Ready your own systems and go live
Lesson 5 of 22 7 min read
What to check in your ERP and Supply Lens before handing over, what the Supply Lens team does during setup, and your part in testing and life after go-live.
Collecting the retailer's information is half the preparation. The other half is making sure your own systems can receive what the retailer sends. In this lesson you'll run the internal checks, see what happens once you hand everything over, and learn what you're responsible for after go-live.
Check your own systems
Product alignment
Every product code in the retailer's cross-reference table must have a matching SKU in your ERP or IMS (inventory management system) item master. Before you hand the table to the Supply Lens team:
- Take the retailer's product list and the cross-reference you've built.
- Export the active product codes from your ERP.
- Check every internal SKU in the cross-reference exists in the ERP export, character for character. A capital letter, a hyphen instead of an underscore, or a missing leading zero is enough to break a match.
- Fix any gaps by adding the missing products or correcting the SKU in the table.
Supply Lens doesn't have an automated alignment check, so this is a manual job. It's worth doing carefully: a mismatch here means a held order later.
Organisation identifiers
Confirm your organisation party has a VAT identifier and a GLN. If you don't have a GLN, the Supply Lens team will coordinate issuing one.
Locations and parties
If the retailer delivers to specific stores, depots or distribution centres, set those up as Locations in Supply Lens before configuration begins.
What happens during setup
Once you've provided everything, the Supply Lens team takes over:
Your part in testing
You'll need to be available to check that:
- test orders flow correctly through to your ERP, with the right products, quantities and delivery locations
- test despatch advices and invoices are accepted by the retailer
Test every stage, not just orders
It's tempting to sign off once orders arrive in your ERP. Ask for a test of each stage (order, acknowledgement, despatch and invoice), including a partial shipment if the retailer allows them. Rejected invoices are far more painful to fix after go-live.
Life after go-live
Most of the work after go-live is keeping reference data current:
- New products: tell the Supply Lens team before the retailer orders them, or those orders will be held.
- New depots: add the Location and let the team know the retailer's code.
- Held orders: when an alert says a code couldn't be matched, the fix is almost always a missing cross-reference, not a fault in the order.
Northfield Pantry goes live
Northfield's internal check finds that Greenway's list includes NP-HNY-GRAN but Unleashed has
NP-HONEY-GRAN. They correct the table before handing it over. The Supply Lens team runs
Greenway's five sample orders through, Northfield confirms each Sales Order in Unleashed, and
Greenway's EDI team confirms they accepted the test ASN and invoice. Go-live is set for the
following Monday. Northfield adds "tell Supply Lens" to their new-product checklist.
Recap
- Check every SKU in the cross-reference exists exactly in your ERP before handing it over.
- Make sure your organisation party has VAT and GLN identifiers, and your delivery Locations exist.
- The Supply Lens team builds the cross-references, configures and validates the Integration, tests with your samples, then tests the connection with the retailer.
- You confirm test orders in your ERP and that the retailer accepts test ASNs and invoices.
- After go-live, keep the Supply Lens team informed of new products and depots to avoid held orders.
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