PIESCentral - Getting Started
Basic Concepts
PIESCentral extracts data from multiple Import data sources, tracks changes to the data in those sources for net change reporting, facilitates formatting of the data to match the PIES requirements, generates PIES 6.x files, and tracks submissions of PIES files to your trading partners.
Import Sources
The following import sources are currently supported: Sql Server, Oracle, Access, Excel, delimited text files. Any other OleDB compatible source can easily be added by defining its connection string and required parameters. To setup data sources, go to Import > Sources…. Some sources may require a password. PIESCentral allows you to define a “super password” that will be used to encrypt passwords required by one or more sources. Passwords for each source will be stored encrypted in the PIESCentral database and locked with a single “super password” that you provide.
Import Scripts
PIESCentral uses import “scripts” to control how data is extracted from your sources. Each script has a single brand. For each physical part, there will be one brand that is considered the primary brand. Each script contains one section for each PIES segment. For each segment, you define sources (tables or sql query results), joins between the sources and mappings from the source fields into PIES elements. You can create relationships between different types of sources. For example, you might create a join between a query against Sql Server and a delimited text file. For mapping to PIES elements, you may need to map from internal codes to standard PIES codes or reformat specific element text. To create scripts, go to Import > Scripts….
Scheduled Processes
If you have PIESCentral Enterprise, import scripts can be scheduled to run periodically to update the PIESCentral repository with the latest data from your sources. (See Scheduling Processes to set this up). To schedule Imports, go to Import > Scheduled Updates….
Documents
Each PIES output is defined as a “document.” When you set up a document, you specify the product groups to include (if not all), price sheets & prices, languages, and which PIES elements to include for each segment. To set up documents, go to Publish > Documents….
Export PIES
To export PIES documents, go to Publish > Submissions…
Getting Started
Before setting up import scripts:
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Go to Maintain > Companies. Add a record for your company, parent company, and any of your trading partners.
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Go to Maintain > AAIA Brands. Create a record for your own AAIA Brand and any other Brand you have interchanges for. AAIA Brands are from the AAIA Brand table.
❗IMPORTANT: Check to make sure your brands are identified as the “Us” Brand Type.
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Go to Maintain > Brands. Setup your internal brands. Some may correspond to AAIA Brands, but generally, only the primary brand will.
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Go to Maintain > Product Groups. - Setup your product groups. This is a two level hierarchy in PIES. Your own internal product groups will need to be mapped to this hierarchy. This is an optional step but is helpful if you want to limit output by product group.
Now you are ready to set up your import scripts.
There are two tutorials available to help you get started. The first is a general tutorial that walks you through the setup process step-by-step.
The second is a walk-through specifically for Advance Auto.
Please contact Support for more information.