Research
Capture, organize, and validate product opportunities before sourcing and testing.
What this module does
Research is the product-discovery workspace in CapitalOS. It gives an organization a structured place to record a product idea, connect it to a SKU, add validation material, and decide whether it is ready to enter the sourcing workflow.
The main view is an editable grid. Teams can add products, add rows, search, filter by category or status, choose visible columns, reorder rows, select records, perform supported bulk actions, and open product-level context.
When to use it
Use Research when a product is still being evaluated. Typical work includes comparing competitors, saving advertising references, recording sourcing options, estimating opportunity, prioritizing products, and documenting why a product should or should not move forward.
Do not use Research as a substitute for live order or campaign reporting. Products, Orders, Testing, and Returns provide the downstream operational evidence.
How it fits into CapitalOS
Every research record is connected to the organization’s shared SKU registry. That connection lets the product retain a consistent identity when it later gains quotation, testing, order, or return information.
Research can hand a selected product into Quotation. The research record remains available after the handoff, so the original validation context is not lost.
Main concepts
- SKU: the organization-specific product identifier used across modules.
- Parent and child variations: related SKUs that keep variation-level data while remaining grouped.
- Status: the current research stage, such as draft, active research, or ready for quotation.
- Priority: an organization’s relative urgency for evaluating the product.
- Validation material: notes, competitor links, advertising references, creatives, sourcing links, and market observations.
- Configurable columns: organization and user choices that control which research fields appear in the grid.
Typical workflow
- Confirm that you are working in the correct organization.
- Add a product manually or import supported product data.
- Select or create the correct SKU and variation relationship.
- Fill in the product, category, research, competitor, creative, sourcing, and priority fields that matter to your process.
- Update the status as the evaluation progresses.
- Search, filter, or adjust columns to compare candidates.
- Move a suitable product into Quotation when sourcing and cost work should begin.
Moving a product forward can require confirmation and suitable destination access. If the action is unavailable, check the product’s SKU, your selection, and your Quotation permission.
Permissions and prerequisites
You need access to the Research module for the active organization. Moving work into Quotation also requires access to the Quotation module. Category choices, default columns, and status presentation can depend on organization configuration.
Imports require a supported workbook and valid organization data. Duplicate or ambiguous SKUs should be resolved before treating an import as complete.
Guides planned for this module
- Add and organize a research product.
- Import product research from a workbook.
- Work with parent and child SKU variations.
- Configure research columns and grid views.
- Use search, filters, selection, and bulk actions.
- Move a validated product into Quotation.
- Resolve duplicate, missing, or unmatched SKUs.