Materials Compliance Data Import File Format

This section describes the format of the data import file.

The primary purpose of the data import file is to import three primary entities in Materials Compliance Management:

• Suppliers (the companies that make and sell parts to the Materials Compliance Management host company)
• Customers (the companies to whom the Materials Compliance Management host company sells products)
• Parts (characterized by attributes such as part number, revision, and description)

The key to understanding the Materials Compliance Management data file import format is the first field of each row, which defines the RowType. The RowType field is a code that tells the data import program what kind of data is contained in that row, and where and what to do with the data in that row. There are restrictions on the order of the RowTypes. The acceptable structure of the file is shown schematically in the following table:

The table columns below imply a hierarchy. For example, the RowType VP: Supplier Plant entry is a "child" of the V: Supplier entry. In this way a supplier's plants are assigned to a supplier. Specifying a supplier plant out of the context of a supplier does not make sense (and an accordingly formatted file would consequently result in an import error).

Omitting the field details for the sake of clarity, supplier SupplierXYZ with plants in Detroit and London would be identified in the file by the following three rows:

V<tab>SupplierXYZ
VP<tab>Detroit
VP<tab>London

Notice that there is no indentation in the file to signify a hierarchy - it is understood. In the case of parts and materials (which are multi-leveled), the Level field signifies a hierarchy.

If desired, a comment row can be placed in a Materials Compliance Management data import file by using the special RowType=*. The Materials Compliance Management Data Importer will ignore any such row in the file. A tab as the field delimiter in the file must separate each field.

RowType=* (Internal file comment row-ignored by the Materials Compliance Management Importer):