1. Using Product Master Data Management
  2. Upload Products with Smart Spreadsheets

Upload Products with Smart Spreadsheets

Suppliers can download the Smart Spreadsheets that are exposed to them by the Product Data Stewards. They can use these spreadsheets to fill out their product data and generate the data files which can then be uploaded to Product Hub Portal.

The Smart Spreadsheets contain the metadata information of the item attributes that are mapped in the Import Map to which the spreadsheet belongs to. The suppliers can use this information to accurately fill in their product data. The metadata information could be valid values that can be entered for the item attributes, the maximum number of characters that can be entered for an item attribute, the data type of the item attribute, and so on.

Uploading Data Using Smart Spreadsheets

In the Product Hub Portal, supplier product administrators can download the smart spreadsheets exposed by the Product Data Stewards, enter data, and create and upload data files. The spreadsheet contains two sheets-Instructions sheet and Data sheet. The Instructions sheet provides the steps to enter and validate data, and then generate a data file. The Data sheet is where you will enter the data.

You can use smart spreadsheets to upload data to the Product Hub Portal as follows:

  1. Download the smart spreadsheet template as follows:

    1. In the Supplier Portal work area, click the Manage Products task.

    2. On the Manage Products page, select the Product Uploads infolet.

    3. Click Download Templates to download and save a smart spreadsheet template.

  2. Enter data into the smart spreadsheet.

  3. Validate data in the smart spreadsheet: On the Add-Ins tab, click Validate to check the data entered in the smart spreadsheet against the attribute metadata. The rows that fail the validation are highlighted in the Status column. The Status column isn't included in the generated data file.

    • Errors indicate an invalid value or a missing value for the Item Number and Spoke Item Number required attributes.

    • Errors also display if a value exceeds the character limit or doesn't follow the allowed format.

    • Warnings indicate a missing value for the required attributes that are optional if you're updating data.

    • If a row contains both an error and warning, it's highlighted with the higher severity status, that's an error.

    • Resolve all errors and warnings, and click Validate to confirm.

  4. Generate a delimited data file from the smart spreadsheet: On the Add-Ins tab, click Generate Data File. The data file is generated from the validated spreadsheet.

  5. Upload the data file to Product Hub Portal as follows:

    1. On the Manage Products page, select the Product Uploads infolet.

    2. Click Upload File. The Upload File dialog box displays.

    3. From the Category drop-down list, select the product category for which you want to create the products.

    4. Select a template in the Template field to upload the product data. Select the same template that was downloaded to fill in the product data.

    5. Upload the data file in the File field. Optionally, you can also upload a ZIP file containing product attachments, using the Attachments field.

    6. Enter a name in the Upload Name field.

    7. Click Upload to upload the data file.

The newly created or updated products are submitted to the Product Data Stewards for review. On successful import, products are created or updated in the Product Hub.

Source Data Files

The source data file contains the product data to be uploaded to the Product Hub staging tables. Before a supplier can enter data in the file, you must associate the file with an import map and map its columns to attributes in the item master data table the import map. Source data files can be in the text or XML formats. A supplier downloads the source data file template, which has the same name as the import map, from the Product Uploads page.

The following example shows product data in text format.

Item_number,Org,Item Class,Primary UOM,LifeCycle Phase,Status 
IMB_SP_121610000_Item_1,V1,Root Item Class,Each,Design,Active,

IMB_SP_121610000_Item_2,V1,Root Item Class,Each,Design,Active

 IMB_SP_121610000_Item_3,V1,Root Item Class,Each,Design,Active

The following example shows product data in XML format.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<ItemData>
  <Item>
    <ItemNumber>IMB_SP_121610000_Item_1</ItemNumber>
    <Org>V1</Org>
    <UOM>Each</UOM>
    <Phase>Design</Phase>
    <Status>Active</Status>
 </Item>
  <Item>
    <ItemNumber>IMB_SP_121610000_Item_2</ItemNumber>
    <Org>V1</Org>
    <UOM>Each</UOM>
    <Phase>Design</Phase>
    <Status>Active</Status>
   </Item>
  <Item>
    <ItemNumber>IMB_SP_121610000_Item_3</ItemNumber>
    <Org>V1</Org>
    <UOM>Each</UOM>
    <Phase>Design</Phase>
    <Status>Active</Status>
   </Item>
</ItemData>