Synopsis:
Learn how to format and use excel files for use with advancepro, for creating pricelists, complex sku’s, and more!
Webinar transcript
APT University: Importing Picking Locations
Hello and welcome to APTU – Today we’ll be discussing two ways of importing picking locations into AdvancePro. The first way we’ll cover is on a product import where we associate the product with default locations as we set up the product in AdvancePro, and the second way we’ll cover is on a picking location import, where we simply add picking locations separate from any product,
We will be taking questions at the end, so if you do have a question, feel free to enter it into the live chat available just to the right of the video if you’re watching us live on youtube, and just below the video if you’re watching live on localhost/apt. We do APTU sessions on a variety of AdvancePro and inventory management topics at noon eastern time every week, and if you would like to learn more about advancepro, we do have a full archive of APTU videos on localhost/apt under the resources tab, or on our youtube channel
So we’re going to start with an excel file, which I have loaded here in google sheets.you\ll see I have several columns already set to fall in line with a basic product import with a couple of items on it, some important notes – for the top row, the headers, you can name them anything you like but do not include spaces in the name. You may also want to include formulas, just make sure that before you upload to advancepro with formulas, that you select your entire sheet, cut, and then paste special > paste values to pull those formulas out and get the actual values. One last general tip is to clear all formatting and if you have any other trouble, try switching between the XLS and XLSX formats.
Now for today we’re not going to be covering picking location setup or product setup in depth, so if you’re looking to learn about those in depth, i recommend taking a look at our previous videos on them. Today we’re going to be focused just on how to import the locations from a spreadsheet.
I should mention that this method is best if you are creating the product for the first time in advancepro, and need to either create new locations, or assign a pre-existing location to the new product
So lets take a look at our headers, we have a sku and a product name, these are required for the product import, and we have a number of other columns which we can bring in, but are not directly related to picking locations. Now at the end, we have the two columns we’re really concerned about,
The Warehouse column only needs to be here if you are using multiple warehouses, otherwise the picking location will be created in your default warehouse.
Now we have the picking location column. The picking location itself can be in any format you like here we just happen to have chosen this set of 3 pairs of characters with hyphens in between, so you can thing of this as section, row, bin, but again, you can name your locations as you see fit.
Now since we’re creating the product, what this will do is look if the picking location exists in the warehouse, and if it does, then it will assign the location as this products default location inside of this warehouse, if the location doesn’t exist in the warehouse, then AdvancePro will create a location with both shipping and receiving enabled in the warehouse.
Now to perform this import you’re going to go to Admin > Utilities, and I recommend you make a backup before you do this, then go to excel import/export, and go to import products, you’re going to browse your files, and the headers from your file will appear in the column on the right, for each header, pair it with an advancepro field name, and click map. Repeat this for each heading you want to import, remember SKU and product name are required since advancepro uses them to match against, so it knows whether to update an existing product or to create a new one. Once you’re happy with your mappings, click next, here you’ll be able to see your pairings, and unmatch them if there’s a mistake, you can go back to the previous step using the tabs at the top.
Once you’re happy with your import, go ahead a click the import button and advancepro can bring that right in.
Now we’re going to take a look at a way to import picking locations by themselves, Again I recommend taking a backup before doing this by going to admin > utilities> database.
For your file, you’ll want something like this, just the warehouse name, and the picking location name,
Once you’ve done that, go to Admin > Utilities > MPL and click the manage picking locations button, now click the excel import button, and browse for your file, just like before you’ll be able to select your headers and map them to the fields in advancepro.
Once you walk through this process you’ll have the locations imported, again the import will only bring in locations as both shipping and receiving locations, so if you want to create restrictions on picking location behaviours, you will need to go through advancepro itself and edit your locations.
This concludes today’s discussion on importing locations.