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Customer Interface receives data from an import program which converts data from your feeder system into a standard format that can be read by Customer Interface. Customer Interface can then convert your import data into customer information within the system. See: Customer Interface.

You must write an import program that is compatible with the environment from which you want to import your data. For example, you can use SQL*Loader, SQL*Report, PL/SQL, or C to write an import program to import data from an external system. You can also write a conversion program to import historical data from your original customer database.

Attention: Customer Interface does not import territory flexfield information.

Prerequisites

   Review the validation rules for each column of the Customer Interface tables. See: Customer Interface Validation Rules.

   Perform all required set up steps preceding customer entry to ensure that values exist in the system for the columns of the Customer Interface tables that require predefined values. See: Setting Up Receivables.

   Write an import program to transfer customer information from an external system.

   To import customers and customer related information into Receivables using the Customer Interface program:

1. Run your import program to load the Customer Interface tables.

Caution: When loading the interface tables, you should remove all trailing spaces from the import data. Otherwise, if you attempt to load two records with the same customer name, but one of the records has trailing spaces, Customer Interface will treat each record as unique. If you are using SQL*loader to load the interface tables, you can easily remove all trailing spaces from the import data. For more information, refer to the Oracle8 Server Utilities User's Guide.

2. Navigate to the Run Customer Interface or Submit Requests window.

3. Enter a report Name of Customer Interface, or select this option from the list of values. (There are no parameters for running Customer Interface; the program simply transfers the data that is currently in the interface tables into the system tables.)

Suggestion: If you are importing a very large number of customers, we recommend running Customer Interface several times for smaller batches of customers, rather than trying to import all information at once. Importing many customers at the same time can greatly increase processing time and cause you to exceed rollback segment size.

4. Enter Print and Run options (optional).

5. Choose Submit. Receivables displays the request in the Submission History region along with the request id.

6. To view the status of your request, navigate to the Concurrent Requests Summary window.

7. To view the results of your submission upon completion, navigate to the Completed Requests window, select your report, then choose Report. See: Customer Interface Transfer Report.

See Also

Interface Data Required to Run Customer Interface

A Sample Customer Import

Customers

Monitoring Requests