New Icicle ERP Features: Search, Scan, and Do More for Food Production Management

Our new Feature Request Forum is buzzing with great ideas from Icicle’s ERP users, and new items are getting rapidly ticked off our development list. In this issue of “New Features,” we picked just some of those projects to share with you, including new scanning capabilities, maintenance costing, and a new global search bar. Icicle users can head over to the forum to check up on smaller requests that didn’t make this list.

Quality Control Barcode Scanning

When was it released? April 13 2021

What does it do? A small but useful upgrade to the Icicle ERP quality control check interface, you can now scan barcodes directly while doing quality control checks. This revision of the interface was also extensively revised to make it more mobile-friendly for even easier scanning.

Where did the idea come from? This one was an internal idea from the Icicle development team. 🙂

Maintenance Costing & Work Order Scanning

When was it released? May 11 2021

What does it do? Last year, we launched Icicle’s costing feature for production, which keeps track of your raw material costs and then calculates the cost of the entire production run and your unit cost. With this new feature, Icicle is now extending that capability to maintenance activities as well. The new maintenance costing is attached to work orders and allows you to track part, material, and labour costs associated with maintenance activities.

We’ve also added scanning capabilities to work orders so that workers can scan materials and parts. That makes it ever easier for you to maximize efficiency in your maintenance activities. To paint a picture of how this can work in practice: let’s say you need to change the oil on a forklift. You will need the oil filter (which is a part) and 12L of oil (a material), and the job itself will take the assigned worker 45 minutes.

With Icicle’s new maintenance enhancements, you can now issue a work order for the oil change; when the worker is carrying out the work order, they can take the oil filter and the oil out of inventory by scanning it out. If you have reorder thresholds set up, Icicle will automatically determine if you need to reorder those materials or parts for next time. When the job is complete, Icicle will track how much you’ve spent on materials and parts as well as keep track of the loaded cost for each worker – delivering a full cost analysis of the work.

Where did the idea come from? Thanks again to Dayna from Country Prime Meats for these great ideas!

Countdown Timers

When was it released? May 19 2021

What does it do? Here is a fun little improvement: previously Icicle included what we called “checkpoints,” which were really timers that counted up. For example, if you put a pot on the stove to boil, you could set a checkpoint and it could tell you how long the contents of the pot had been boiling. This new countdown timer feature lets you…count down, as well. A simple feature that somehow never came up before.

Where did the idea come from? Thanks to our food safety consultant friend Oscar Jr. from Superior Food Safety for bringing this to our attention!

Global Search Bar

When was it released? May 26 2021

What does it do? Icicle now has a new addition to the main header on each page: a global search bar! You can type any search query like a product, ingredient, customer, etc. and Icicle will automatically pop those records for you – so you don’t have to navigate through the whole menu if you just want to look something up.

Where did the idea come from? Big thanks to Dayna from Country Prime Meats for this handy feature idea!

Date Search for Pick-by-Product

When was it released? May 8 2021

What does it do? This new feature is another enhancement the Icicle ERP Pick-by-Product interface (previously Picking 3). We have added a date search feature that allows you to search either by expected date or order date. Once the results of your search are delivered, you can then select a whole bunch of sales orders at the same time.

In other words, say you’re trying to bring up all the orders expected today. Now you don’t have to pick them one-by-one, you can select them all at once!

Where did the idea come from? Thanks to Jason from Mod Beverage for this suggestion!

Outstanding Verification Tasks Widget

When was it released? May 25 2021

What does it do? The task of verifying records in Icicle is a crucial food safety and regulatory compliance step, but it’s also a small task that can be easy to lose track of. Icicle now has a new widget you can add to your homepage to streamline communication. When an individual is selected to be the verifier of a record, all outstanding verification tasks will now appear in this new homepage widget.

Where did the idea come from? Thanks to TJ from GreenLeaf Productions for this feature request!

Receiving Instructions

When was it released? April 20 2021

What does it do? Receiving can be an unnecessarily confusing task. Different manufacturers use different label formats, with many different barcodes or text, which makes it hard for receivers to know what to use for the lot code. With this new feature, company administrators can now add instructions (both text and image) to items so that when they are received, logistics staff can bring up those instructions on demand to determine how to find the lot code and best before date – quickly and easily.

Where did the idea come from? Thanks to Neil from Snow Cap for this suggestion!

Automatic Shipping Document Delivery

When was it released? March 17 2021

What does it do? The Icicle ERP already had the ability to generate PDF packing slips that could be emailed to customers when products are shipped. With this new update, you can configure your account to automatically email shipping documents to customers  whenever a shipment is verified.

Where did the idea come from? Thanks once again to Neil from Snow Cap!

Closing Production Runs

When was it released? April 27 2021

What does it do? Icicle now gives you the option to close out production runs. This feature update is designed to prevent errors since, sometimes, a worker might go into an old production run and change something by accident. This new feature locks the production run record so users can’t accidentally make modifications after the fact.

Where did the idea come from? Thanks again to Dayna from Country Prime Meats!

Breakdown Interface

When was it released? March 20 2021

What does it do? This new feature allows you to transform master cases of products into single, individual items. In the past, if you had a case of bottles and you wanted to break it down into individual bottles, you would have to go through a production run to do this in Icicle. This new feature allows you to take one item and quickly and easily break it down into its constituent single units in the Logistics section of Icicle.

Where did the idea come from? Another great one from Neil from Snow Cap!

Freeform Production

When was it released? April 20 2021

What does it do? Called “Transform” in the Icicle ERP, this new feature allows you to transform any item or collection of items into any other item outside of the usual production runs. This is especially useful if you need to do a one-off production run (for example, to fulfill a special order) and just want to use freeform inputs and outputs.

A word of caution: regular production runs are very structured (based on formulae, with instructions to be followed, QC Checks, etc.). Freeform production skips these steps, allowing a lot more flexibility, but this is not suitable for regular production or product design, where you want to control the formula and track a lot more data. For that reason, this new feature is controlled by specific permissions in Icicle; we recommend that only administrators be granted access..

Where did the idea come from? Thanks to Karin and Neil from Snow Cap for working with us on this feature!

Improved File Upload

When was it released? April 20 2021

What does it do? Icicle now has new image and document upload functions on a wide variety of pages throughout the application. Previously, users often had to upload files one at a time and there was no drag and drop feature. Now you can select multiple documents or images at once (with drag and drop if you prefer) allowing users to attach related documents and images much more rapidly.

Where did the idea come from? Thanks to Rob from Ontario Pride Eggs for his suggestion!

Keep up-to-date with the latest Icicle features by signing up for our newsletter! Icicle users can also check for updates in real-time in the Icicle ERP Change Log. If you have a feature request or question, submit a request and our team will get back to you quickly.