Technical - Mapping Customers/Items
Instructions on how to map your Customers and Items in Business Central to your platform.
Mapping Customers:
If you currently have customers in Business Central and your external platform, you will want to map the records so any orders that a customer submits will connect to the proper company record within Business Central. This can be done in a few different ways and may vary depending on the platform you are selling on.
Creating a platform customer record from a Business Central Customer
You can send customer data to a connected platform (sales channel) directly from the customer card in Business Central:
- Open the customer that you want to link to the external sales
- Choose the Actions tab in the ribbon, then choose the Create CSM Sales Channel Customer
- This action will not be available if the customer is linked to all CSM sales channels in your Business Central environment.
- Choose the sales channel you want to send the customer to. If multiple sales channels have been set up in Business Central, these will be presented to you.
CSM will attempt to create a new CSM customer record for the selected sales channel, then send this customer’s information to the external platform. A new customer record is created in the external platform and basic information such as the address and e-mail is copied from the CSM customer in Business Central. The external ID for this record is then retrieved back into Business Central, establishing a link between the customer records in both environments.
Creating a CSM Customer Record from the Customer List page
You can send multiple customers from Business Central to a connected channel at once from the Customers list page:
- From the Customers List, select all of the customers you want to link to the external sales
- From the Actions ribbon, choose the Mass Create CSM Sales Channel Customers
- Choose Yes to confirm you wish to create all of the customer records selected
- Choose the sales channel to which you want to send the customers, then choose the OK
For each customer that does not have an existing link to the selected platform, CSM will attempt to create a new CSM customer record for the selected sales channel, then send this customer’s information to the external platform. A new customer record is created in the external platform and basic information such as the address and e-mail is copied from the CSM customer in Business Central. This external ID for this record is then retrieved back into Business Central, establishing a link between the customer records in both environments.
Validation: As part of the process of sending customer information to the external platform, CSM will perform a number of data validations to ensure that required information (such as name and e-mail) is defined for the customer and that proper customer/contact relationships exist. If these criteria are not satisfied, CSM will create a new CSM customer for the sales channel, but it will not export this information to the external environment. When the process is completed for all selected customers, a message will be presented to the user specifying the number of new CSM customers that were created, as well as the number of selected customers that were not created because they already had a link to the external channel or there was insufficient data. You can review the Last External Update Result field for the CSM customer for information as to why the export process failed.
You can view a list of all CSM sales channels to which a customer has been linked from the customer’s card by choosing the Related ribbon, then choosing the CSM Channel Customers action.
It is also possible to send multiple Business Central contacts to a connected channel, where they will be created as customers. The processes described above work the same way for contacts and can be performed from the Contacts list.
Import customer data from your platform/CSM Sales Channel
It is also possible to send Business Central contacts to a connected channel from the CSM Sales Channel.
- Open the sales channel from which you want to send customers
- From the Related ribbon, choose Customers then Add Channel Customer. This will open a wizard.
- In the Customer No field select the Business Central customer you want to send to the external platform
- Optionally, you can enter the contact in the Contact field
- Choose the Next
- On the next page of the wizard, enter a unique value that will be used to identify the customer on the external sales channel. Typically, the customer’s e-mail address is entered here.
- Choose the Next button, then choose the Finish button on the last page of the wizard
CSM will send the customer/contact’s name and address information to the sales channel, then build a new customer record there.
Mapping Items
If you want to properly build sales orders in Business Central with the data you retrieve from the external platform, CSM must be able to map the product information it receives to a corresponding item in Business Central. When an order is retrieved, CSM will attempt to find a value in Business Central that corresponds to the channel item number it retrieved from the platform:
Note: if you are using Listing Management, please refer to the Listing Management documentation.
If you are not using CSM listing management and your product SKUs on the platform are identical to your Business Central item numbers, there is no further action required.
If your platform product SKUs differ from your Business Central item numbers, then you must either set up item identifiers or item references for your items in Business Central. To do this:
- Open the Item Card for the item you want to map to your external platform
- From the Related ribbon select Item, then Identifiers
- Enter the SKU from the external platform in the Code field
- Enter a Unit of Measure Code
- Repeat for all necessary items
Next Step: Verifying Connectivity and Retrieving Orders