Hey team — ran into something today that's probably come up for others. We've got a bunch of parts in our inventory that are discontinued by the manufacturer. Can't get them anymore, but we still have historical jobs where these parts were used. Don't want to delete them from the system since that breaks the record chain, but I also don't want them showing up as available when techs are adding parts to jobs.
Right now I'm just renaming them with "OBSOLETE -
" prefix, but that's hacky and techs still occasionally grab them by mistake. What I really want is a way to mark parts as inactive/archived so they stay in the database for historical reference but get hidden from active selection.
Pro tip: This matters for warranty tracking too. If a customer calls back on a 3-year-old install and you deleted the part number, you're flying blind on what was actually used.
Is there a proper way to handle this in FieldPulse? Looked through the inventory settings but didn't spot anything obvious.
Hi Josh — great question! Happy to help here.
You're right that FieldPulse doesn't currently have a dedicated "archive" or "inactive" status for inventory items. However, there are a few structured approaches we recommend:
1. Zero-quantity with location flag: Set quantity to 0 and move the item to a location called "Archived" or "Discontinued"
2. Category-based filtering: Create an "Obsolete" category and update your active views to filter it out
3. Custom field approach: Add a "Status" custom field with values like Active / Discontinued / Archived, then train your team to check this
The key is making sure your Work Order > Add Parts workflow filters by availability > 0, which hides zero-stock items by default.
See this article for configuring inventory views
That said, I hear you on wanting a true archive flag — I'm flagging this with our product team. Would you be open to a brief call to discuss your use case?
Hi Josh — great question! Happy to help here.
You're right that FieldPulse doesn't currently have a dedicated "archive" or "inactive" status for inventory items. However, there are a few structured approaches we recommend:
1. Zero-quantity with location flag: Set quantity to 0 and move the item to a location called "Archived" or "Discontinued"
2. Category-based filtering: Create an "Obsolete" category and update your active views to filter it out
3. Custom field approach: Add a "Status" custom field with values like Active / Discontinued / Archived, then train your team to check this
The key is making sure your Work Order > Add Parts workflow filters by availability > 0, which hides zero-stock items by default.
See this article for configuring inventory views
That said, I hear you on wanting a true archive flag — I'm flagging this with our product team. Would you be open to a brief call to discuss your use case?
Thanks Priya — the zero-quantity + location combo is cleaner than what I'm doing now. Didn't think about creating an actual "Archived" location, that's smart.
Still feels like a workaround though. Happy to chat with product if it helps push this forward.
Another way to think about it — we've been using the Supplier field for this. Set supplier to "DISCONTINUED" and then filtered our standard parts views to exclude anything with that supplier. Keeps the history intact and it's one less custom field to manage.
Pro tip: Whatever method you pick, document it in your internal wiki and train dispatchers to check for obsolete flags when customers call about older installs. We've caught three warranty disputes early this way.
