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Vendors

The companies your catalog is bought from, whether a distributor or the maker itself. Who makes a product is its own Manufacturer field on the product, filled from Health Canada or FDA data when a device is matched. Each product can point at one vendor; the product card in Inventory uses the vendor's catalog link to open the vendor's page for the product's REF.

Who can: Owner, Admin, Member, Inventory manager

Where: Settings › Vendors

Names and aliases

Imports match vendor names and aliases without regard to case, so "BOSTON" and "Boston Scientific" land on one vendor. A vendor an import doesn't recognise is added automatically.

The list shows each vendor's name, product count, account number (on wider screens), and two icon links: the globe opens the vendor's website, and the chain link tests the catalog link. It shows 20 vendors a page; search by name or alias above it, and tick Show inactive to include deactivated vendors.

  • Select a vendor's name to see everything about it: kind, aliases, website, catalog link, account number, contact, phone, email, notes, product count and where its details came from. The phone number and email are links, so you can call or email the vendor from there.
  • Edit changes the name, website, catalog link, account number, contact, phone, email, notes, and whether it's a Manufacturer or Distributor. Renaming updates every product, and the old name stays as an alias.
  • Merge into another vendor… (in Edit) moves this vendor's products to another, keeps its names as aliases, and deletes it. See Merging vendors.
  • Deactivate (in Edit) hides a vendor from pickers; its products keep it. Reactivate brings it back.

The Catalog link is a web address with {ref} where the catalog number goes, for example https://www.example.com/search?q={ref}. The chain link icon opens it with one of the vendor's real REFs. The app only ever opens it in your browser; it never fetches it.

Merging vendors

Open Edit on the vendor to remove and choose Merge into another vendor…, then pick the vendor to merge it Into. Before anything changes, the dialog shows:

  • how many products move,
  • which products become duplicates and the product each is merged into,
  • which duplicates won't merge, and why,
  • which details are copied over.

Choose Merge to go ahead. Then:

  • Products move to the vendor you picked.
  • A moved product with the same name, REF and size as one of that vendor's products is merged into it: its stock, photos and barcodes move over and it's deactivated. When only moved products match each other, the one with the most stock is kept. Duplicates where one is consignment or doesn't expire and the other isn't, or that have the same serial number in stock, aren't merged: the preview marks them "won't merge", and they stay separate. Merge them on Products or from Potential Duplicates in Cleanup.
  • Empty details of the vendor you picked (website, catalog link, account number, contact, phone, email, notes, kind) are filled from the merged vendor. Nothing is overwritten.
  • The merged vendor's name and aliases become aliases, and the merged vendor is deleted.

A merge can't be undone. Cleanup has the same merge and marks vendors with similar names.

Details from the built-in vendor list

The app knows the main interventional radiology manufacturers (Boston Scientific, Cook Medical, Medtronic, BD and Bard, Teleflex, Terumo, Merit Medical, Abbott, Cordis, Getinge and Atrium, Cardinal Health, Medline, GE HealthCare, AngioDynamics, Argon Medical, Penumbra, Gore, Avanos and Bracco) and the distributors Canadian Hospital Specialties and Ates Medical. For each it has the official website and a link that opens the vendor's product page or search for a REF; where the vendor publishes a Canadian customer service phone number or email on its own site, it has that too, with the date it was checked.

  • When a vendor is added, by you or by an import, its empty fields are filled from the list: website, catalog link, kind, and the customer service phone and email. Other spellings of the company's name are added as aliases, unless another vendor at the site already uses them.
  • Distributors get their website and kind only. Their catalog link stays empty, because a distributor's products come from many manufacturers.
  • Fill details from known vendors (above the list, or Fill details on one vendor) shows what would change for each vendor before anything is saved. Untick the ones you don't want, then Fill.
  • Nothing you've typed is overwritten. Only empty fields are filled, both when a vendor is added and when you use the button. To replace a value with the list's, clear the field first.

A vendor filled this way says so in its details (select its name), with the date the list's entry was checked. Websites and phone numbers change; if one is wrong, edit it, and the app won't change it back. Each fill is recorded in the activity log.

Looking up other vendors

For vendors the built-in list doesn't know and that are missing a phone number or email, Look up details for N vendors (above the list, or Look up in a vendor's details) searches the FDA's device database (GUDID) for the vendor's own devices: by barcode first, then by REF. GUDID lists a customer contact for each device.

  • Only devices made by that vendor count. A distributor's products are made by other companies, so distributors usually find nothing.
  • The preview shows the phone and email found, the company name GUDID uses (added as an alias unless another vendor has it), and a device it came from. Untick the ones you don't want, then Fill.
  • Only empty fields are filled. GUDID covers devices sold in the US, so the number may be a US one.

Each fill is recorded in the activity log as "Filled vendor details from FDA GUDID".