As a logistics service provider, no one knows better than you how challenging it can be to achieve the best result for your customer while working with the small margins in the sector. While you are trying to serve your customers to the best of your abilities, you also need to do that as efficiently as possible. No wonder you want to avoid big, time consuming administrative tasks. Manually typing in master data into your system is one of those activities you want to avoid as much as possible. However, what if you land a new customer? Or what if you start working with a completely new solution? Do you have to create new customer items one by one? That’s a lot of work that can be avoided.
Fortunately, for example, the 3PL Dynamics logistics solution built on the international Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central platform offers the ability to import customer items, addresses and locations directly from Excel. It’s very simple.
Enter customer items, addresses and locations easily in your software
By importing master data into 3PL Dynamics directly from Excel, you do not only save time creating new customer items, addresses, or locations. You also reduce the possibility of mistakes. To make it easy for yourself, follow the steps underneath and before you know it all your customer items, addresses and locations are entered in your software completely.
Fill the Excel template with data
Do you want to get started with filling in the downloaded Excel template? But what fields do you need? The fields in the Excel sheet match the fields in 3PL Dynamics one on one. Therefore, you can easily compare the fields in the Excel sheet with the fields in your software and fill in the data you need.
Often used tabs explained
In the template for customer items, as well as for addresses and locations, the excel sheet consists of multiple tabs. To prevent you can’t see the wood for the trees, we have explained the most important tabs underneath
- Tabs for customer items
When you fill the Excel template for your customer items, you’ll almost always need the first three tabs: ‘Customer Item’, ‘Unit of Measure’, and ‘Carrier Type’.
Customer Item: here, you fill in all customer items that you want to import and all cohering fields.
Unit of Measure: here, you fill in the different measures of the units, such as size and weight. Important is that the field ‘Customer Item’ in this tab is equal to the previous tab.
Carrier Type: here, you fill in how the units are carried. For example, how many units fit on one pallet. Important is that the field ‘Customer Item’ is equal to the previous tabs.
- Tabs for addresses
When you import addresses from Excel, the most important tab in the template is ‘Addresses’. However, make sure you check whether you need the other tabs.
Addresses: here, you fill in the new addresses. Make sure you fill in the field ‘no. Series’. When you don’t fill in this field, it is possible to complete it by entering the consecutive numbers manually.
- Tabs for locations
Do you import new locations into your software? Then you see that the excel template only consists of one tab: ‘Location’.
Location: here, you fill in the new locations. The characters in the barcode of the location must be equal to the number of the location.