Exporting Orders - Export Process

Creating Orders

When you are ready to export the orders data, use the FF&E Worksheet's Order button to open up the Order Conversion Setup function as described in the previous page, select the scope of what to order and click on its Export button (partially hidden in the image below). The system will ask you to confirm that you want to proceed, and if you do, it will display the Order Export Setup screen on top of the Order Conversion Setup:

First, be aware that if you have a custom export setup, most of these options should be set up for you (although some custom exports have their own mini-setup screen if the export requires some specific user input). If you don't, you can work with technical support to develop the right combination of settings, which will be saved automatically when you run the first export.

The basic procedure for completing the export process is:

Set the options needed to produce the file format and structure that is needed.

Select the target folder into which the export file(s) will be saved, selecting the "Save current" option if you want to use the same location in the future.

Note the file names that will be created from the Source ID and File ID fields (which are entered for you by FF&EZ).
Click on the Export button.
After the export is complete, the items in the FF&E Worksheet that were ordered will be marked with the File ID (with the single-character suffix) that was shown in the export setup. At any point in the future, you can use this ID in a query to display or print the items that were exported.

Options

Format

This option controls the physical format used in the resulting export files. With the exception of the Excel and DBF formats, all are text files. A complete explanation of the different formats can be found in the general explanation of exporting here.

File Structure

Different types of systems may accept different arrangements of the export data. Ordering information actually consists of two "levels": 1) the order itself, with the data that applies to all the items on the order, such as the client, vendor, shipping destination, etc., and 2) the actual products being ordered, which may be just one, but may be many different items from the same vendor. This two-level structure is sometimes called a "header" (the PO) and "items" (the individual line items). To control how this data is assembled, you have three options:

Do not create	This only applies to the option to create a sales order. The sales order is the list of the items being sold to the customer, which may be a shorter list than those being ordered. Some systems only need the purchasing data, from which they create a matching sales order.
Single (flat) file	A "flat" file is like a single spreadsheet in which all the data is contained in rows. In this structure, the "header" data of the PO is repeated on each row so that each line item includes all of the data needed to complete it. For example, although the shipping address applies to the whole order and would normally only be entered once, it will be repeated on every line in a flat file structure.
Header & item files	This is a structure that is placed in two separate files, with the "header" file containing the data that applies to an entire order (or orders, since the file may contain more than one) and the "item" file containing just the detail for the products being ordered. In order for this structure to work, each order in the header file is assigned a temporary Order Number and each corresponding item in the item file has both an Order Number to tie it back to the correct PO and a Line Number to sort the item records in the correct order.

PO Item Description

In addition to its 50 character "Type/Product" field, FF&EZ has an unlimited length additional description field. Unfortunately, many generic purchasing systems have a limit to how much description can be entered on a purchase order item. To help resolve this, you have several options for how FF&EZ handles the export of long descriptions.

Add separate file	This option places the additional description in a separate file (which creates a third file if the "header & item" structure has been selected). The file includes the associated Order Number, Item Number plus a Sequence Number to use in sorting the description lines in the right order and a description field of a user-specified width.
Add sub-lines	This option is somewhat similar to the structure used for the "separate file" option above, but adds it to the file containing the order items. The additional description lines are then appended below each main item record in the file.
Embedded field	This option is the more traditional format, in which the description is simply part of the main format (like a spreadsheet). However, some export formats may have a limit on how long a text field can be. In addition, this option cannot allow any line breaks in it, since it is just one field, so line breaks are replaced with a substitute character, usually the HTML break character: <BR>

Vendor ID

This option controls whether FF&EZ exports the primary Vendor ID for each vendor or uses the Alternate ID. This allows you to tie easy-to-read alphanumeric Vendor IDs to less readable ones that might be used in another system. If the "alternate" option is chosen, the export process will test all included vendors to verify that each has an alternate ID. The export will not be allowed to continue unless all data is entered.

Export File Names and Location

Since the export / import process works better when some type of organized scheme is applied to the export location and the file names used, FF&EZ gives the options needed to do this.

Location	This is the target location to which the export files will be saved.
Save current location as the default	This sets up the current target as the permanent export location. Since exporting data is usually done in the context of importing into another system, it should be helpful to set up a "staging" folder where these files can always be found for the next step in the process.

File names

By default, FF&EZ creates export files with a predefined file name, using a pattern that makes it easier to identify the associated project, while allowing multiple files to be created for the same project and date.

Source ID	The default value, inserted automatically, is the current FF&EZ Project ID. This groups all exported files for a project into the same location in the export folder's file list. Note that if the ID has any characters that are illegal in file names, a substitute character will be used at that position.
File ID	This field uses the date as the default to create an ID, then adds a letter as a suffix so as to allow up to 26 export files from the same project on the same day, based on what files already exist in the target export location (above).

To these two components, a prefix is added to create a specific type of export file name: "PO" for purchase orders and "SO" for sales orders, with this pattern:

TT-S...S-F...Fs

where "T" = the export Type, "S" = Source ID, "F" = File ID and "s" is the suffix. For example:

PO-DEMO-20120131f would be the sixth (f is the sixth letter) purchase order export for project DEMO on Jan. 31, 2012.

Of course, you can override either of the main components, but it then becomes your responsibility to use names that will not overwrite previous exports (at least, until they have been imported into the receiving system).

Tips for Organizing Files

The easiest way to organize the files is to let FF&EZ do it for you. This means saving a specific folder as the target for the exports and letting all export files accumulate there, since the naming convention (above) keeps them organized for you.

Alternatively, you may want to create separate project folders for the export files. This is fine, but requires more effort to set the target folder each time. One suggestion is to set up separate folders, but only move the files into the individual folders as a way of "flagging" them as having been imported into your other system. If you do this, wait until all exports for the day have been exported and processed before moving them, so that FF&EZ continues to create unique file names for you (if you move the export file with the "a" suffix and then export a new file for that project, it will create another "a" file instead of a "b" file).

If you find that you are often moving files to keep them organized, we strongly advise that you acquite a good "orthodox" file manager instead of depending on Windows Explorer (or however it is named in your version of Windows). These file managers use dual-pane file lists to allow you to easily move files, rename multiple files and set up "one-click" icons representing folders you use often in your work. Total Commander is one used by this author (with some minor setup tweaks), but many examples can be found here.