Create Suppliers with the Import Suppliers Process

How the Import Process Works

The Supplier Import process is run by either the Supplier Administrator or the Supplier Manager.

You can load data to interface tables using predefined templates and the Load Interface File for Import scheduled process. Both are part of the External Data Integration Services for the Oracle Cloud feature.

Obtain FBDI templates from the File-Based Data Import for Oracle Fusion Cloud Procurement guide from the links found in the File-Based Data Imports section.

The process for supplier import is as follows:

Data must first be inserted into the existing Open Interface Tables:
- POZ_SUPPLIERS_INT
- POZ_SUP_ADDRESSES_INT
- POZ_SUPPLIER_SITES_INT
- POZ_SITE_ASSIGNMENTS_INT
- POZ_SUP_CONTACTS_INT
- POZ_SUP_CONTACT_ADDRESSES_INT
- POZ_SUP_BUS_CLASS_INT
- POZ_SUP_PROD_SERV_INT
- POZ_SUP_ATTACHMENTS_INT
- POZ_SUP_THIRDPARTY_INT
Note: For more information about tables, see the Tables and Views for Oracle Fusion Cloud Procurement guide. To obtain the templates to use, see File-Based Data Import for Oracle Fusion Cloud Procurement. Use the instructions contained in the template to complete the template.The fields used vary from one type of template to another, but all templates begin with these fields:
Once the data is inserted, the following concurrent processes must be run to import the supplier profile data in Oracle Suppliers:
- Import Suppliers
- Import Supplier Addresses
- Import Supplier Sites
- Import Supplier Site Assignments
- Import Supplier Contacts
- Import Supplier Business Classifications
- Import Supplier Products and Services Categories
- Import Supplier Attachments
These import processes are executed by the Enterprise Scheduler Service (ESS), which manages all concurrent processes. You can monitor the status of each process and provides access to output reports.

Supplier import processes contain the following parameters:
- Import Options: Options include All, New, and Rejected. Import Options are used to determine if the import process should attempt to import new, rejected, or all rows from the respective open interface tables.
- Report Exceptions Only: Values are Yes or No. Used to determine if the Import Process Reports prints success and rejected information, or just the rejected information.
When the processes are complete, a .pdf report is generated detailing the status of the records that were imported. If a record couldn't be imported, then the status is set to Rejected. The reason for the rejection is provided.

Upload line level errors are applicable only to a line and don't affect the loader's capability to read and process the remainder of the lines in the upload file. Upload line errors can be caused by an invalid UOM for a line, or an incorrect data type specified for a line attribute. Line level errors are displayed in the line errors region or parsing errors region on the upload errors page. Line level errors can be exported to a spreadsheet for review.

Upload file-level errors are detected at the start of processing. The loader is halted and no file lines are processed. Upload file-level errors can be caused by invalid XML or cXML files, required sections missing from a TXT file, or sections out of order in a TXT file. The upload errors page displays the file level error. The line or parsing errors region isn't displayed.

The error threshold parameter sets the maximum number of errors allowed on upload lines before termination of upload file processing. You can export the items table to perform an error analysis.
Note:
- The supplier import processes are used to create new entities, and to update or delete existing supplier profile data. Creation can be done only with attachments. Deletion can be done only with contact addresses, business classifications, and products and service categories.
- Supplier import supports supplier numbering of characters that aren't numeric to allow supplier records from legacy systems to retain their unique identifier.
- Update supports updating the functional key attributes. The columns ending with _NEW are specifically earmarked for updates. Use this only if the underlying functional key attributes must be updated. To update functional keys, the new value should be provided in the _NEW column.

Consider the following when using supplier import:

Import Suppliers

Both prospective or spend authorized suppliers can be imported. Sites and site assignments can't be imported for prospective suppliers.

Business relationship of the supplier can't be updated through import.

Import Supplier Sites and Third-Party Payment Relationships

Supplier Sites are imported for a specific procurement BU, which is specified on the site import record. Additionally, an existing supplier address reference must be defined as part of the site import record.

After a site is created and associated with an address, the association can't be changed. For this reason, including a value for Address Name when updating an existing supplier site triggers an error. The Address Name field maps to PARTY_SITE_NAME, which is the field named in the error.

Use the Supplier Sites Import process to load third-party payment relationships from an external system. Before you import supplier site third-party payment relationship data, review the recommendations in the supplier site import template, Instructions and CSV Generation worksheet.

There are two separate worksheets available for importing supplier sites and third-party payment relationships on the supplier site import template.

Import Site Assignments

Site assignments are created for client BUs that are serviced by the procurement BU to which the site belongs. Assigning the client BU to the site enables the client BU to use the site for ordering and invoicing.

Import Supplier Contacts, Contact Addresses, and User Accounts

You can provide addresses associated with a contact for all sites using that address.

Note: Two separate worksheets are available for contacts and contact addresses on the import upload template for supplier contacts.

The import process checks for duplicate contacts. Provide distinguishing email addresses for imported supplier contacts with the same last name as existing supplier contacts.

Use the User Account Action column to specify the action to create or update a user account. Create a user account by using the default roles for the Supplier Portal work area, the Sourcing work area, or specifying individual roles. Update a user account by adding or removing specific roles, or inactivating the user account. Use the Role 1 to Role 10 columns to specify specific roles based on the user account action.

Here are things you can do after you run the supplier contact import process:

If you need to find out the user accounts that are created or updated successfully, you can create a report for that. Go to the Reports and Analytics work area, use attributes in Supplier - Supplier Real Time subject area to report on user account details.

When a user account action is specified for any imported supplier contact, the Send Pending LDAP Requests process is launched automatically to complete the user account action. If the user accounts aren't created or updated successfully, you can manually run the process using these steps:

From the Tools work area, click Scheduled Processes.
Click Schedule New Processes and search for Send Pending LDAP Requests.
For Parameters, choose User Type as Party and Batch Size as A, and then click Submit.

Import Business Classifications

New certifying agencies can be created and associated with relevant classifications through import. However, the Certifying Agency attribute option 'Other' isn't supported. Consider using the Create New Certifying Agency attribute as an alternative.

Note:

Legacy data including both inactive and active data can be loaded for all the supplier entities

Import Supplier Attachments

You can import attachments for supplier profiles, supplier sites and supplier business classifications for existing suppliers. Different types and categories of attachments can be imported.

For File type attachments, you must add the file to a .zip file and upload the .zip to the Procurement Suppliers Oracle WebCenter Content account: /prc/supplier/import. Multiple files can be added to the same .zip file and can be organized within folders as needed. The template is designed to accept the path along with the file name. This tells the application in which folder of the .zip file the file is located. The Recommendations for Loading Supplier Attachments Data section in the Instructions and CSV Generation tab contains more information on importing attachments. Don’t delete worksheets corresponding to levels of attachments that you don’t intend to import. Delete only the sample data from these unused worksheets.

For including file attachments, consider these points:

Limit the number of attachments in each .zip file to less than 300.
Reduce the number of attachments in the .zip file even further if the .zip file size is more than 1.5GB. Use one or more zip files for each batch and use batch name as part of the zip file name for ease of data entry in the spread sheet.
Do the import in multiple smaller batches instead of using a single big batch to expedite the import process.
Make sure the zip filename matches the zip file uploaded in the WebCenter Content server.
Make sure the File/Text/URL* column value in the spreadsheet has the full folder hierarchy of the attachment file inside the zip folder including subfolders if any.
Consider this example, there’s a zip file named: Policies.zip.
- Subfolder: SupplierPolicies is a subfolder in the zip file
- File Name: Terms.doc is the file inside the subfolder
- Input for column File/Text/URL*: SupplierPolicies/Terms.doc
- Input for column File Attachments .ZIP: Policies.zip
- Some of the special characters are currently not supported for a filename:
- < > * ? | ; " : / \\ % $ ( )

Other Things You Need to Know

When you populate FBDI templates

Use #NULL wherever applicable to update an attribute value to blank. for example, use #NULL to remove Acme Corp. as the alternate name.

Refer to comments added for every import column header in the FBDI import templates to find useful details such as attribute description, interface table column name, actions supported, and user interface navigation to identify acceptable values. Refer to the Instructions and CSV Generation worksheet for details on how CSV files should be generated and used to import records.
Use the Batch ID attribute (displayed as a column name in the FBDI templates) and the corresponding parameter while submitting an import process, especially if you're importing a large number of import records. You can process import records in a single import file using multiple processes. When no value is provided for the Batch ID parameter, only import records that don't have a Batch ID specified will be processed.
Import contact addresses for an existing contact without importing the contact, that is, it's perfectly acceptable to leave the POZ_SUP_CONTACTS worksheet empty and only populate the POZ_SUPP_CONTACT_ADDRESSES_INT worksheet in the Supplier Contacts Import template.

OTBI subject area: Supplier Import - Supplier Real Time and related seeded reports can be leveraged to populate supplier import templates starting Release 11. The reports are in a format that resemble the templates and could be used to generate import data that's suitable to be copied over to the templates. For more details, see Release 11 training: Supplier Reporting Enhancements.
When you import large number of suppliers, have a maximum of 25,000 records in a batch. If you have more than 25000 records, create multiple batches.

When you schedule the import processes

While scheduling an import process to import new records, select New as the import option. This ensures that the current import process doesn't attempt to validate existing interface table records that have already been processed and rejected previously.
Ensure that your parent entity exists in the supply base before importing the child entities. For example, ensure the supplier site exists before importing its site assignments.

After you import the records successfully

Empty the interface table of the supplier entity you have successfully imported by running the Purge Supplier Interface Records process immediately after the import. This ensures that interface tables are empty for your subsequent import and the new import process doesn't attempt to process older records which are no longer relevant. This process is available along with the other import processes.