Documents explained
What a Document is, how source data becomes a Document and then target data, the document types, and the statuses a Document can have.
A Document is Supply Lens's standard version of a business record, such as an order, invoice, shipment or stock update, as it passes through the platform. Supply Lens sits between your applications: it receives data from one, turns it into a Document (changing it if required), and sends data on to another.
Source data, Document, target data
| Version | What it is | Why you would look at it |
|---|---|---|
| Source data | The raw data Supply Lens received from an external system, exactly as it was sent, for example an order from Shopify. | To prove what arrived, or spot a problem that started upstream. |
| Document | The normalised version: one standard shape for every system, with references, parties, lines, quantities, prices and totals. | To read the transaction in a consistent layout, whichever system it came from. |
| Target data | The data Supply Lens sent to an external system after processing the Document, for example the sales order sent to Unleashed. The counterpart to source data. | To prove what was delivered. |
All three are kept and you can view them in Supply Lens, so you can follow data through the whole flow. From a Document, the links menu in the top-right takes you to its source data and to the target data made from it. You can also trace any record to see the whole chain as a diagram, with each record's status and anything held or failed highlighted.
One Document can produce target data for more than one Integration. Each piece of target data shows which Integration it was sent to, and has its own communication status.
What happens to a Document
- Source data arrives from an Integration.
- A Document is built. Supply Lens cross-references the codes on it (product codes, party codes, location codes, units) against your master data, and fills in gaps from your defaults. A green tick beside a party or line shows it was matched to one of your records. See How Supply Lens matches codes.
- Mappings run. Each Mapping for that document type sends the Document from its source
Integration to a target Integration, creating target data. If a Mapping is set to manual, the
Document waits at
Readyinstead. - Target data is sent to the target system.
Document types
The main document types are grouped in the menu by area:
| Sales | Warehouse | Purchases |
|---|---|---|
| Credits | Goods Inbound | Purchase Orders |
| Invoices | Goods Inbound Receipts | |
| Orders | Picks | |
| Shipments | Warehouse Orders | |
| Warehouse Shipments |
There are more, such as Inventory, Product Update, Customer Update, Order Change, Order Acknowledgement, Quote, Stock Adjustment, Work Order and Bank Transaction. You use the same list when you add Configurations to an Integration and when you create Mappings. For every type, with a description, see Document types.
Parties on a Document
Most Documents name two trading Parties, a Customer and a Supplier, and you are always one of them. Some, such as inventory and product updates, have no Parties. See Parties on Documents.
Two kinds of status
| Status | What it tells you | Where it appears | Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Document status (shown in lists as the translation status) | Whether the data was understood and converted: Pending, In progress, Ready, Complete, Failed, Cancelled | Source data, Documents and target data | Document statuses |
| Communication status | Whether data actually arrived or was delivered: Received, Pending, In progress, Sent, Failed, Cancelled | Source data and target data | Communication statuses |
A Document can be Complete and its target data still Failed to send, so check the target data
when you need proof of delivery.