Import Data

This article describes how to use Phenix’s Import tool step-by-step, and also how to resolve any conflicts that may have occurred in the Import.

While most pieces of Master Data can be created one-by-one manually in Phenix, doing so is often infeasible or inefficient. Thus, Phenix supports a flexible importing tool that allows for quick and easy importing of Material Data, Planned Orders, Supply Chain Transactions, and so on.

Overview

Navigate to General>Import to find the Import page.

Open

Here you will see all of Phenix’s import categories, as well as information on when the last category was imported, how many items were created or updated from that import, and whether any conflicts occurred.

Phenix’s Import options are split into four categories:

• Scheduling: For importing orders of Phenix’s scheduling function. Can import planned orders, scheduled orders, firmed orders, etc.

• Master Data: All Imports necessary to create and maintain Phenix’s master data, including material data, production rates, BOM items, and so on.

• Supply Chain Transaction Data: All imports necessary to create and maintain Phenix’s records on inventory and other demand elements. These imports are necessary to make full use of Phenix’s Inventory and Plan to Make functionalities.

• Forecast: All imports necessary to utilize Phenix’s Forecast functionality.

Instructions

Importing

For this article, we will be using the Scheduling>Orders import. However, all of Phenix’s imports follow the same steps, so this article can be used for all of the imports.

1. First, select the item you wish to import.
   
   

   Open

   

   1. This is the import’s details screen. Here, you will see summaries of all past imports of this type. This is also where you will resolve any conflicts that may occur during import. We will discuss conflicts more later.

2. Select New Import. You will be taken to the Select File step.
   
   

   1. Select the file with the data you wish to import. You can either use a Comma Separated Values (CSV) file, or an Excel file. The Excel file may contain multiple sheets.

   2. Here is a snippet from the Excel file we will be using in this article:
      
      

   3. Drag and drop the import file into the box, or click to open file navigation and select it.

3. Once you have selected your file, if it is an Excel File with multiple sheets, you will be taken to the Select Sheet step. Otherwise, you will skip this step.
   
   

   1. Select the sheet with the data to be imported. We will be selecting “ERP Orders”.

   2. Note that once you select the sheet, the page header will now read “Importing Orders using sheet [Sheet Name]”:
      
      

   3. Click Continue at the top or bottom of the page.

4. Next is the Map Columns step.
   
   

   1. Here, you’ll see a table, with an entry for every column of data in your file. Each entry contains the column’s name, what mapping option in Phenix it is currently mapped to, and the values in the first three rows of that column.

   2. Columns with pertinent data must be mapped so Phenix can process the import properly.

   3. Click Edit Mapping next to the first necessary column. This will open the mapping window:
      
      

      1. Click in the box to see a drop-down scroll of all possible mapping options, or start typing in the box to search for the mapping option.

         1. Mapping options vary by import type. To see all mapping options for every import type, as well as quick definitions, see Phenix Import.

      2. Once you have selected the desired mapping option, click Accept Material Mapping.
         
         

         1. If you decide that the column does not have pertinent information, Click, Ignore Column. If you select a mapping and wish to remove it, click Remove Mapping.

      3. Once a column is mapped, the Edit Mapping button in its entry will turn green.
         
         

   4. Map all columns with necessary information. You may choose to manually ignore unnecessary columns, or leave them blank for now.
      
      

   5. If you expect to import data with the same column names at a later point, you can save this mapping by click the + button next to the Load Saved Import drop-down and entering a name. Now you can skip the manual mapping process for similar import files by selecting the option from the Load Saved Import drop-down.
      
      

      1. Phenix will also remember the last mapping used for this import type, and will automatically apply it to the next import of the same type. However, this will be overwritten by the next, different, mapping.

   6. If you left any entries for unnecessary columns blank, you can click on Ignore Unmapped at the top or bottom of the screen to automatically mark all of those to be ignored.

   7. Once all Edit Mapping buttons are green, click the Continue button.

5. The following Options step is only for Order imports. Other import types will not have this step.
   
   

   1. Under Options you may select what to do with the existing orders on the lines selected under Filter by Line.

      1. Leaving both unchecked will leave existing orders on the line unaffected, and the new orders will exist alongside them.

      2. Checking Delete existing uncommitted orders for selected lines will delete any orders for the lines not marked “Committed”, even if they are scheduled. This allows you room to update orders that are currently in the Planning Window.

      3. Checking Also delete existing committed orders for selected lines will delete all orders on the lines, committed and uncommitted. This allows you to basically start fresh on your schedule.

   2. Click Continue once you are done.

6. Phenix will take you to the Confirmation step.
   
   

   1. Here, you will tell you how many items will be created by the import, or if an error occurred.

      1. Errors in import mean the import has failed. Check the error message, modify your import file as necessary, and then try importing again from Select File.

   2. If you selected either of the checkboxes on the previous step, Phenix will give you one of the following warnings on this page.
      
      

   3. Phenix has not created any of the items yet, only read and pre-processed them. If you leave this page without clicking Confirm Import, you will have to start the import process over.

   4. Click Confirm Import and wait for Phenix to process your data. This may take a few seconds to a minute, depending on how large your file is.

7. Once your items have been processed and created, Phenix will take you to the Summary Step.
   
   

   1. Here Phenix will give a summary of how many items were created, how many items were updated, whether any conflicts arose, and whether any items errored.

      1. Errors for specific items does not cause the entire import to fail, necessarily. Error in the creation of an item only prevents that item from being created. All other items that do not error on creation will still be created. Check the error message, fix the erroring entries, and then retry the import from Select File.

   2. If any conflicts arose, you will be given an option to go and resolve them here. See Handling Conflicts below for more.

8. Your import is now complete. You may now make use of the created items in any of Phenix’s functionalities.

Handling Conflicts

Phenix’s import is useful not only for creating items in the Master Data, but in updating and maintaining those items. However, Phenix will not simply overwrite old values with new, but instead alert the user when conflicts occur between what is already in Phenix’s data and what is being imported.

Here is an example: Assume that in the Organization there are four Materials that are frozen dinners. These Materials are the same Material Type, with Material Attributes “Allergens”, “Pasta Type”, and “Sauce”. The data currently in Phenix for these Materials is summarized below:

Note that Material 1002 has nothing listed for “Pasta Type”. This could be for many reasons: an error in creating the import file, the data could not be found but the import was proceeded with anyway, and so on.

Time has passed since these materials were created, and it’s decided it’s time to update them. The recipe for material 1001 has changed and it no longer contains allergen 3. The Pasta Type for material 1002 has been identified as “Penne”. It was realized that material 1003’s Sauce is “Primavera”, when actually it should be “Cheese”.

We prepare an import file as follows. Cells with different values than what is currently in Phenix are marked red.

We follow the Phenix import steps as described above, using the import type Materials. We reach the Confirmation step, and we are given the following alert:

Note that the change for material 1002 did not result in a conflict: this is because the “Pasta Type” for 1002 was blank before, and thus the new import does not require an overwrite to be added to the Material’s Master Data.

Aware of these conflicts, we click Confirm Import. The summary page looks as follows:

It’s time to resolve the conflicts. We click Review Conflicts to be taken to the import’s details page (as seen in Step 1 of the Importing instructions. This page now contains a Conflicts section.

To manually review each conflict, select View under the right “Actions” column of the conflicts entry. A window will open comparing the values currently in Phenix against what was just imported. You can also edit or change the data of the conflicting item if you choose to.

At the bottom of the window are the following options:

• Overwrite Existing: Updates the item with the values from the import, overwriting what was already in Phenix.

• Import as New: Creates a new item in Phenix with the values of the new import.

• Save Changes: Saves any changes you made to the conflicting item. Does not resolve the conflict.

• Cancel: Closes the window. Does not resolve the conflict.

To handle the conflicts in bulk, select the checkmarks of the conflicts you wish to handle, and then click Overwrite Selected to overwrite all conflicts with the new import, or Delete Selected to delete the new imported item and keep the values already in Phenix.