Set up languages and classifications
Catalog export profiles
BMEcat, Datanorm, Excel — per customer.
An export profile is a saved answer to the question "what exactly do we send this customer, in what format, with which prices, how often, and where to?". Building the second one takes ten minutes. Building the twentieth also takes ten minutes — which is the entire point.
Before you begin. Get the customer's specification in writing: format and
version, classification standard and version, language set, price basis, and how
they want it delivered. Half of all rejected catalog deliveries are rejected
because someone assumed one of those five. See
Catalog exchange formats.
What a profile holds
| Field | Decides | Typical value |
|---|---|---|
| Format and version | The file that comes out | BMEcat 2005, Datanorm 5, Excel |
| Channel | Which cut of the catalog | The export channel for this customer |
| Assortment | Which articles | This customer's agreed articles |
| Price basis | Which prices | Their contract price list |
| Currency | EUR, CHF | |
| Languages | Which localised values are included | de-DE, en-GB |
| Classification | Which standard and version | eCl@ss 12.0 |
| Media | Images and datasheets: as URLs, or delivered alongside | URLs, unless they insist |
| Update type | Full catalog or update | Full quarterly, prices monthly |
| Schedule | When it runs | First working day of the month, 06:00 |
| Delivery | Where it goes | SFTP drop, portal upload, download |
Steps
- Create the profile and name it after the customer, not after the format. You will have three BMEcat profiles and they will differ in every other field.
- Choose the format and version from the specification.
- Select the channel. A dedicated export channel per customer, or per customer group, is what lets you scope attribute values and completeness to what that customer actually receives — see Channels, locales and completeness.
- Set the assortment. Usually the products assigned to that channel; for large customers it is the negotiated article list and nothing else.
- Set the price basis to their price list, not your list prices. See Price lists.
- Select the languages. BMEcat carries several in one file; Datanorm and most Excel formats carry one.
- Select the classification and version if the format supports it.
- Set the media policy. URLs are simpler; some customers require the files.
- Set the update type and the schedule.
- Set the delivery target — see below.
- Run it once by hand and read the validation report before you schedule it.
Per-customer assortment and prices
This is the part that goes subtly wrong most often, and the errors are expensive because they are commercial rather than technical.
- Prices must be the customer's prices. Exporting list prices to a customer with a negotiated agreement means their system now holds the wrong price for every article, and their buyers order at it. Untangling that is a credit-note conversation.
- The assortment must be the agreed assortment. Exporting your full catalog to a customer who negotiated 800 articles means their buyers can order the other 39,000 — at prices nobody agreed.
- Price units must match what was agreed. € 4.20 per 100 pieces exported as € 4.20 per piece is a factor of a hundred, it validates cleanly, and it will not be caught until an order arrives.
- Validity dates belong in the file. Time-limited prices exported without their window become permanent in the customer's system.
Never point a customer profile at your default price list "for now". It is
the most common shortcut when a deadline is close, and it is the one that ends
in invoices being corrected. If the contract prices are not ready, delay the
delivery.
Scheduling
Two rhythms, and they are usually different:
- The catalog — articles, descriptions, classification, media. Quarterly for most customers, or when the assortment changes.
- Prices — monthly, or whenever a price list is republished. Many formats support a price-only update, which is far smaller and far faster to load on the customer's side.
Set the schedule so the file arrives when someone is there. A Sunday-night delivery that fails is not noticed until Tuesday. And align it with the customer's own load window — some procurement systems import once a month on a fixed day, and a file that arrives the day after waits four weeks.
Validation before send
Every profile should validate before it delivers, and the validation has two layers:
- Format validation — is this a structurally valid BMEcat or Datanorm file?
- Content validation — does every article have the fields this format and this customer require? Order unit, price unit, packing quantity, mandatory classification features, at least one image if they demand images.
Set the failure policy per profile: block the delivery on any error for customers who reject whole files, or warn and deliver with the errored articles excluded and listed. Most customers are the second case; the ones who are not will have told you.
What to check
- Run the profile and open the file. Check five articles by hand against what you believe their contract price and unit to be.
- Send a test file of 20 articles to the customer and get written confirmation it loaded before sending the full one. This step is skipped constantly and it is the cheapest insurance in the whole process.
- Confirm the delivery arrived where it was supposed to — see SFTP and file exchange.
- After the first scheduled run, check the run history. A schedule that failed silently is the normal way a customer stops receiving updates for a quarter.