Understanding Staged Item Maintenance

The PeopleSoft system provides tools to import and maintain item catalog data. The Item Loader feature enables you to import item catalog data into staging tables, where you can manipulate item information by using the Item Loader Data Maintenance pages before loading the data into the master data tables.

The Item Loader feature supports two business processes for updating the master data tables with item data that is staged by third-party applications. These business processes enable you to:

Import item price data that is received from suppliers.
Import item data to synchronize item records with those on a third-party system.

For both business processes, the Staged Item Load process (IN_ITMLOAD) validates item data in staging tables and updates the master data tables with the valid records. Records with invalid data remain in the staging tables, and you can correct them online using the item Data Definition Maintenance component.

Note: While an item exists in the item staging tables, any changes that are made to the item in the master item data are overwritten when you run the Item Loader process.