It is a category manager’s job to try to maximize profit from selling products within a specific category. This may be looking after a broad category such as ‘confectionery’ or they may focus closely on a more specific category, such as ‘snacking’. A category manager will analyze complex data collected on shopper behavior from a range of different sources, and then translate it into meaningful information. The category manager’s duty is to ensure that their company is providing the market with the products that consumers desire.
Retail Category managers love Excel. It is used for almost everything, and they perform much of the analyzing, lookup, data collection and decision making in Excel. When implementing Dynamics 365 we are often faces with large set of excel spreadsheets that needs to be imported. I have seen users import 8 different excel spreadsheets for importing products. This blog post is about how to simplify the process of keeping retail master data in single excel sheet and easily importing and updating products. For this, Dynamics 365 data management framework is used. One of the problems I often se uses are struggling with, is the issue that the source excel spread sheet is a single spreadsheet, but it needs to be imported into several data entities. For a retailer some of the most common master data entities are:
Data entity |
Description of data entity |
Products V2 |
Contains Product number, Product name and dimension groups |
Released products V2 |
Contains most fields on the released product |
Item – bar code |
Contains the item barcodes used for scanning |
Default order settings |
Contains information like minimum purchase quantity etc. |
External item descriptions for vendors |
Vendors item numbers and descriptions |
Product category assignments |
The connection to the retail category hierarchy. |
It is possible to create a single excel spreads sheet that overs all of these entities, and in a single run import or update the retail products.
So how to exactly do this?
Create an Excel spreadsheet with exactly the following.
I recommend creating two sheets. First one is a “read me” sheet, that explains the “template” sheet.
Use exactly the column names as described here. This will make the mapping between the columns and the data entity automatic. Here I also use color coding to show what entity each column mainly belongs to.
Field |
Example Value |
Comment |
Tables |
ITEMNUMBER |
1005157 |
Product number |
Released Products, Products |
PRODUCTNUMBER |
1005157 |
Product number |
Released Products |
PRODUCTNAME |
Jalla Coffee 500G |
Item name |
Released Products, Products |
PRODUCTSEARCHNAME |
4001392 Jalla Coffee FILTER 500G |
Seach name |
Released Products, Products |
SEARCHNAME |
Jalla Coffee FILTER 500G |
Seach name |
Released Products |
PRODUCTDESCRIPTION |
Jalla Coffee Original is a useful coffee that can be enjoyed on most occasions. A carefully selected mix of coffee types, mainly from Brazil, guarantees a round and full-bodied coffee with long aftertaste |
Full item description |
Released Products, Products |
PRODUCTSUBTYPE |
Product |
Should always be “product” |
Released Products, Products |
PRODUCTTYPE |
Item |
Item or Service |
Released Products, Products |
STORAGEDIMENSIONGROUPNAME |
SiteWhLoc |
Name of the storage dimension group |
Released Products, Products |
ISPURCHASEPRICEAUTOMATICALLYUPDATED |
Yes/No |
Should last purchase price be updated automatically |
Released Products |
ISUNITCOSTAUTOMATICALLYUPDATED |
Yes/No |
Should cost purchase price be updated automatically |
Released Products |
PRODUCTGROUPID |
WHI |
WHI(warehouse controlled) or, SRV(service) |
Released Products |
INVENTORYUNITSYMBOL |
PCS |
Inventory unit |
Released Products |
PURCHASEUNITSYMBOL |
PCS |
Purchase unit |
Released Products |
SALESUNITSYMBOL |
PCS |
Sales unit |
Released Products |
PURCHASEPRICE |
0 |
Latest purchase price in local currency |
Released Products |
UNITCOST |
0 |
Latest cost price Sin local currency |
Released Products |
SALESPRICE |
0 |
Default sales price in local currency |
Released Products |
NETPRODUCTWEIGHT |
0,5 |
Weight of the product |
Released Products |
PRIMARYVENDORACCOUNTNUMBER |
20086 |
Primary vendor |
Released Products |
PURCHASESALESTAXITEMGROUPCODE |
Middle |
Purchase item tax groups |
Released Products |
SALESSALESTAXITEMGROUPCODE |
Middle |
Sales item tax groups |
Released Products |
BUYERGROUPID |
P108 |
Grouping related to buyergroup |
Released Products |
TRACKINGDIMENSIONGROUPNAME |
None |
Tracking dimension |
Released Products, Products |
BASESALESPRICESOURCE |
PurchPrice |
Base sales prices on purchase price ? |
Released Products |
DEFAULTORDERTYPE |
Purch |
Standard verdier |
Released Products |
ITEMMODELGROUPID |
FIFO |
item model group |
Released Products |
PRODUCTCOVERAGEGROUPID |
Min/Max |
Coverage group |
Released Products |
COUNTGROUPID |
PER |
Gcount group |
Released Products |
PURCHASEPRICEQUANTITY |
1 |
Purchase price quantity |
Released Products |
UNITCOSTQUANTITY |
1 |
Cost price quantity |
Released Products |
DEFAULTLEDGERDIMENSIONDISPLAYVALUE |
-D30-320—P108 |
Financial dimensions(=”-D30-320—“&B34) |
Released Products |
Product Dimension |
P108 |
Just a helping colum |
Help column for DefaultLedgerDimension |
ProductCategoryHierarchyName |
Retail category |
Retail hierarcy name |
Product category assignments |
ProductCAtegoryName |
Coffee |
Category node |
Product category assignments |
VendorProductNumber |
4001392 |
Vendors item number |
External item descriptions for vendors |
VendorProductDescription |
Jalla Coffee FILTER 500G |
Vendors item name |
External item descriptions for vendors |
VendorAccountNumber |
20086 |
Vendor number |
External item descriptions for vendors |
BARCODESETUPID |
EAN13 |
Barcode type |
Item – Bar Code, Released products |
BARCODE |
7041011050007 |
Barcode |
Item – Bar Code |
PRODUCTQUANTITYUNITSYMBOL |
PCS |
barcode unit |
Item – Bar Code |
ISDEFAULTSCANNEDBARCODE |
Yes |
Scanning yes/no |
Item – Bar Code |
PRODUCTQUANTITY |
1 |
Barcode quantity |
Item – Bar Code |
PURCHASEUNDERDELIVERYPERCENTAGE |
20 |
Purchase under delivery percentage allowed |
Released Products |
PURCHASEOVERDELIVERYPERCENTAGE |
20 |
Purchase over delivery percentage allowed |
Released Products |
MINIMUMPROCUREMENTORDERQUANTITY |
x |
Minimum purchase quantity |
Default Order Settings |
MAXIMUMPROCUREMENTORDERQUANTITY |
x |
Maximum purchase quantity |
Default Order Settings |
STANDARDPROCUREMENTORDERQUANTITY |
x |
Standard purchase quantity |
Default Order Settings |
PROCUREMENTQUANTITYMULTIPLES |
x |
Multiple purchase quantity |
Default Order Settings |
The template excel spread sheet columns should contain exactly the columns as listed above:
Then start building the excel spread sheet (this is the time consuming part). This can also be regarded as the “master file” for products. And mass update and mass import of products is done using this file. Remember that you can add more columns and also include calculated fields. Like in this case, the default dimension (used for financial dimension have the formula like =”-D30-320—“&B34 making sure that cell B34 is merged into the financial dimension.
Create the data management import project.
In the data management workspace, create a import project, and use the “+ Add file”, and select the excel file by using the “upload and add”. Then select all the entities and what page in the excel spread sheet that should be imported.
– Select file
– Select entity name
– Select sheet lookup
– Then repeat by select entity name and sheet lookup until all date entities needed are selected
After done this correctly you should have an import project with the following entities:
You should also click on the “view map” symbol if there are a warning, and just delete the lines where there are no mapping generated. Like what I have done here to the “Products V2” entity.
The mapping will be done automatically for you, and will only select the fields that is relevant for each data entity.
Your data entity is now ready to be used. I recommend to use the data management workspace, and select the import project and then “run project”
Then for each data entity I upload exactly the same excel spreadsheet :
And then click on the “import”. If there are any errors, then fix them in the excel sheet or make changes to the staging.
What we then have accomplished is to have a single excel spreadsheet that the category manager can maintain and work with, and it can uploaded(several times) into the import project. For trade agreement sales and purchase prices I normally recommend creating a separate excel spread sheet
Then the excel loving category managers will be happy, and they can import thousands of products in a very short time
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Nice Post
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Really nice
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