Quick-Start Data Specification

Quick-Start Data Specification

This page is designed to be a rapid reference guide, to help you understand which data structures are commonly required for pricing software, and how best to provide that data to Pricefx in order to enable rapid on-boarding.

 

Data Sample Template:

Pricefx Internal Template Link (PRIVATE)

Data Dictionaries

If there are documents like this available, this is ideal. A “data dictionary” is a document that defines the fields in your tables and what they’re used for. These are often maintained by vended system providers that have standard data models or by an enterprise data team.

Note, if you do not have a data dictionary, the template linked above allows a scaled down definition of key fields for your business. Please provide one of the two for your Pricefx implementation.

Data dictionaries help us:

  • Understand and validate the data ourselves

  • Map your key/dimension columns easily to PricingAI modules

  • Inform Agents features about your data context

We request, for each below table you provide, you also provide a dictionary like below:

Column Name

Data Type
(Text, Number, Other)

Business Context

Column Name

Data Type
(Text, Number, Other)

Business Context

Customer ID

Text

The “ship-to” unique identifier of my customer on this sale

Product ID

Text

The unique sku of the product that was sold

Invoice Price

Number

The total revenue of the transaction line item

Quantity

Number

The total number of units the customer purchased

Product Family

Text

Key attribute for filtering along product lines

Customer Tier

Text

Key attribute for filtering and grouping customers

Country

Text

Primary regional division

Example

Data Tables

Below, are a list of standard data tables. For each, you will find:

  • A criticality, indicating the importance of this table to our process and the PricingAI solution

  • A legend, which outlines the columns we typically require and a description of each column

    • Columns marked with “MSCW” prioritization:

      • M = MUST have

      • S = SHOULD have

      • C = COULD have

      • W = WON'T have

  • There is sample data, showing a theoretical sample data set indicative of what you might provide to Pricefx, in the accompanying Excel spreadsheet (linked above).

 

Transactions (Invoice Line Items)

Criticality: REQUIRED

Typically, this should be invoice data, but sales order data might work as alternative. The key is how you as a customer recognize your sales (on order vs. invoice) and how you’ll use this data for analysis and the optimization process.

The data should have:

  • One customer / one product in a single invoice line item

    • Allows data to be filtered and managed at the most granular level

  • One row per transaction line item

  • One customer / buying group per invoice / order

Recommendations:

  • Additional business-specific fields are useful in assisting filtering & classifying sales. Provide any fields that you would use in your pricing processes and might want to sort or filter analytics by. If these are already contained in your product or customer data, they can be joined together in the Pricefx Datamart, but any values not related to those or not on those tables can accompany the transaction data.

Legend

Column

MSCW

Description

Product ID

M

Corresponds to the IDs used in the products data

Customer ID

M

Corresponds to the IDs used in the customers data; typically this would be the most granular customer ID (i.e. - ship-to vs. sold-to), but should be oriented around how the ERP defines a "unique customer"

Line Item ID

M

Unique ID for each transaction line item - more granular than invoice or order ID

Pricing Date

M

Date that the transaction should be recognized for - consider filtering for revenue / turnover by dates; could be invoice date, delivery date or order date

Invoice Price

M

Revenue (either total or per unit) for the transaction line item - typically total gross revenue (which may actually be a net price for your business) for the line item

Net Price

C

The final revenue net of any relevant factors that are not typically considered - "net price" often has different definitions in different organizations, but often something like this might include off invoice “discounts” like rebates

Margin

M

Margin (either total or per unit) for the transaction line item - should represent the margin metric that's most useful

Quantity

M

The number of units sold in the transaction line item

Currency

C

The currency used to transact the line item

UOM

C

The unit of measure that the "Quantity" field is expressed in

Geography 1

S

Geographical hierarchy of the transaction (could be in customer instead) - something like State / Country or Country / Region - up to 2 levels

Geography 2

C

Geographical hierarchy of the transaction (could be in customer instead) - something like State / Country or Country / Region - up to 2 levels

Business Unit Structure 1

S

Sales Org (SAP) / Business Unit / Division - essentially the company entity structure - up to 3 fields

Business Unit Structure 2

C

Sales Org (SAP) / Business Unit / Division - essentially the company entity structure - up to 3 fields

Business Unit Structure 3

C

Sales Org (SAP) / Business Unit / Division - essentially the company entity structure - up to 3 fields

Sales Manager

C

Sales leadership - this can be an individual or an org structure

Seller

C

Sales Executive or sales person who is credited with the sale

List Price

C

List price at the time of the transaction if list pricing is used

Transaction Type

S

Provides specificity to the medium of the transaction - can be a price type or sale type

Generic Attribute 1

C

Additional attribute / dimension at the transaction level that is important to filtering and aggregating data

Generic Attribute 2

C

Additional attribute / dimension at the transaction level that is important to filtering and aggregating data

Generic Attribute 3

C

Additional attribute / dimension at the transaction level that is important to filtering and aggregating data

Generic Attribute 4

C

Additional attribute / dimension at the transaction level that is important to filtering and aggregating data

Generic Attribute 5

C

Additional attribute / dimension at the transaction level that is important to filtering and aggregating data

Sample

See the downloadable Excel file.

Customer Master

Criticality: REQUIRED

This data will identify your customers. The definition of a “customer” can vary - often it’s easiest to provide customers at the most granular level - each customer ID as a ship-to or location of a customer. There should be only one table row per customer ID and the associated customer hierarchy context (bill-to, sold-to, ship-to, etc.) when relevant.

Typically however this is oriented on your ERP system will be how to provide the data, as that will typically match the invoice data.

Legend

Column

MSCW

Comments

Customer ID

M

Usually a ship-to or bill-to level ID - depending on your business’s perspective

Customer Name

M

Name of the customer or customer location

Customer Hierarchy 1

M

Customer classification structure - eg. Group, Class, Segment etc. - up to 4 levels

Customer Hierarchy 2

C

Customer classification structure - eg. Group, Class, Segment etc. - up to 4 levels

Customer Hierarchy 3

C

Customer classification structure - eg. Group, Class, Segment etc. - up to 4 levels

Customer Hierarchy 4

C

Customer classification structure - eg. Group, Class, Segment etc. - up to 4 levels

Bill-To Customer

C

Relationships to parent/child company info - whichever level is not used in the primary customer ID

Ship-To Customer

C

 

Customer Geography 1

M

Geographical hierarchy of the customer (could be in transactions instead) - something like State / Country or Country / Region - up to 2 levels

Customer Geography 2

C

Geographical hierarchy of the customer (could be in transactions instead) - something like State / Country or Country / Region - up to 2 levels

Customer Status

S

Indicates whether the customer is active or inactive

Generic Customer Attribute 1

C

Additional attribute / dimension at the customer level that is important to filtering and aggregating data

Generic Customer Attribute 2

C

Additional attribute / dimension at the customer level that is important to filtering and aggregating data

Generic Customer Attribute 3

C

Additional attribute / dimension at the customer level that is important to filtering and aggregating data

Sample

See the downloadable Excel file.

Product Master

Criticality: REQUIRED

This is your product data at the level of granularity typically used for invoices. Most often this will be a sold finished good or sku, but in some situations, particularly for customizable products, it might be at a component level. Again, how this is oriented on your ERP will typically be sufficient.

Legend

Column

MSCW

Comments

Product ID

M

Usually a sku, or a configurable base product, depending on business

Product Name

M

Name or label for the product

Product Hierarchy 1

M

Product classification structure - eg. Group, Class, Segment etc. - up to 4 levels

Product Hierarchy 2

C

Product classification structure - eg. Group, Class, Segment etc. - up to 4 levels

Product Hierarchy 3

C

Product classification structure - eg. Group, Class, Segment etc. - up to 4 levels

Product Hierarchy 4

C

Product classification structure - eg. Group, Class, Segment etc. - up to 4 levels

Product Type 1

S

Product use case structure - this might be something like an industry or a vertical - up to 2 categories

Product Type 2

C

Product use case structure - this might be something like an industry or a vertical - up to 2 categories

Base UOM

S

Product sku's unit of measure - disregard if skus are not at package level

Product Costs

S

Costs can be bypassed if margin information is available in transactions

Product Status

S

Indicates whether the product is active or inactive

Generic Product Attribute 1

C

Additional attribute / dimension at the product level that is important to filtering and aggregating data

Generic Product Attribute 2

C

Additional attribute / dimension at the product level that is important to filtering and aggregating data

Generic Product Attribute 3

C

Additional attribute / dimension at the product level that is important to filtering and aggregating data

Currency Conversion

Criticality: REQUIRED IF multiple currencies are used in TRANSACTION data

Pricefx will convert all prices and data to the user’s currency of choice and can standardize on a currency if multiple currencies are used in pricing operations and analytics.

Recommendations:

  • If transaction data only uses one currency, this can be skipped entirely.

  • If this data isn’t available, a simple version that uses a single, common conversion rate per currency can be used instead. Choose the rates you’d like to use for each currency conversion and set the valid from and valid to dates to something like 1/1/2025 and 12/31/2100 (or 31/12/2100) for simplicity

Legend

Column

MSCW

Comments

Currency Valid From

M

The starting date for this particular exchange rate. Since currencies fluctuate over time, these can be set to change as frequently as daily (but any timeframe shorter than this is also fine).

Currency Valid To

M

The end date for this particular exchange rate.

Currency From

M

The currency that will be converted from.

Currency To

M

The currency that will be converted to.

Exchange Rate

M

The exchange rate that should be used to convert from the “Currency From” to the “Currency To” for the validity dates selected.

UOM Conversion

Criticality: REQUIRED IF multiple units of measure are used in TRANSACTION data

Analytics and prices can be managed at a UOM or a higher level in Pricefx and then standardized if conversion data is available. The standard UOM conversion is not product specific, to this is typically most applicable when going from metric to imperial rather than from something like volume to weight (this can be used, though, if it’s standardized). It’s best to provide any non-standard UOM conversions in your data.

Legend

Column

MSCW

Comments

UOM From

M

Unit of measure to convert from.

UOM To

M

Unit of measure to convert to.

UOM Conversion Factor

M

The conversion factor to use to convert from the “UOM From” to the “UOM To.”

Quote Line Items

Criticality: OPTIONAL

To add quote-time context to transaction detail information.

  • If pricing decisions are made based on quote context (eg, quote volume), then this is highly recommended.

  • Must provide columns needed to link back to Transactions table.

List Price History

Criticality: RECOMMENDED

For deriving list-price at the time of any invoice

  • Must provide columns needed to link back to Transactions table

  • May commonly be location/region specific

Cost Price History

Criticality: RECOMMENDED

For deriving cost-price at the time of any invoice

  • Must provide columns needed to link back to Transactions table

  • May commonly be location/plant specific

Accelerator Requirements Matrix

The below matrix is a rapid reference on which of the above data tables are leveraged/useful to each of the Pricefx Core & Accelerator capabilities.

Each is prioritised as above with MSCW (Must, Should, Could, Won't) Priority.

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