Importing purchase requistion details from an external csv file into the grid field

Newbie here. 

I am entering items details manually into the different fields of a purchase requisition. 

I have a csv file with data from an MSC shopping cart. How do I transfer this data into the Purchase requisition grid without copy and pasting field by field.

I read that data porter is not well suited for importin data into the grid fileds.

Thank you.

  • 0

    DataPorter works fine with forms like this, it just doesn't work well with the type that contains only a grid. In PO, that would be a task like Set Up Buyers. The shopping cart throws me a little. Are these requests from internal employees so you're using the requisition process, or are you directly creating purchase orders and it's just terminology?

    There is a difference because Enter POs has been mapped for DataPorter where Enter Requisitions has not, so there might be some extra work involved. Either way, you would need to format the import so it matches the requirements. This is a little more difficult with header, detail formats of any data but you bring up an existing entry in either interface, invoke DataPorter, map and export to review the general format. There are other methods to import that data as well but they either require some development, or use of the Data Import functionality.

  • 0 in reply to Contefication

    Thank you. I am the internal employee selecting tools for our machinining department from an online supplier. (msc or mcmaster etc) .I then create the requisition share my msc shopping cart and the purchasing department creates the PO and completes the purchase. currently I manually copy and paste price, quatity and descriptions of the items I need into the requisition fields which is cumbersome. Some video or step by step instructionn for this specific process would be super awesome.

  • 0

    I would think MRP would be more effective but that does require a lot more configuration. Either way, sorry to break it to you but it looks like the Enter Requisitions form is not set up to properly accommodate the DataPorter metadata requirements as is. It would require some customization to support it, and at that point it might just be easier to build a custom import to provide a proper transform of the data directly from the cart to the form or import it directly into the database. Enter Purchase Orders is supported but it doesn't seem you have access to that task.

    I don't know if there is any current user documentation on DataPorter. I don't think there is a current iteration of the very old cross-utilities guide, but I've attached an excerpt. It's from version 6.2 (!!!) but not much, if any, of that functionality has actually changed in 20 years.

    DataPorter_Excerpt.pdf

    DataPorter_Import.pdf

  • 0 in reply to Contefication

    Thanks, I wonder how the process would work if I had the access to Enter PO's

  • 0 in reply to Larsen Fleckenstein

    You need to transform the data (translate it into a format readable by the app). DataPorter is fickle, so it has some session and format requirements, although you can relocate the mapped elements anywhere on the worksheet specified in the metadata. Most of the PO import abilities are reached programmatically. There are data management and security concerns with a front-end import, and the model is pretty complex. That means most of the import or management functionality is exposed directly in PO, or Inventory Replenishment, MRP and drop ship processing, the rest is in the back-end.

  • 0 in reply to Larsen Fleckenstein

    If you have the Data Import Manager (DI) module, you would have access to purchase orders.  DI is a little tricky to get going, but once you do, it can process imports on demand or work with the SQL SSIS scheduler to run jobs on an interval.  PO is an entity that is supported out-of-the-box, while requisitions I believe is not.  DI has the ability to map from a variety of sources, including Excel spreadsheets and text files, among others.

    I generally think of using DI to handle larger amounts of data such as 10k+/Day sales orders from a web site source with reasonable speed, but can work for data sets as small as 1.  It can be a little tricky to get going which would include the mapping to the source file, but once done is usually pretty solid after that. 

    If the text file formats from the other system remain consistent, then it could be something you might want to consider.  I can tell you that once DI became available, the manual imports got a lot less attention as far as maintenance and additional features went.  DI imports are generally kept up-to-date and always use our APIs to get data in.