Flexible Importer

The export of data to another system is always a challenging task. During this action team may experience a lot of difficulties. One of the hardest is applying the expected data model for the system that will import those data.

The new Flexible Importer will help you with that. With Flexible Importer, you'll be able to export data from your system without any specific format or structure. The only requirement, for now, is to have your data in *.csv or *.xlsx file format (in the future, we will extend the list of supported file type e.g. *xml). Once you have your data exported from an external system, Flexible Importer will allow you to write a transform script into objects definitions understandable for LogiX Platform by yourself using C# syntax. Flexible Importer will allow you to import:

SKUs with packaging structure and line configuration
Orders

Defining Transform Function Definition

Adding New Function

Adding a new transform function will be possible through the Add new function button located on the Formats list view. Each factory has its own list of formats. By default, there will be standard PackOS formats available. Defined in Preparing a Material Master Import ✔️.

To create a new function, fill in the required name and script fields. Additionally, you can decide if you want to make your function visible to other users using the Visible slider. After hitting the Save function button, the Test file upload become active.

Testing Newly Created Function

The newly added functionality also allows you to test your newly created function by letting you upload a test file. After the successful transformation, you'll see definitions of SKUs or Orders that were successfully transformed with your transform as below.

If the import fails, a list of errors encountered during script execution will be returned.

Uploading Import Files

The entry to the Flexible Importer mechanism will be located in the PackOS UI component. It will be placed in the same place as Items Import. The new view will look like this:

To start the whole process, in the first step, you need to pick desired Format from the dropdown as below. The mentioned operation is shown in the graphic below:

Now you can drop your file by the Drop file component or browse for the file by clicking here. The import process will start immediately after the file upload finishes.

Importing summary

Users will access each import summary by visiting the Import view. At the bottom of the mentioned view, there will be located list of performed imports.

This list contains three columns.

Import status
Filename
Import data

The import process can be in the following states:

In progress - visualized with a work indicator graphic
Success - visualized with a thick graphic
Errors - visualized with an exclamation mark graphic

The summary report can be accessed by clicking on the desired file name. The summary report view contains a list of extracted SKU or Order definitions.

As seen in the picture above, the report also shows information about Old value if imported SKU or Order already exists in the system - this way you can clearly see what has been updated as the result of the import. The important thing about Flexible Importer is that this mechanism does not delete any existing data - it just updates and adds them; if an update cannot be performed, the Error message is provided with an explanation of why it fails.

You can see template of order import file here: Importing Orders ✔️

When using import default functions remember:

‘Line’ has to be the Line Code, not the Line Name

Future Plans

In the future releases of Flexible Importer we are planning to implement the following functionalities:

Ability to start import process through our Public API
Ability to automate the import process. We want to allow the end-user to set up the location from where the file with data to import can be downloaded e.g. external server and then set a schedule when the import has to start.