Speak the language
Lesson 3 of 15 6 min read
The handful of Supply Lens terms you will hear every day, grouped so they make sense together.
Supply Lens uses a small set of words very precisely. When Support asks "is there a Configuration for Orders on that Integration?" or "what does the target data say?", it helps to know exactly what they mean. This lesson groups the key terms so you can see how they fit together, rather than learning them as an alphabetical list.
Your workspace
- Organisation: Your company's workspace in Supply Lens. Everything you set up (Integrations, Mappings, Products, Parties, Locations) lives inside an Organisation.
- Organisation party: The Party that represents your own company. It holds your name, address and identifiers such as your VAT number and GLN, and is used when sending or receiving documents.
Connecting systems
- Integration: A connection to one external application, such as Shopify, Unleashed or an EDI partner.
- Configuration: A setting on an Integration that switches on one document type (for example Orders) in one or both directions. You add one Configuration per document type you want that Integration to handle.
- Mapping: A rule that "joins the dots" between two Integrations. It says which document type flows from which Integration (the source) to which Integration (the target), and under what conditions.
The data itself
- Source data: The raw data Supply Lens receives from an external system, for example an order exactly as Shopify sent it.
- Document: The standard, tidy version of a business record (an order, invoice, shipment and so on) that Supply Lens builds from the source data.
- Document type: The kind of business record, such as Order, Invoice, Shipment, Product Update or Purchase Order.
- Target data: The data Supply Lens sends out to another system after processing a Document, for example the sales order it sent to Unleashed.
Who and where
- Party: A business you exchange data with: a customer, supplier or trading partner.
- Party identifier: A code that identifies a Party in a particular system or standard, such as a GLN, a VAT number or a Shopify Company ID. One Party can have many identifiers, which is how Supply Lens recognises the same customer arriving from different systems.
- Trading partner: An organisation you exchange business documents with, such as a retailer or supplier.
Products and quantities
- UoM (Unit of Measure): The unit a quantity is expressed in: pieces, kilograms, boxes and so on.
- UoM conversion: A rule that translates one unit into another, such as 1 box = 12 units. Useful when your retailer orders in cases but your stock system counts single bags.
Acronyms you may meet
| Term | Stands for | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| BOS | Back-office system | The system that runs your accounting, inventory, orders or fulfilment. |
| IMS | Inventory management system | The system that tracks your stock levels and movements. |
| EDI | Electronic Data Interchange | A structured way for businesses to exchange orders, invoices and despatch notes, common with large retailers. |
| GLN | Global Location Number | A 13-digit number identifying a company or physical location, widely used in EDI and PEPPOL. |
| PEPPOL | Pan-European Public Procurement Online | A network for exchanging e-invoices and other documents in a standard way. |
Decoding a support conversation
Priya at Hilltop Coffee reports that an order has not reached Unleashed. Support replies: "The source data arrived and the Document was built, but there is no target data for the Unleashed Integration. Can you check the Mapping is enabled?"
Translated: Shopify sent the order (source data), Supply Lens understood it (Document), but nothing was sent on to Unleashed (no target data), probably because the routing rule (Mapping) is switched off.
Recap
- An Organisation is your workspace; your Organisation party is your company's own record within it.
- Integrations connect systems, Configurations switch on document types on an Integration, and Mappings route Documents between Integrations.
- Data moves as source data → Document → target data.
- Parties and their identifiers let Supply Lens recognise who a Document is about.
- UoM conversions translate between units such as cases and single items.
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