We’ve completely redesigned the Import/Export Utility in the upcoming release of SpendMap to make it even faster and easier to get information in and out of the system.
Check out our news announcement for all the details.
importing
Purge Database While Importing data into your Free Purchase Order Software
Seth works at a seniors’ community in California and wanted to know if he could start over and delete/purge all records in a Master File before importing new information/data…
“I wanted to know if it is possible to delete the entire cost center database (I am attempting to re-upload the database). It has plenty of old data that will take a long time to delete one by one.”
Sure thing Seth, just go to the [Permissions] folder of the User Master File and select the 4th check-box called “Allow purging of master files when importing?”.
Then, the next time you import, SpendMap will ask you if you want to purge/delete all existing records before importing, for a complete refresh…
Importing Items (parts, products) into your Free Purchase Order Software
Abdul needs to get 9,000 items/parts/products into the free version of SpendMap and he isn’t about to type all that information in manually…
“We have about 9000 products. Do we have option to upload products in bulk? Because if I add one by one it will take months to finish this task.”
For sure, manually typing in 9,000 items would take way too long!
You can import your items into SpendMap’s Item Master File to save all that data entry. It’s a two-step process as follows…
1) First you need to set up an Import Configuration to tell SpendMap where the specific pieces of information (fields) are in your Excel spreadsheet, TXT or CSV file. Here’s the menu path…
– PURCHASING > Utility > Data Interfaces > Item master file > Item data > Import > Configure import file layout
2) Then, to actually run the import utility and bring in all your items, use this…
– PURCHASING > Utility > Data Interfaces > Item master file > Item data > Import > Import into Item Master File
When you run the import utility (#2 above), it will prompt you to select the Import Configuration that you set up in #1 above, and then you will select your file to import.
But before you get started, may I suggest that you review the following section of the Online Help in SpendMap…
– System-Wide Features and Information > Integration Tools > Overview and General Information
Click the “YouTube” icon at the top of that Help section, to watch a video tutorial on importing data into SpendMap (the video actually uses importing of items in its examples).
Also, as you will see during the video tutorial, in the Evaluation Copy of SpendMap (the one that comes preloaded with sample data), we included a sample Excel spreadsheet with a few sample items to import, and there is an Import Configuration already set up to match that spreadsheet. So give it a try in your Eval Copy first, to see how it works, before actually importing your items into your Live Copy of SpendMap.
Finally, here are a few other blog posts related to importing data.
Hope that helps.
-FP
“Add” vs. “Replace” when importing data into your Free Purchase Order Software
Peter works at a hotel/resort in Florida and had a great question about importing data into SpendMap…
“When I import my items, it just keeps adding the new items to the items that are already in the system. Is there any way to start over and replace everything with the next list of imported items?”
Yes, by default all Master File imports in SpendMap will add to what is already in the Master File. This is true not only of brand new items, but also new or changed fields for a particular item. So, for example, you can import the same items over and over again, perhaps to update pricing or other details on an ongoing basis.
But if you’d like to start over, just enable the setting “Allow purging of master files when importing“, in the [Permissions] folder of the User Master File, and then you will see the following prompt the next time you run any of the Master File imports…
New Tutorial: Importing items into free Purchase Order Software
We’ve had a few requests for help with importing your items (item catalogs) into the free Purchase Order Software during initial system setup (saves time over keying in all the item details manually).
So to help you out, we put together a new video tutorial on importing items into the Item Master File.
The video actually covers many generic concepts about SpendMap’s built-in integration tools, not just importing items, so it will also be helpful for you when importing other Master Files (suppliers, account codes, assets, etc), as well as setting up transactional interfaces (e.g. exporting approved invoices to your Accounts Payable system, etc.).
TIP: As you’ll see at the end of the tutorial on importing items, we’ve added a sample import configuration to your Evaluation System, along with a sample spreadsheet containing a few sample items that you can use to test the import utility. If you recently downloaded the free version, you may need to select the menu Help > Check For Updates to get these files.
You can watch all 14 video tutorials to help implement your free Purchase Order Software on our YouTube channel.
Thanks, and please keep the feedback coming!
Importing items into free Purchase Order Software
I recently helped a Free-Procurement customer with importing his items into the Item Master File in SpendMap and I thought a couple of the tips I gave him would be useful for you as well.
What I’m going to outline here applies to importing most of the system’s Master Files, not just items…
The Free-Procurement Project 