishment orders by type — including Production Orders, Purchase Orders, and Stock Transfer Orders.

   2. Order Status Summary: Shows a categorized view of orders by their status — such as Draft, Approved, and Published orders — helping planners track progress through the approval lifecycle.

   3. Order schedule:

   4. Orders by Need-By Date — visualizing how orders are distributed over the next 10 weeks based on their required fulfillment dates.

   5. Orders by Order Date — showing how orders are created across the same 10-week horizon to identify planning cadence.

Demand planning

1. Automatic planning view refresh 

   1. Planning views are now automatically refreshed in the background, ensuring users always see the latest data without manual refresh.

   2. Any job or event that impacts business rules or time-series data will trigger an automatic refresh — regardless of the number of items in the view.

   3. Refresh is triggered after:

      • Data load

      • Master data or configuration updates

      • Cycle roll

      • Overrides

      • Replenishment job runs, etc.