How to map the vendor id from GP to CRM?
Isabell asked 7 years ago
I have a problem transferring information from GP to CRM. My issue is that I want to transfer the Vendor Description from GP to CRM through SmartConnect. Since we in some cases buy the same product from different vendors this product appears one time for each vendor in my SmartConnect map under the data tab. Each time with the same item number but with different vendor descriptions. My question is how to make sure I transfer the right description to the right product in CRM and that there wont be a conflict with the item number since we have each product only once in CRM? I have an idea of using the vendor id in GP Table IV00103 to make sure I map to the right product in CRM. But since I don’t have that same information in CRM right now I’m not sure how to do? I have the information about the vendor selling the product in CRM but I don’t have the vendor id that’s created in GP somewhere in CRM so if I add a new filed, I still wont have a reference. Right now the item number is my key field.
Any help will be highly appreciated, thanks!
/Isabell
Patrick Roth Staff answered 7 years ago
In CRM, you only have 1 unique item.
You then want to know how to update your CRM for the “right record” to the “right” value.
I don’t see how you are going to do this well- but your solutions would be:
1. create 4 items in CRM, one for each in GP. Because the underlying GUID is unique, you can have duplicate “Names” in CRM for the Product ID. You would have to make a custom field for Vendor or rename/repurpose another field for that.
This solution would work but I think it would be difficult to use then in CRM itself since I now have 4 items instead of just the one item as you should (and exists in GP)
2. Make 8 custom fields in CRM – like:
VendorID1, VendorDescription1
VendorID2, VendorDescription2
etc
Now you update the Item but set the individual custom fields to their correct values.
However the problem with this approach is how many custom fields do you need? I have room for 4 vendors here but what if you only need 2? or have another item with 7 vendors – now you don’t have enough fields to put them in?
3. Don’t store multiple Vendor ID and Descriptions
When you update from GP->CRM, either use the first vendor item description (by using the group by on map) or the last one (by processing all records and the last one would overwrite the previous). Now in CRM, you just have the one description (and the vendor if you put it in a custom field or repurpose another field).
In the end, the problem isn’t “How do I use SC to integrate this data”. The problem is “In CRM, there isn’t a place to store multiple sets of Vendor ID/Vendor Description data. How would I handle that in CRM if I wanted to enter it by hand”
Isabell replied 7 years ago Hi Patrick,
Tanks for your quick response! And I see what you mean by the fact that there is no good way to do this. I have been thinking about this and solution number 3 seems to be the most appropriate one. I was thinking having only one record of each product in SmartConnect would be the best way, because then there’s only one record to transfer to CRM. What I don’t fully understand is how I can make this happen by group by? Or more like, what if the first vendor item description isn’t the one that I want? Or the last one, which make overwriting complicated to I guess. I have 13 000 products so I don’t know how make sure that either the first or the last one is the correct one for CRM.
Thank you!
/Isabell
Patrick Roth Staff replied 7 years ago How could you say that any of the values are incorrect? Since the “key” on the CRM table is just the Item Number – they are all “correct” since they match the key.
In the Item Quantities Maintenance window you can define a Primary Vendor ID for each item.
So potentially the “right” Item Description is the one for the Vendor Defined here.
Otherwise, between 3 Item Vendor Records with 3 different descriptions, I don’t know how you could possibly determine which one is “right”.
Isabell replied 7 years ago Sorry for not being clear, of course I didn’t mean the values are incorrect. I simply meant the right one is the one from GP with a matching vendor in CRM.
Thank you for your response, I will look into it!