Catalog process for supplier catalogs

Using iPIM Supply you can import supplier item data in order to create products in iPIM on the basis of this item data. The supplier catalog is the standard catalog type for the import of items which are provided by a single supplier. In the four-step catalog process, item data is imported, transformed, approved and finally syncronized with iPIM in order to create the corresponding products.

This chapters explains the import of item data using the .xlsx-fomat catalog file shown below. Learn more

Note
This chapter is using the example of a two-stage product structure (product, item). If you are working with a three-stage product structure that has a variant level, you also need a dimensioning variantkey.

Step 1: Create a catalog

In the first step, you need to create a catalog. To do so, proceed as follows:

  1. Go to the “Catalog” tab of iPIM Supply.
  2. Click on the Add catalog button to call up the corresponding dialog box.
  1. From the “Catalog type” menu, select the option “Supplier catalog”.
  2. Enter a catalog name in the input field “Catalog name”.
  3. From the “Supplier” menu, select a supplier.
  4. From the “Language” menu, select a catalog language. This setting specifies the locale level on which the imported item data is stored by default.
  1. From the “Context” menu, select a context. This setting specifies the context level on which the imported item data is stored by default.
  2. From the “User” menu, select a user.
  3. From the “Source” menu, select the option “Import articles via file”.
  4. In order to finish the catalog creation, click on the Create button. If the process was successful, a corresponding message will appear. The catalog is now created.
INFO
Click here to find a list of the rights that required to use the catalog process.

Step 2: Configure the import

In the second step, you need to configure the import. To do so, proceed as follows:

  1. Go to the catalog overview and search for the catalog.
  1. Click on the catalog name to call up the catalog process overview.
  1. Click on “Import” to call up the import configuration.
  1. From the “Import mode” menu, select the option “Full assortment”. This is the import mode for the initial import of new items.
  2. From the “Format” menu, select the option “Excel 2007-2013 (XSLX)” for an import of a catalog file in the .xslx format.
  3. In the input field “Excel sheet name”, enter the spreadsheet name of the import file.
  4. In the input field “Attribute name in row”, enter the table row number of the column headers that contain the attribute names (in this case “1”).
  5. In the input field “Data area from row”, enter the number of the table row in which the data to be imported starts (in this case “2”).
  6. In the input field “Unique item ID column”, enter the name of the colum that contains a unique item identifier (in this case the supplier item number).
  7. In the input field “Supplier item name”, enter the column name of the catalog file that contains the supplier item name.
  8. In order to finish the configuration process, click on the Save button. If the process was successful, a corresponding message will appear. The import is now configured.
INFO
Detailed information about how to set up the import configuration and how to carry out an import, click here. And in order to learn more about the rights that are required, click here.

Step 3: Carry out the import

In the third step, you need to import the catalog file. In order to carry out the import, proceed as follows:

  1. Go to the “Catalog process” tab.
  1. Click on the Execute button to call up the corresponding dialog box.
  1. Drag the catalog file over the drop area and drop it there or click on the Browse files button to call up the catalog file via the file manager. Following this, the file is loaded into the cache and the file name is shown below the drop area.
  2. Click on the Import starten button to trigger the import. Once the import was completed successfully, a corresponding message appears.

The item data from the catalog file is now imported. For example, the corresponding items can be viewed in the “Item list” tab of the catalog.

INFO
Click here to find detailed information about how to carry out the import of a catalog file.

Step 4: Configure the transformation

In the process of the transformation, supplier attribute values are transformed and mapped to the appropriate iPIM Supply attributes. In this step, you need to configure the transformation. In this example, the configuration includes the following:

  • the definition of localized iPIM Supply attributes;
  • setting up attribute mappings;
  • setting up cleansing rules that merge the values of the supplier attributes “Article name” and “Device type” and assign the merged values to the respective locales of the iPIM Supply attribute “Item description”;
  • setting up a validation rule which checks whether the imported items respectively their supplier item numbers already exist in the iPIM system.
INFO
A detailed list of the rights that are needed to configure and carry out a transformation, you can find here.

Step 4.1: Call up the transformation configuration

First, you need to call up the transformation configuration:

  • In the “Catalog process” tab, click on “Transformation” to call up the transformation configuration.

Step 4.2: Define localized attributes

In this step, you need to define the localized iPIM Supply attribute whose locale levels are to assume the values of the supplier attributes which represent the multi-lingual device types. And you need to define the iPIM Supply attribute on whose locale levels the localized item descriptions are stored. The latter are created via a corresponding cleansing rule. In this example, these are the iPIM Supply attributes “Device type” and “Item description”.


In this example, the following localized attributes are defined: “Devicetype [Kunde – REF Default – German (DE)]”, “Devicetype [Kunde – REF Default – English (GB)]”, “Item description [Kunde – REF Default – German (DE)]” und “Item description [Kunde – REF Default – English (GB)]”. The first two attributes later assume values of the supplier attributes “Devicetype DE” und “Devicetype EN”. The other two attributes receive their values via the corresponding cleansing rule.
  1. Go to the “Localized attributes” section.
  2. From the left-hand menu, select the iPIM Supply attribute (in this case it is “Devicetype”). Possibly use the text filter to filter the list of attributs by a search term.
  3. From the menu in the middle, select the context level.
  4. From the right-hand menu, select the locale levels.
  5. In order to finish the process, click on the Add button. Following this, the corresponding entries are shown in the table.
  6. Define the remaining localized attributes as described above.
Note
  • This section explains how to define localized attributes using two exemplary attributes. Which attributes are available in your system is depending on which attributes are configured there.
  • In this example, two localized attributes are created. Usually, it is necessary to define a localized attribute for each multi-lingual supplier attribute.
INFO
Click here to learn more about localized attributes.

Step 4.3: Set up attribute mappings

In this step, you need to set up attribute mappings. To do so, proceed as follows:

  1. From the menu below the table, select the option “New automatic attribute detection”.
  2. Click on the Execute button to call up the corresponding dialog box.
  1. From the menus in the left-hand column, select the matching iPIM Supply attributes for each supplier attribute.
  2. Add the iPIM Supply attributes whose attribute values are to be generated via a cleansing rule. In this case, these are the locale levels of the attribute “Item description” which were defined in step 4.2.
    1. Click on the Add button. Following this, a new set of input fields appears.
    2. From the left-hand drop-down menu, select the iPIM Supply attribute (in this case “Item description [Kunde – REF Default – German (DE)]”).
    3. From the right-hand menu, select the option “<empty>”.
    4. Configure the second iPIM Supply attribute as described above.
When calling up the dialog box, the right-hand column shows the supplier attributes from the imported catalog file.
  1. For the supplier attribute “Category” which represents the item category, you need to set up a value mapping to the appropriate category of the primary iPIM taxonomy. In this case, the primary taxonomy is represented by the iPIM Supply attribute “iPIM Klassifikation”. In order to set up the value mapping, click on the button in the table row of the attribute to call up the corresponding dialog box.
  1. Enter the supplier category name in the input field.
  2. Click on the Add button. Following this, a new table entry appears.
  1. Select the corresponding category of the primary iPIM taxonomy. To do so, click in the input field of the “iPIM Supply attribute” column to show the category directory of the primary taxonomy.
  1. In the category directory, click on the category to select it.
    Possibly use the text search to filter the category list by a search term. Categories that match the search term are then shown in bold letters.
  1. Click on the Save button to finalise the configuration of the value mapping. If the process was succesful, a corresponding message appears and the dialog box closes.

The attribute mapping is now set up.

Note
  • In order to be able to carry out a synchronization in the fourth step of the catalog process, it is essential to set up a mapping to categories of the primary iPIM taxonomy.
  • If you work with three product structure levels, make sure that you also set up an attribute mapping for a dimensioning variant key.
INFO
Click here to learn more about how to set up attribute mappings.

Step 4.4: Set up cleansing rules

In this step, you need to set up cleansing rules that converts the imported supplier attributes in a way that the values of the “Product name” and “Device type” attributes are merged and mapped to the “Item description” attribute. In this specific case, two individual cleansing rules for the locale levels “German” and “English” are set up, beginning with the cleansing rule for the english locale.

  1. Go to the “Cleansing rules” section.
  2. From the menu, select the option “Concatenate strings”.
  3. Click on the Add button to call up the corresponding dialog box.
  1. Enter a name for the cleansing rule in the input field “Title”.
  2. From the “Order” menu, select the option “After transformation”. Then, the conversion only affects the transformed iPIM Supply attributes. The values of the corresponding supplier attributes stay the same.
  3. From the “Attribute” menu, select the target attribute. (In this case, it is “Item description [Kunde – REF Default – English (GB)]”)
  4. Configure the source attributes as shown in the right-hand screenshot.
In this example, the values of the source attributes “Product name (ShortDescription)” and “Devicetype – [Kunde – REF Default – English (GB)]” are merged and mapped to the target attribute, with an empty space between them.
  1. In order to finish the process, click on the Save button. If the process was successful, a corresponding message will appear. The cleansing rule is now set up.
  2. Configure the corresponding cleansing rule for the german locale.
INFO
Click here to learn more about how to set up cleansing rules.

Step 4.5: Set up validation rules

In this step, you need to set up a validation rule that checks already exist in the iPIM system. In this step, a validation rule is set up to check whether the imported items already exist in the iPIM system. In this specific case, the rule checks whether there are already products with supplier item numbers that match the imported supplier item numbers:

  1. Go to the “Validation rules” section.
  2. From the menu, select the option “iPIM duplicate check”.
  3. Click on the Add button to call up the corresponding dialog box.
  1. Enter a name for the validation rule in the input field “Title”.
  2. From the menu, select the iPIM Supply attribute that represents the imported supplier item number (in this case it is “Supplier item number (ITEMEXTID)”).
  3. From the “Search attribute” menu, select the iPIM attribute which the imported iPIM Supply attribute is compared to (in this case it is “ITEMEXTID”).
  4. In order to finish the process, click on the Save button. If the process was successful, a corresponding message will appear. The validation rule is now set up.

Step 5: Carry out the transformation

In this step, you need to carry out the transformation. To do so, proceed as follows:

  1. Go back to the “Catalog process” tab.
  1. Click on the Execute button. Following this, an input prompt window appears.
  2. Click on the Yes button to trigger the transformation. Once the transformation is completed successfully, a corresponding message will appear.

Step 6: Configure the approval

In this step, you need to configure the approval.

INFO
Click here for more detailed information about the process step “Appproval”. And click here to find a list of the required rights.
  1. Click on “Approval” to call up the approval configuration.
  1. If not already set, select the option “Standard” from the drop-down menu in the “Approval strategy” section. With this setting, it is sufficient that at least one of the defined approval rules is fulfilled for an item to be approved.
  2. Click Save button in the lower right corner to save your settings. If the process was successful, a corresponding message will appear.
  1. If not already set, define an automatic approval rule. To do so, select the option “Automatic approval” from the drop-down menu in the footer and click on the Add button to call up the corresponding dialog box.
  1. Enter a name for the approval rule in the field “Title”.
  2. From the “Automatic approval” menu, select the option “Valid items without warning”, so that only items that pass all validations without warnings are approved.
  3. From the “Automatic rejection” menu, select the option “Invalid items”, so that items which did not pass any of the validations are rejected.
  1. In order to finish the process, click on the Save button. If the process was successful, a corresponding message will appear.

The approval is now set up and can be carried out.

Step 7: Carry out the approval

In this step you need to carry out the approval in order to release the transformed items for the synchronization.

  1. Go back to the “Catalog process” tab.
  1. Click on the Execute button. Following this, an input prompt window appears.
  2. Click on the Yes button to trigger the approval. Once the approval is completed successfully, a corresponding message will appear.

Step 8: Configure the synchronization

In this step you need to configure the synchronization.

INFO
Click here for more detailed information about the process step “Synchronization”. And click here to find a list of the required rights.
  1. Click on “Synchronization” to call up the synchronization configuration.
  1. In the “Product arrangement” section, select the attribute on whose basis items are merged into products. For example, this can be a model number which is identical for the individual variations of an item. Though, in this case this will not be relevant as for each imported item a separate product is created.
  2. Click on the Save button in the lower right corner to save your settings.

Step 9: Carry out the synchronization

In the last step, you need to synchronize the imported iPIM Supply items and the associated item data with iPIM in order to create the corresponding products there.

  1. Go back to the “Catalog process” tab.
  1. Click on the Execute button. Following this, an input prompt window appears.
  2. Click on the Yes button to trigger the synchronization. Once the synchronization is completed successfully, a corresponding message will appear.

The catalog process is now completed. For example, the newly created products can be viewed in the “Products” tab of the “Taxonomies” app of the iPIM Portal.