Import Products

Service Suite - Products
- How do I import products?

In Service Suite you can easily import your products from other systems. Most ERP systems provide functionality for exporting products in comma-separated files, which easily can be imported in Service Suite.

As most ERP systems export data in their own formats, the first thing to do is to export the products in your ERP system to a text file.

When this is done you use Service Suite to define a format that contains information's about which fields the file contains, as well as the position of each field.

Creating a format for importing products.

You can create a format for importing you products by selecting the menu:" Settings" from the "Main menu" in Service Suite.

The menu now changes and will contain a number of new menus. From this new menu you select the menu: "ERP-system" which will display the following screen:

The first thing you should do is to select which folder to use when exchanging data between Service Suite and your ERP system. Often it will be a good idea to create a new directory for this purpose. You can select which folder to use by pressing the button: "Change folder":

When this folder has been selected we can define the format for importing products. This is done by clicking the link: "Change format" besides the "Inventory ledger", which will launch this dialog:

To create a new format the button: "Create new format" is pressed, and another dialog will appear:

In this dialog you must enter a name and description for this format. You also have to enter the name of the file that you normally will import your products from. Only the filename itself should be entered, as the path to the file was determined when you selected the exchange folder.

As many ERP systems have limited export capabilities, you must also select whether the character set used should be ANSI or ASCII. If in doubt, try selecting ANSI, and should your local characters be incorrectly displayed, change the format to ASCII.

Which type of file to select depends on your ERP system, but normally comma-separated files are used.

When these information's are entered you press the button: "Next >" which will show the next step of the dialog:

This is where you define which fields that are contained in your text file, as well as the position of the fields. For fields that are not included in the text file, or fields that you do not wish to be imported, you should enter 0 in the position column besides the field.

The position column is used to specify the position of each field in the text file, in order to match the text file exported from your ERP system. If your text file e.g. contains the item number in position 1, and the name of the description of the product in position 2 you should enter "1" in the position field besides the item number, "2" in the field besides the description field and so on.

Another possibility is to import 'Fixed values'. If your text file e.g. does not contain a VAT rate, but you wish that all your products should be imported with a VAT rate of 17.5% you can enter "0" in the position column besides the VAT field, and "17.5" in the "Fixed value" column besides this field. This will assign the value of "17.5" to the VAT rate field of all imported products.

When the format has been defined you press the button: "Finish", which will close the wizard and return to the previous dialog, in which you press the button: "OK". Now you are ready to import your products.

Import of products.

The import of products is done from the product module. You can find your way back to the product module by selecting the menu: "Main" followed by the menu: "Inventory".

Here you then select the menu: "Import items" which will launch this dialog:

In this dialog you select the text file that contains the products to import, as well as the format you have just created, and press the button: "OK".

Now all that needs to be done is wait for the import to finish.

The configuration of the import format only has to be done the first time as Service Suite remembers this format for future use.

Besides this manual import of the products, Service Suite has the capability of automatically importing products. If you are interested you can read this article explaining how to automate the import of products.

Should you have any questions about the import of products into Service Suite, you are always welcome to contact us at: servicesuite@mamut.com