Applicable Product: Shipper, Transporter
Applicable Module: All accounts that have the Manage module enabled will be able to access the Data Manager and add materials.
Material Categories refer to the group/collection of Materials that have been aggregated together for either similarity in characteristics or operational requirements. For example, an FMCG company that sells dairy foods may have several product lines but would ideally categorize them as cheese, yogurt, milk etc as each of product categories would have handling characteristics that are unique and will need to be processed and transported accordingly.
Product workflow
Accessing Material Categories in Pando
To access the list of all material categories in Pando, go to 
> Data Manager and select material categories from the drop down. This brings up the list of all material categories that are currently available on your Pando account.
Creating a material category in Pando
Pando enables shippers to create materials in one of the following ways:
Individually:
To create a material category individually, click the Add button and provide relevant details. Once you’ve added the relevant details, click . This creates the Material category record.
To understand details about all fields that are covered under material, check the Field glossary at the end of the article.
Bulk:
You can create material categories in bulk by uploading them in an .xlsx file. Click the UPLOAD dropdown and download the Sample format file. This file contains all the fields— mandatory and optional— in the format that needs to be uploaded. Add the fields values to this file and upload it back to Pando by clicking Bulk Upload and selecting the updated file.
Once the upload is completed, you will be presented with the Success notification that indicates the completion of the operation and the number of records that have been created and the ones that have been rejected.
To identify the files that have failed and to understand the reason behind their failure, click 
. This downloads the rejection list. The rejection list file contains the reason for rejection of a record. Fix the reason behind the import failure and upload the file back to Pando to finish uploading all material into Pando.
Field Glossary
Field
(Fields marked * are mandatory) | Purpose | Field Format |
Material Category Name | Provide a name to the material category. This is to help aggregate different materials under a category that can used for prioritization in Optima | Alphanumeric |
Cluster | Select the Optima Group to which this material group belongs to. This is to help with prioritization | Number |
Stacking Norms | Number of materials/SKU/case that can be placed on top of one other while loading. Stacking norms have to be assigned keeping in mind the load-bearing capability of the package or case of the material category. | Number |
Positioning Constraints | Choose how the material category needs to be stacked/positioned while loading. Select between—Horizontal or Vertical— if they apply or select None, if there are no positional constraints | Dropdown |
Shortage Unit | Define how shortage needs to be calculated and applied to the shipment cost. You can select between the following:
- None: Selecting this means shortage is recorded but has to be calculated as a default which is per piece.
- MT: Selecting this means shortage is calculated in metric tonnes. So, if a number 0.15 is added, this means 0.15 metric tonnes (or 150Kg) of material is short and the shortage will be calculated at a metric ton cost.
- PCE/Case: This is applicable when the material is packaged as pieces in a case. In such a scenario, the shortage is calculated as piece per case. For example, if your case has 8 pieces of the material/SKU/good, and if 2 pieces are missing, then a shortage is calculated as 2 pieces per case i.e 2/8= 0.25. This number 0.25 will be calculated when the invoice is generated.
- Quantity Unit: This is applicable when the shortage is calculated as a defined quantity. For example, if the organization decides to measure in the quantity of pouches( for example: Diary) or bags (for example: Cement), then shortage quantity will be measured in this unit and calculated at the price per defined unit (i.e Rs/pouch or Rs/bag) | Dropdown |
Damage Unit | Define how damage needs to be calculated and applied to the shipment cost. You can select between the following:
- None: Selecting this means damage is recorded but has to be calculated as a default which is per piece.
- MT: Selecting this means damage is calculated in metric tonnes. So, if a number 0.15 is added, this means 0.15 metric tonnes (or 150Kg) of material is damaged and the damage will be calculated at a metric ton cost.
- PCE/Case: This is applicable when the material is packaged as pieces in a case. In such a scenario, the damage is calculated as piece per case. For example, if your case has 8 pieces of the material/SKU/good, and if 2 pieces are damaged, then damage is calculated as 2 pieces per case i.e 2/8= 0.25. This number 0.25 will be calculated when the invoice is generated.
- Quantity Unit: This is applicable when the damage is calculated as a defined quantity. For example, if the organization decides to measure in the quantity of pouches( for example: Diary) or bags (for example: Cement), then damage quantity will be measured in this unit and calculated at the price per defined unit (i.e Rs/pouch or Rs/bag) | Dropdown |
Carton Damage Unit | Define how damage needs to be calculated and applied to the shipment cost. You can select between the following:
- None: Selecting this means damage is recorded but has to be calculated as a default which is per piece.
- MT: Selecting this means damage is calculated in metric tonnes. So, if a number 0.15 is added, this means 0.15 metric tonnes (or 150Kg) of material is damaged and the damage will be calculated at a metric ton cost.
- PCE/Case: This is applicable when the material is packaged as pieces in a case. In such a scenario, the damage is calculated as piece per case. For example, if your case has 8 pieces of the material/SKU/good, and if 2 pieces are damaged, then damage is calculated as 2 pieces per case i.e 2/8= 0.25. This number 0.25 will be calculated when the invoice is generated.
- Quantity Unit: This is applicable when the damage is calculated as a defined quantity. For example, if the organization decides to measure in the quantity of pouches( for example: Diary) or bags (for example: Cement), then damage quantity will be measured in this unit and calculated at the price per defined unit (i.e Rs/pouch or Rs/bag) | Dropdown |
Carton Damage Type | Select the type of price computation that should be applied when the carton carrying this material category is damaged—
- None: Selecting this means damage is recorded but has to be calculated as a default which is per piece.
- Fixed Price: Select this to assign a fixed price to every damaged carton.
- Material MRP: When Material MRP is selected, the carton damage type is computed based on the MRP of the material that is carried in the carton
- Material Invoice: When a Material invoice is selected, the carton damage type is computed based on the invoice of the material that is carried in the carton
- Qty + Amount: When selected, the carton damage will have to be computed and posted by the user in charge of providing EPOD. | Dropdown |
Carton Damage Factor | The value with which the Carton Damage will be calculated. | Number |
Shortage Tolerance % | Assign a percentage of the total quantity to be an allowable shortage without any charge to the transporter. For example, if 5% shortage tolerance percentage is assigned, then upto 5% of shortage can be accorded without any penalty charges to the transporter | Number |
Damage Tolerance % | Assign a percentage of the total quantity to be allowable damage without any charge to the transporter. For example, if 5% shortage tolerance percentage is assigned, then upto 5% of shortage can be accorded without any penalty charges to the transporter | Number |
Optima Floor2 % | The minimum viable percentage of the truck that can be allowed to load so that the shipment of this material category makes financial sense. | Number |
Optima Group | SAME AS CLUSTER |
|
GST Exempt | Select whether this material category is exempted under GST | Checkbox |
