Error Messages

Within Merchandising, error messages are maintained in a manner that allows for the message text and translations to be maintained by each customer. These error messages are loaded on initial installation of the solution; however, Merchandising supports the ability for the messages to be configured in implementations to update descriptions to better suit your business, and in some cases add your own error codes and descriptions. These updates can be made through spreadsheet download and upload processes. These processes are accessed through the main Merchandising task list under Foundation Data > Download Foundation Data and Foundation Data > Upload Foundation Data.

To add or update error messages, you will select the template type of Administration from the Download Data screen and then the template Error Messages. Click the Download button and when prompted, choose to either open the .ods file that is generated or save the file and open it separately in the spreadsheet application of your choice. Once opened, there will be two sheets that can be modified - Error Messages and Error Message Translations.

Note: error messages can be deleted but it is advised that they are not. Doing so may result in a cryptic error code being displayed to a user in the system without a business-friendly description.

Add a Message

To add a new message, start in the Error Messages tab, and, in a blank line in the template, select the action type of Create. Next select an Error Type, which is a way to classify the error based on its usage. Then, enter a unique key value (up to 25 characters, no spaces) and the description for the message in the primary language (as defined in the Merchandising system options) of up to 250 characters. The Approved column is used to indicate if the error message has been reviewed and approved. Only rows with an approved value of Yes will appear in the application but this column can be utilized to mark rows for proofreading by a second user before they're marked as approved.

If you wish to add translations for the error messages in languages other than the primary language, this can be done in the Error Message Translations tab. Navigate to a blank row and select the action type of Create and the language in which the translated text will be entered. Then, enter the error message code for which the translation applies. Finally, enter the translated text. The translated text can also be up to 250 characters long. This is an optional step.

Update a Message

If you would like to update any details for existing messages, a similar process will be followed as that described above for creating new messages. First, download the spreadsheet, and then navigate to the tab where you would like to make your updates.

The following columns can be updated in each tab:

Error Messages - Error Type, Text, Approved
Error Message Translations - Text

Note: the symbol '%s' followed by a number (for example, %s1) indicates a substitution variable. The application will substitute a value in for these variables when the error is displayed to an end user. These should not be removed or changed when updating base error message descriptions.

In the tab where you are going to make your updates, select the action type of Update, and then correct the value in the spreadsheet.

Upload Changes

For all actions defined above, once all the updates have been made to the data in the spreadsheet, save the file and close it. Then, return to the Merchandising screens and select Foundation Data > Upload Foundation Data from the main task list. In this screen, select the template type Administration and the template Error Messages. This will generate a process description automatically, but this can be updated if desired. Lastly, select the Browse button and navigate to the directory where you saved the updated spreadsheet.

Note: because all the tabs in this spreadsheet have a lot of rows, it's recommended that you delete any you are not updating from the template. This will not remove them from the system, but will make your updates process faster. Worksheets and columns in the spreadsheet cannot be removed, however.

To review the status of the upload and check whether any errors occurred, select the Foundation Data > Review Status task from the main task list.

For more information, see "Download/Upload Data from Spreadsheets" in the Oracle Retail Merchandising Do the Basics User Guide.