Importing Customer or Vendor Alternates
If you have Alternate Product Codes for your Customers or Vendors you can enter & edit Alternate products manually in Enter & Edit Products. A quicker more efficient way is to import the Products into The Business Edge
To import Alternates, you will first start with a spreadsheet that has the following columns:
Product Code
Customer or Vendor Code
Alternate Product Code
There cannot be any blank rows in your data.
Your file can contain multiple customers and/or vendors. The spreadsheet must be saved to the server as a Text Tab Delimited file.
In The Business Edge you will now follow the steps below to import the alternates. Each of these functions are located in the Import Menu which is located in the Utilities Menu:
1. Define the file
2. Import the data
3. Check the Data
4. Setup the catalog relationships for Alternate Product Codes
5. Update the Alternates
1. Define the file – Select Enter and Edit Delimited Catalogs from the Import Menu.
You will be prompted for a Catalog Name – This should be something descriptive that will indicate to you what file you are working on. An Example would be “Alternates
Utilities
Import File Data
Enter & Edit Delimited Catalogs
Next you will enter the External File Name – This is the location and name of the file that you have saved to the server. When you save a file to the server, it is located in your user directory, which is always /usr/users/login name. An example of an external file name would be /usr/users/joe/alt.txt. This represents a file that Joe saved to his directory called alt.txt.
The last two questions on the screen, Pad Numeric References and Delimiter can be left alone since your file has been saved as a Text Tab Delimited file.
After completing the first screen you will now go to a screen where you can define each column on your spreadsheet that you have saved to the server. An easy way to have the system do the work for you would be to press Auto Define on the right-hand side. The Auto Define will automatically assign each column on your spreadsheet to the Catalog. If you do not have a Column Heading Line on your spreadsheet indicating what data is in which column you must Press enter on New Line for each column on your spreadsheet. All Columns must be defined in a new line, even if they are blank.
Following the format above our first New Line would be Product Code, the length you enter here represents how many characters you want to see on the screen when you are checking your imported data. A good standard for Product Code might be 15. If you have Products with longer numbers, they will still be imported, they will just be cut off when viewing the data on the first screen. The Type can be Text, Numeric or Date. Product Code would be Text. The only time you would select Numeric is when the Data that you are importing is required to be a number. If your Product Code is all numeric you would still define it as Text since the system will not be doing any calculations with your Product Code.
The 4 new lines you could enter for Alternate Product codes as we have defined above would be setup as follows:
Column: Product Code Cust/Vendor Code Alternate Code Alt Description
Length: 15 6 10 10
Type: Text Text Text Text
The Alternate Description is optional
2. Import the Data – Select Import Catalog Files from the Import File Data Menu. This selection will import the data from the text file that you saved in your directory. You can press spacebar and enter to see a dropdown list of all of the catalogs that have been defined in The Business Edge. Select your catalog by typing in the name or by pressing spacebar and enter. After selecting your catalog, simply press esc. The system will now import the data from the text file into the Catalog system.
Utilities
Import File Data
Import Catalog Files
If you get a message File Not Found, check the name and location of the file that you are importing. The file names are case sensitive
3. Check the Data – Once you have successfully imported your file, you need to check the data to be sure that the data was imported correctly. If you had an extra column or incorrectly labeled you columns you will be able to see that when you check the data. Select Enter Manual Catalog information from the Import Menu.
Utilities
Import File Data
Enter Manual Catalog Information
Type in your catalog name or press spacebar and enter to select it from a drop-down box. You will see the data that you imported. You can press enter on any individual line to see all of the fields in detail. If you defined you Product Code as a length of 15, you will see 15 on the first screen and after you press enter on a specific line you will see all of the characters if it is longer than 15.
If you see a problem with the data, you will want to Delete the data that you imported using Delete Catalog information from the Import File Data Menu. You can then either fix the data in your spreadsheet and re-save it to the server, or correct the Catalog definition if it is incorrect. You can then proceed to step 2 again.
Utilities
Import File Data
Deletion Options
Delete Catalog Information
The next step is to set up the file relationships
Utilities
Import File Data
Enter File Relationships
Inventory Relationships
Product Definitions
Enter Alternate Part Relationships
This is where you will tell the system, which columns in your spreadsheet match the fields you would like to update in The Business Edge. As mentioned earlier you must always have the Product Code in your data, it should be the first column of your spreadsheet. You can press spacebar and enter to select the fields in the catalog that match up to the corresponding fields you want to update. If you have extra data in your spreadsheet that you do not want to update do not enter it on this screen.
The next step is the update the records
Utilities
Import File Data
Update Files with Imported Data
Update Inventory Data
Update Product Definitions
Update Alt Product Information
Type in your catalog name or press spacebar and enter to select from a drop-down box. You can now choose which fields you would like to import by changing the selection to Yes/No.
