Re: BPCS/ERPLX Upload File - Master

Andry,

Uploading data from xls (an Excel spreadsheet) is probably allowed,
providing you have the proper security. But, that's a rather flippant
response. The thing to remember is that BPCS/ERPLX doesn't use any OS
integrity like referential integrity, check constraints, etc. Heck, they
do not even use a primary key. You could upload 27 items with the same
item number. They tend to only enforce integrity through programming.
It's up to you to verify all fields and relations. Of course these
uploads and conversions are done all the time. For example when we right
sized from a PC based application to BPCS. So, tread carefully and
cautiously and it can be done.

What I would not recommend is downloading the item master to Excel, let
some manager modify it around and upload it back up. Any transactions
which occurred during that time will not be reflected in the item balance
columns. And other such data.

I think there are supplied programs to resync the item master with the
item warehouse rows. (IIM with IWI).

A common approach is to upload the excel spreadsheet to another file and
then use your programming to post that file back into the item master.
This allows you to do the appropriate edits at that time.

Another approach is to mimic data entry by taking the above work file and
running it through some program (like Nutech's) to take that data and, by
using terminal APIs, mimic someone keying all that data in. Of course,
I'm rather curious how such an approach would handle exceptions.

Back in the day MAPICS used to have a way to key in batches from diskette.
Of course, online data entry won the day and these interfaces to post
batch data into your ERP system were shut down and eliminated. I think
that afternoon EDI gained popularity and everyone wished they had a way to
batch entry again. About a decade later it started coming around.

Rob Berendt