Placing Spaces

A Space is defined as a merchandisable area that has been reserved for a specific type of product. It does not represent a physical object or product, but just the area it would occupy. Spaces might be placed onto fixtures or onto an empty area of the shop floor. Spaces are linked to planograms as part of the store planning process if the relevant planogram has been released to the store for which the layout is being created. A space can still be placed even if no planogram is available.

Retail Viewer M has two different types of space hierarchy: Space Hierarchy and Local Space Hierarchy. Local Space Hierarchy contains spaces created and managed in the Space Manager inside of Layout Designer. Space Hierarchy spaces are derived from the Category hierarchy.

To add spaces to a proposed store layout, click on the Side Panel icon on the navbar to view the Spaces menu.

Spaces can be selected from either hierarchy or from a list which is searchable.

A third tab shows any Space Groups which have been defined in Space Manager.

Expand the hierarchy to locate the spaces.

Note the spaces may not be at the same level as the planograms, this will depend on the configuration of your installation. However, they will still link to the relevant planogram, if available.

Space Hierarchy Spaces may have planograms linked to them. A space is linked to a planogram whenever a planogram for a category hierarchy is made available for when the proposed store layout is live in store.

Key points:

Linking process is automated – placing a space will automatically link it to the appropriate planogram.

Planogram is found using the following criteria:

•Store number

•Planogram live and expire dates

•Layout implementation date

•Position in planogram hierarchy

•Length of space placed

If no planogram is found the space will be unlinked. If a planogram is subsequently released to this store, it will be automatically linked to the space.

New planograms released later will be automatically linked. This assumes:

•Same position in hierarchy.

•Released to same store(s).

Unlinked spaces have a default length of 1m or 4ft.

Local Hierarchy spaces have their length defined in Space Manager.

When a space is selected, information about planograms relating to that space is displayed.

It is also possible to select which layer of the drawing the space is placed onto, if additional layers have been created in Layer Manager.

There are four space placement modes:

The Place method will place a space of the length specified in the Length field. If there is a planogram available for this space for this store, the Length field is populated with the length of that planogram. If a different length of space is to be placed, the required length can be typed into the Length field or one of the Other Planograms can be clicked on to populate the Length field with this length.

Note that if the space placed differs in length to the planogram available to the store, the store planogram will still be assigned to the space but reporting is available to identify such mis-matches so that a planogram of the required length can be requested to be made available to the store.

Spaces are usually, but not always, placed on fixtures. To place a space onto a set of fixtures, use the snap modes explained previously to snap the space onto a fixture or enter the x, y and z coordinates of the point in the command line. Use snap points to define the space rotation or enter an angle in the command line.

To place a space by points, click on By Points and use the snap points to define the starting and ending points of the space.

Spaces can be placed on a fixture by clicking On Fixture and then clicking on the fixture on which the space should be placed.

To swap a placed space for another space, click Swap and then click the space on the layout which should be replaced.

To change the length of an existing space, click on the Stretch Space icon        on the toolbar to activate the space stretcher. Click on one of the space extremities and click the new desired location for the space extremity.

Once placed, a coloured tick will be displayed against the space name in the spaces list:

A green tick indicates that the space length placed equals the length of the assigned planogram; a red tick indicates that the space length placed is greater than that of the assigned planogram; an amber tick indicates that the space length placed is less than that of the assigned planogram. Note a purple cross indicates that there is no planogram assigned to this space.

Placed spaces may not always fit fixture depths. Spaces linked with planograms take their width from the planograms. Spaces not linked have a fixed width. Saving and re-opening the proposed layout adjusts the depth of the space according to the fixture it was placed onto. If the space depth should maintain the depth of the planogram assigned to it, tick the Maintain POG Depth on Save checkbox before placing the space.

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