Exports
BMEcat, Datanorm and per-customer Excel. This is the Product-data-guide entry point; the full treatment is the Localization & classification guide.
At some point a customer stops browsing your shop and asks for your catalog as a file. A corporate procurement department means BMEcat. An electrical or plumbing trade customer means Datanorm. A small customer with no procurement system means a spreadsheet. The first request is an afternoon's work. The twentieth is a maintenance problem, and this chapter is about making it cost the same as the second.
What an export is made of
Whatever the format, an export answers five questions with data you already hold:
| Question | Where the answer comes from |
|---|---|
| Which articles | The channel. An export channel is a channel like any other: closed, with the customer's assortment assigned to it. |
| Which values | Scopable attributes with the channel's own cut: the short, plain description a procurement system can display. |
| Which languages | The locales the customer asked for. BMEcat carries several in one file; Datanorm and most Excel formats carry one. |
| Which prices | The customer's price list, never your list prices. See Price lists. |
| Which classification | eCl@ss or ETIM class and features, where the format carries them. |
The channel is the part people skip. Without one, the file is cut from the shop's view: every article, the shop's descriptions, shop completeness. With one, the customer's assortment, descriptions and readiness can be filtered and measured before anything leaves the building.
Which format, and who asks for it
| Format | Who asks | What it carries |
|---|---|---|
| BMEcat | German and European corporate procurement; SAP, Ariba, Onventis shops | Articles, prices, media, classification, features, several languages |
| Datanorm | The trades: Elektro, Sanitär, Heizung, Klima | Articles, prices, discount groups, updates. Fixed-width records, almost no media |
| Excel / CSV | Everyone else, especially first requests | Whatever the customer's spreadsheet says |
Ask which version: BMEcat 1.2 and 2005 are both requested, and Datanorm 4 and 5 are not compatible. Ask whether they want a full catalog or an update; a full catalog sent where a price update was expected replaces their whole assortment.
What the platform does today
The Cockpit has two exports:
- PIM › Products › Export writes the product list as CSV, in the column layout the import reads. Filter the grid first and the file holds the filtered set. This is the spreadsheet answer for a small customer and the round trip behind bulk changes.
- A single product exports as JSON from its detail page, useful for checking exactly which values and locales it carries.
File-based exchange runs in Integration Studio under Data Exchange › Import & Export, next to the SFTP server. The catalog model was built to carry BMEcat: article number, per-language descriptions, ETIM and eCl@ss features, media, units and catalog structure each have their place in it. How a BMEcat or Datanorm delivery is specified, validated and scheduled per customer is the export-profile workflow, documented in Catalog export profiles and Export a catalog for a customer. Those pages cover the delivery; this page prepares the data.
Prepare the catalog for an export
- Create an export channel per customer, or per customer group, under Configuration › Channels, with Products with no assignment to this channel are set to Hidden until assigned (closed).
- Assign the agreed assortment and nothing else. Exporting 39,000 articles to a customer who negotiated 800 lets their buyers order the other 38,200 at prices nobody agreed.
- On the families involved, set Required channels for the fields the format needs: order unit, packing quantity, classification features. Missing order units are the most frequent BMEcat rejection.
- Fill the channel's values for scopable attributes where the shop's text will not do.
- Read completeness for the export channel until the assortment is at 100%.
- Export 20 articles first and get the customer's written confirmation that they loaded. Then the full file, then the schedule.
What to check
- The article count in the file matches what this customer should receive.
- Prices are the customer's, with their price unit and validity dates.
- Every required language is filled rather than falling back to the source language.
- The delivery arrived, and the customer confirmed the load.
Next
- Catalog export profiles: the full treatment.
- Catalog exchange formats: BMEcat and Datanorm in detail.